Garden (State) Variety: The 25 best musical acts from New Jersey

Phish is primarily thought of as a band from Vermont, as the legendary jam band formed on the campus of UVM in Burlington in 1983. However, the group’s frontman and guitarist, Trey Anastasio, was raised in Princeton, New Jersey. Coincidentally, Phish keyboardist Page McConnell is also from Jersey (Basking Ridge, specifically), but since no other members of the band come from the Garden State, we decided to give this spot to Anastasio. After all, in addition to being Phish’s frontman, Trey, now 54, is the sole composer of nearly 150 of the band’s songs, he has released 11 solo albums and created additional music with the side projects Trey Anastasio Band, Oysterhead, Surrender to the Air, SerialPod, Bivouac Jaun and Ghosts of the Forest.

Red Bank, New Jersey’s, own William “Count” Basie is the owner of a whopping nine Grammys and an additional 11 nominations. As a pianist and organist, Basie was exceptionally talented, but as a bandleader, he was an innovator. Basie released some three dozen big-band albums before dying in 1984 at the age of 79, and his hometown of Red Bank has since preserved his legacy by naming a theater and park in his honor.

Bass players don’t always get a lot of attention, but Tim Bogert (from Ridgefield, New Jersey) has slapped his bass and sang in some of the biggest bands to come out of the ‘60s and ‘70s, including Vanilla Fudge, Cactus and the supergroup Beck, Bogert & Appice. Although he’s now retired, Bogert, now 75, has recently jammed with the Hollywood Monsters, another supergroup that formed in 2014.

Bon Jovi founding members Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, Alec John Such and David Bryan were all born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. The fifth member of the incredibly successful rock band, Tico Torres, was born in New York City but raised in Woodbridge Township, New Jersey. Arguably the most famous band from the Garden State and best known for songs like “Livin’ on a Prayer,” “Bad Medicine” and “You Give Love a Bad Name,” Bon Jovi has sold more than 100 million records since its 1983 formation.

Although David Cassidy was born in New York City, he was primarily raised by his grandparents in West Orange, New Jersey. Cassidy’s parents divorced when David was just a kid, but his father’s subsequent marriage to Shirley Jones led to the formation of the Partridge Family band and TV sitcom, in which David played Keith Partridge. After his stint as a teen idol, Cassidy continued to perform regularly into the ‘80s and ‘90s, and sporadically after that, holding his final concert just months before his November 2017 death at the age of 67.

P-Funk god George Clinton was born in North Carolina but was raised in Plainfield, New Jersey. Clinton used to own a barbershop in the city that was once the place to hang out, as well as a place of employment for members of Parliament-Funkadelic. Eventually, Clinton took up the funk full time, and he has been recording, performing and being a featured/guest artist ever since. Clinton and 15 members of Parliament-Funkadelic were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, and they received Grammy Lifetime Achievement Awards earlier this year.

The frontman and sole songwriter of the punk rock and metal bands the Misfits, Samhaim and Danzig, Glenn Danzig (born Glenn Allen Anzalone), hails from Lodi, New Jersey. Only a few years after graduating from Lodi High School in 1973, Danzig founded the Misfits with a handful of New Jersey natives, including bassist Jerry Only and guitarist Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein — both of whom remain with the band today. To date, Danzig has released nearly two dozen studio albums and written for notable artists like Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison.

Rock & Roll Hall of Famers Franki Valli and the Four Seasons boast several founding or early members born or raised in New Jersey, including Valli, Tommy DeVito, Bob Gaudio, Nick Massi and Charles Calello. Although the Newark-billed band has undergone countless lineup changes since its formation in 1960, Valli still remains with the band as of 2019 at the age of 85.

First she was afraid; she was petrified. But before that, singer Gloria Gaynor was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1947. Gaynor was raised on jazz and R&B, but she found fame during the disco era with the hits “I Will Survive” and “Never Can Say Goodbye.” The 72-year-old has nearly 20 studio albums under her belt, with the most recent, “Testimony,” released earlier in 2019.

