Making the Scene in the Garden State: Popular Music in New Jersey from Edison to Springsteen and Beyond

by Dewar MacLeod

Making the Scene in the Garden State explores New Jersey’s rich musical heritage through stories about the musicians, listeners and fans who came together to create sounds from across the American popular music spectrum. The book includes chapters on the beginnings of musical recording in Thomas Edison’s factories in West Orange; early recording and the invention of the Victrola at Victor Records’ Camden complex; Rudy Van Gelder’s recording studios (for Blue Note, Prestige, and other jazz labels) in Hackensack and Englewood Cliffs; Zacherley and the afterschool dance television show Disc-o-Teen, broadcast from Newark in the 1960s; Bruce Springsteen’s early years on the Jersey Shore at the Upstage Club in Asbury Park; and, the 1980s indie rock scene centered at Maxwell’s in Hoboken. Concluding with a foray into the thriving local music scenes of today, the book examines the sounds, sights and textures of the locales where New Jerseyans have gathered to rock, bop, and boogie.
 

206 pages, Hardcover

Published March 13, 2020

Reviews

[Yusei158 · Rating 5 out of 5]

A little bit dramatic but the introduction almost make me cry

[Aaron Novak · Rating 5 out of 5]

The introduction is a bit academic, indicating that this would be a dry read, but that did not end up being the case. Each chapter, each scene, if you will, was an interesting piece of NJs musical history. It made me think of the music scenes I was a part of in New Brunswick and the Jersey Shore in the 80s and early 90s.