And by crazy, we mean a fun-loving musical powerhouse with charm, energy, and connections to spare.
“Yeah, I’m still out here, I ain’t done yet,” laughs Gary U.S. Bonds, the legendary rock and roll singer who has been performing and recording since the late fifties, with numerous Top 20 hits to his credit. “The audiences, I guess they’ve changed over the years. They’ve gotten older like me. They still react, thank God, the same as they did in the sixties. I don’t ever get tired of playing those songs. I always say I do, but look, this is my job. This has been my job for many years, and I don’t get tired of it. It really isn’t a job. It’s my passion, and I love it.”
Gary started as a teenager with record producer Frank Guida, on his small Legrand Records label. Guida would send the records out to radio stations under the name “U.S. Bonds,” thinking that the stations would think they were public service announcements and play them. The strategy worked, as the song “Quarter To Three” sold a million records. With its raucous, party atmosphere, sax, and a crowd in the background, it captured a sound that captivated up-and-coming artists such as John Lennon, John Fogerty, and Bruce Springsteen. It was also named by the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame as one of the songs that shaped rock and roll.
“Quarter To Three” was followed up by a sting of Top 10 hits, such as “School Is Out,” “Dear Lady Twist,” “Twist, Twist Señora,” and another classic, “New Orleans.” While you might not recognize the song by its name, it’s one of those songs you’d know when you hear it. It’s been covered, and sampled, by numerous artists over the years.
The most famous artist to cover Gary’s songs is New Jersey’s own Bruce Springsteen, who would often end his concerts with “Quarter To Three.” And if you listen to Gary’s sound, you’ll hear the roots of Bruce’s sound, with the sax solos and the rowdy, spirited vocals.
“Frankie Guida was my manager,” explains Gary. “And the ‘party in the studio feel,’ all those records came about because it was a pretty inferior studio. We just had a bunch of egg crates up on the walls in a building that he bought. That was the sound proofing. We put a recording board in there and a big 8-track tape recorder. It just sounded like very raw stuff, and me and the guys would just come in, and we were having fun. We’d have our little stash in the back, our little beer and whatever we could get, and it was a party! I guess that’s why the records came out that way.”
Photo by John Cavanaugh
Bruce ended up being a big part of Gary’s return to the limelight after some lean years when the early sixties hits dried up. He happened to come into a nightclub where Gary was playing, and the rest is history. “I was in a club in Hazlet, New Jersey,” Gary recalls. “And Bruce came in with a friend of his. I didn’t know who he was, and his friend came over while I was on stage and he said, ‘Look, I have a friend of mine here that would like to come up and sing a song with you, would you mind?’ I said, ‘No, that would be great, I’d love to have him come up and do that so I can go to the bar and have a beer,’ and he told me his name and I introduced him to the crowd. I said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have a young man in the audience. I think we should all get together and help him out and give him a round of applause and invite him up here to sing some songs with us! His name is Bruce Springsteen.’ The crowd went absolutely berserk. And I went, ‘Oh my God, who is this guy?’ We must have done about an hour-and-a-half. We had a lot of fun together, and we’ve been friends ever since.”
That friendship turned into much more when Bruce decided to produce an album for Gary and write him a few songs. That collaboration turned into the hit “This Little Girl,” which put Gary back on the charts.
“He came over to my house and we hung out,” Gary says. “Of course we had a piano there, so when we got there, my wife fixed us a meal and we went to the piano and started playing and singing and writing songs. And that’s where he wrote the song, right here at the house on my new piano, and of course I liked it. It was a great song… well, obviously, it sold a mil!”
After that 1981 hit, Gary’s resurgence led to touring all over Europe, as well as the States, but the Europeans especially took to Gary, who had influenced many of them in the early sixties. “Bill Wyman, Steve Winwood, Jeff Beck… well, I guess they were fans of mine,” he relates. “I got to meet all of those guys. Bill Wyman – I did an English tour with him and The Rhythm Kings. Steve Winwood – I got a chance to meet him when I was over in England also and I did his daughter’s wedding. That was pretty cool, too. He and I got to sing together. And Jeff Beck I got to meet here in New York. We worked at the Iridium together. I mean, he was booked at The Iridium, and I went in to see him, and we got together on stage and did some songs. You can see that one on YouTube, me and Jeff Beck doing ‘New Orleans’ together with a lot of the guys I knew from over in Europe. That was a lot of fun.”
Gary has always been considered an honorary Jersey shore icon with the Bruce connection, his collaborations with Southside Johnny, and a band made up of mostly Jersey shore musicians. His classic live album, King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents Gary U.S. Bonds At The Stone Pony, was recorded there.
With hits in the sixties, and then again in the eighties, Gary of course had to do something in the early 2000s, and that’s how his album Back In 20 came about. And again, he had a lot of friends helping him out. The album won a W.C. Handy award for Comeback Album Of the Year. “Yeah, I had a lot of guests on there. Bruce was on it. He got a chance to hear it after we finished it and he went, ‘Yeah, I wanna be on that.’ And Southside, of course, my crazy friend Southside was on there. He did some harmonica, and we did a couple of duets together there, too. Dicky Betts, may he rest in peace, too. Dicky was a cool guy. I met him on a golf course here in New York and we became friends. We had a blast, so I went down to Florida and visited with him, stayed at his house for about a week with him and his wife, and he showed me a great time down there. While we were there, I had him do a couple of things with me on the album. Phoebe Snow, too – may she rest in peace. I loved Phoebe. Phoebe had a phenomenal voice. She sang that thing she did there in the one take.”
You can catch the legend himself by heading over to the Iridium in New York City for Gary’s annual appearance there on March 22nd. While he may be up there in years, he hasn’t lost a thing as a performer. “Gary still gives me goosebumps on stage at 85 years old,” marvels Mark “Big Daddy” Leimbach, who has been Gary’s music director for over 30 years. “He still sings like a 25-year-old. Sometimes I can’t get out of bed, and he’s still up there singing!”
FOR MORE ON GARY U.S. BONDS IN 2025, INCLUDING WHERE TO GET TICKETS TO SEE HIS PERFORMANCE AT THE IRIDIUM ON MARCH 22, VISIT HIS WEBSITE!