Raise your hand if you knew Blondie is still a band. It is indeed, and it is still touring and producing new music. The band responsible for “Call Me,” “Heart of Glass,” “Rapture” and a cover of “The Tide is High” broke up in 1982, but reunited in 1997 and has been together ever since. And, most pertinent to this article, Blondie is still fronted by 74-year-old Debbie Harry, who was born in Miami but adopted by a New Jersey family at just three months old. In addition to her work with Blondie, Harry also established successful careers as a solo artist as well as a TV and movie actress.

Lauryn Hill (born 1975 in East Orange, New Jersey) found fame as a member of the hip-hop/soul group the Fugees, whose big hit, a cover of “Killing Me Softly,” won the Grammy for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group in 1996. The Fugees split in 1997, and Hill’s debut solo album, “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill,” yielded the chart-topping hit “Doo Wop (That Thing)” as well as five Grammys for Album of the Year, Best R&B Album, Best R&B Song, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and Best New Artist. Hill subsequently dropped out of the public eye and only performs and records sporadically, but her songs are still frequently sampled by contemporary artists.

Singer and actress Whitney Houston was one of the most popular vocalists to ever walk the Earth. She sold 200 million records, had seven consecutive No. 1 singles and won six Grammys, 30 Billboard Music Awards, 22 American Music Awards and an Emmy. Her rendition of “I Will Always Love You” for the soundtrack to the 1992 film “The Bodyguard” remains the top-selling single by a female artist in music history. And Whitney accomplished all of this in the 48 short years between her birth in Newark, New Jersey, in 1963 and her untimely death in 2012.

Although he spent his teen years in the Los Angeles area, Ice-T (real name: Tracy Lauren Marrow) was actually born and raised in Newark, New Jersey, where he lived until becoming an orphan at age 12. While residing with his aunt, Ice-T’s cousin turned him onto rock music, which he was a fan of in his teens before getting into rap — thanks to the Sugarhill Gang — when he was 20 years old and serving in the U.S. Army. Ice-T eventually became a famous musician in both genres, but nowadays, he is better known for his role on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” in which he plays NYPD Sgt. Fin Tutuola.

Younger siblings Joe and Nick were born on the road in Arizona and Texas, respectively, but the oldest Jonas brother, Kevin, was born in Teaneck, New Jersey. All three boys were raised in the New Jersey town of Wyckoff. In 2005, the pop-rock trio wrote their first album after moving to Little Falls, New Jersey, and quickly reached superstar heartthrob status in the years that followed. Although they were initially only together for eight years, they have managed to sell 17 million albums worldwide, a number that was helped by the band’s reunion in 2019 and release of the No.1 single “Sucker.”

Almost everyone knows the disco-era funk and soul band Kool & the Gang and its eternal hits “Celebration,” “Get Down on It,” “Ladies’ Night” and “Jungle Boogie,” but few people know the group originated from Jersey City, New Jersey, where it formed in 1964. In fact, brothers and co-founders Robert “Kool” Bell and Ronald “Khalis” Bell both grew up as Jersey boys, as did fellow founding members Robert “Spike” Mickens, Dennis “D.T.” Thomas, Ricky West, George Brown and Claydes Charles Smith. Collectively, Kool & the Gang’s 23 studio albums and 70 singles yielded 12 million record sales, two Grammys and seven American Music Awards.

Born Dana Elaine Owens in Newark, New Jersey, in 1970, Queen Latifah was a groundbreaking pioneer in the hip-hop genre, as evidenced by her Best Rap Solo Performance Grammy win for the single “U.N.I.T.Y.” all the way back in 1994. In addition to countless credits as a featured artist, Latifah owns seven studio albums, but she’s better known nowadays as an actress. Most notably, she appeared in an Oscar-nominated supporting role in “Chicago” (2002), “Barbershop 2” (2004) and its spinoff “Beauty Shop (2005), the "Hairspray" remake (2007), two of the “Ice Age” films and “Girls Trip” (2017), as well as the acclaimed TV movies “Life Support” (2007), “Bessie” (2015) and “The Wiz Live!” (2015), and numerous shows. Latifah’s performance in “Bessie” earned her an Emmy and one of her three SAG Award wins.

Ricky Nelson was born in Teaneck, New Jersey, in 1940, and his family later relocated to Tenafly, before moving to Hollywood. Ricky made his radio debut at the age of 9 and his TV debut at 12, both of which were on his parents’ show, “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.” He became a teen heartthrob as a pop and rockabilly musician shortly thereafter, and he charted a startling 53 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 in just 16 years. After dying in a 1985 plane crash, Nelson, who had released some 36 albums and 91 singles, was posthumously inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame two years later.

Redman was born Reginald Noble in Newark, New Jersey, and was later kicked out of Montclair State University. Although his youth was a bit troubled, Redman eventually found fame as a rapper and occasional actor, and he has released eight studio albums (with a ninth on the way) as a solo artist and three collaborative records with Method Man. The latter three recordings include the soundtrack to the 2001 stoner comedy “How High,” in which Redman and Method Man also starred.

The members of the R&B/soul girl group The Shirelles (Shirley Owens, Doris Coley Kenner, Beverly Lee and Addie Harris) all met as classmates at Passaic High School, where they formed the quartet for a talent show in 1957. The singers were together for 25 years, boasting the original lineup the entire time, before disbanding in 1982. The Shirelles were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 15 years later, and they are best remembered for their hits “Tonight’s the Night” and “Will You Love Me Tomorrow.” In their honor, the town of Passaic renamed a stretch of street near the high school “Shirelles Boulevard.”

Paul Simon is known as a native of the New York City borough of Queens, but the singer, songwriter and musician was actually born in Newark, New Jersey, where he spent the first four years of his youth. After moving to Flushing, Simon met a fellow music enthusiast named Art Garfunkel when the boys were 11, and the rest is history. Simon & Garfunkel have won 10 Grammys and sold some 100 million records, in addition to another six Grammy wins and at least 50 million albums sold by Simon as a solo artist.

He may be famous for singing “New York, New York,” but Frank Sinatra was actually born and raised in Hoboken, New Jersey. Sinatra was the son of two Italian immigrants who opened a tavern at which a young Frank would often perform. Of course, Ol’ Blue Eyes would eventually find work in New York, the launchpad of his career, because if you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere. Sinatra made it everywhere to the tune of 27 million records sold, nearly 300 singles released, an estimated net worth between $500 million and $1 billion (in today’s dollars) at the time of his death in 1998 and a regular spot in the discussion of the 20th century’s best singers. 

Influential punk-rock pioneer and poet Patti Smith was born in Chicago, but she spent much of her youth in Pitman and Deptford Township, New Jersey, and attended college in the state at what is now Rowan University. The “Because the Night” singer earned a spot in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2007 and won the National Book Award in 2010 for her memoir “Just Kids.”

If Bon Jovi isn’t the first Jersey-based artist you think of, then it’s probably Bruce Springsteen. The Boss hails from Long Branch, still resides in Colts Neck and can occasionally be seen playing intimate, impromptu shows across the state. Additionally, almost every member of the E Street Band (Springsteen’s longtime backing band that numbers 11 people past and present) were either born or raised in New Jersey, including legendary guitarist Steven Van Zandt and drummer Max Weinberg. 

Marie Dionne Warrick was born in Orange, New Jersey, in 1940 and graduated from East Orange High School. She left the state to attend Hartt College of Music in Connecticut in 1958 and released her first single four years later. Warwick would eventually win six Grammys among numerous nominations spanning nearly 50 years. Now 78, the singer’s most recent Grammy nod was just five years ago — aside from the Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award she received earlier this year — and that’s to say nothing of her acting and hosting careers! 

Whether you know Zakk Wylde from his time playing lead guitar in Ozzy Osbourne’s band, as the frontman for the metal band Black Label Society or as a solo artist, it’s obvious that the legendary ax man deserves a spot on this list. Born in Bayonne, New Jersey, in 1967 and raised in Jackson, Wylde is known for his use of Gibson Les Paul guitars, which he played on some two dozen albums between 1994 and today — although nowadays, he’s more likely to use instruments from his own line of custom guitars.