New Jersey derives much of its water from New York’s Catskill Mountains. Low in calcium and magnesium, it’s a naturally soft water that’s ideally suited for bread flour. And, of course, that means it’s also a crucial component in the making of New Jersey pizza, which everybody knows is the best in the United States. (Oh, you wanna argue about it? How about this? Fuggedaboudit!)
Ask any New Jerseyan why the state is number one and you’ll get a variety of responses. Its beaches — there’s Stone Harbor, Cape May, Point Pleasant, Ocean City and Sea Bright, to name just a few. Why, you can drive down practically the entire 130 miles of the state’s coastline and call it “the Jersey Shore.”
Its produce – blueberries, corn, tomatoes, apples, asparagus and anything else that grows from the ground (there’s a reason New Jersey is called “the Garden State”). And the state has not one, but two football teams.
Okay, technically they’re the New York Giants and the New York Jets, but they play at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, so New Jerseyans can rightfully claim dibs. BTW, the same goes for the New York Red Bulls, the local Major League Soccer team that, of course, plays in Harrison.
In terms of sheer geography, New Jersey isn’t large – it accounts for only 7,352.9 square miles, making it the 46th largest state by area. But in terms of its impact on modern music, it’s enormous. Hoboken’s own Frank Sinatra got his start singing in New Jersey social clubs, and over the years the state has been a breeding ground for the sounds of doo-wop, garage rock, soul, jazz, punk, funk, hip-hop, blues and heavy metal.
Perhaps more than any other state in the Northeast, New Jersey has been home to a staggering number of notable guitarists. That said, when we crafted the following list of New Jersey guitarists, we had to consider what actually constituted a “New Jersey guitarist,” and our criteria was based on anyone born there, raised there or made their greatest impact there.
There were, however, certain qualifiers that could be seen as subjective. Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio was born in Texas; his family moved to Princeton when he was 3, but he famously relocated to Burlington, Vermont, the birthplace of Phish, a band that will forever be associated with Vermont.
Hey, when we do our Vermont guitarists roundup, Anastasio will be front and center. Meanwhile, the Eagles’ Joe Walsh attended Montclair High School. Is he “a New Jersey guitarist”? Get outta here!
As you’ll see from the 30 players we’ve highlighted, they’re a diverse lot – there are shredders, jazzers and strummers, fusion kings and punk pioneers, arena superstars and indie darlings. But in their own unique and spectacular ways, they’ve helped to make New Jersey a music paradise – or at least one of those “There must be something in the water” states!
Bruce Springsteen
“Well, I got this guitar and I learned how to make it talk.” Bruce Springsteen was in his 20s when he wrote those words, but he’s been living the rock ’n’ roll dream since the age of 14, when he sat in his Freehold living room and watched the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show.
With single-minded determination, Springsteen set out to be a hotshot guitarist and cut his teeth in the British rock-influenced local band the Castiles. Having played everywhere from Elks Clubs to the Café Wha? in NYC’s Greenwich Village, he soon formed the Cream-styled power trio Earth, followed by the hard rock outfit Steel Mill and, ultimately, the E Street Band.
On record, Springsteen has a penchant for downplaying his guitar skills (though he’s delivered hellfire solos on cuts like Candy’s Room, Adam Raised a Cain and Cover Me, all performed on the now-iconic Fender Telecaster/Esquire he bought for $185).
During his epic three- and four-hour live shows, however, it’s a different story. Hailed as perhaps the most dynamic rock performer of his generation, Springsteen allows his fellow guitarists (Steven Van Zandt and Nils Lofgren) plenty of room to shine, but during key moments he clears the path (he is, after all, the Boss) and lets loose with rapturous solos that are big and bold, brimming with drama and theatrical razzle-dazzle.
Gene Cornish
At 12 years old, Gene Cornish saw Scotty Moore playing guitar with Elvis Presley, and that was all he needed to know.
By the time he was 18, Cornish – who had moved with his family from Canada to New Jersey – was leading his own bands, and after stints in a couple of Garfield-based outfits (Joey Dee and the Starlighters, the Unbeatables), he formed the Rascals with Felix Cavaliere (keyboards, vocals), Eddie Brigati (vocals) and Dino Danelli (drums).
One of the first American rock ’n’ roll bands to break through during the height of the British Invasion, the Rascals scored a Number 1 hit with their garage-rock take on Good Lovin’ (a track highlighted by Cornish’s rip-roarin’ rhythm breaks) and quickly followed it up with rowdy original You Better Run.
Mixing soul, R&B, gospel and psychedelia, the Rascals ruled the charts with classics like How Can I Be Sure, I’ve Been Lonely Too Long, A Beautiful Morning, People Got to Be Free and Groovin’. While Cornish (who favored a Gibson Barney Kessel double-cutaway archtop) never tried to compete with the new group of virtuoso soloists, his intuitive rhythm playing was key to the group’s sound.
Cornish left the Rascals in 1971 and kept busy as a producer and guitarist. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997, and in 2013 all four members reunited for the Steven Van Zandt theater production Once Upon a Dream.
Al Caiola
During the 1950s and early ’60s, while instrumental guitarists Dick Dale, Chet Atkins and Duane Eddy became household names, one of the most recorded guitarists of that time remained virtually anonymous.
His name was Al Caiola, and for nearly two decades he had a lock on the NYC session scene, recording with Percy Faith, Frank Sinatra, Connie Francis, Paul Anka, Frankie Avalon, Eddie Fisher, Bobby Darin and Perry Como, among others, as well as playing on countless movie and TV themes.
Al Caiola's highly melodic and versatile style – he could play jazz, R&B, country, pop and rock – was put to use on thousands of sessions
Born in Jersey City in 1920, Caiola learned guitar by listening to Django Rheinhardt and earned a living as a musician right out of high school. He served in WWII and played in Bing Crosby’s band, and once he returned home he got a job with the CBS orchestra.
By the late ’50s, after working for Jackie Gleason, Steve Allen and Ed Sullivan, he turned freelance, and his highly melodic and versatile style – he could play jazz, R&B, country, pop and rock – was put to use on thousands of sessions.
On his own, Caiola hit the charts with the themes from Bonanza and The Magnificent Seven, and he would go on to record more than 50 solo albums. Moving to the West Coast in the early Seventies, he began a long association with Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gormé and played in their orchestra, and in 1991 he toured with Sinatra. He passed away at age 96 in 2016 in Allendale, New Jersey.
Jim Babjak
Combining the crackling melodicism of Dave Davies, the rhythmic flair of Pete Townshend and the walloping crunch of Angus Young, Carteret native Jim Babjak, co-founder of the Smithereens, has become one of New Jersey’s distinctive guitarists.
Raised on British rock ’n’ roll, Babjak and school mates Dennis Diken (drums) and Mike Mesaros (bass) played dances and local bars. In 1980, they joined fellow New Jerseyan Pat DiNizio to form the Smithereens.
After years of thankless gigs, the band’s fortunes turned around with the release of 1986’s Especially for You, on which Babjak’s tight, tuneful and spirited leads helped turn tracks like Blood and Roses and Behind the Wall of Sleep into breakout hits.
Eschewing flash, Babjak plays for the song, but when the spotlight turns his way, he delivers; his double-stop-laced lead on the power-pop gem A Girl Like You (1989) could stop traffic. Babjak’s sound and style even influenced Kurt Cobain, who famously referenced the Smithereens while cutting Nirvana’s Nevermind.
Following the 2017 death of DiNizio, Babjak and the surviving Smithereens rhythm section have maintained a steady gig schedule with Marshall Crenshaw and the Gin Blossoms’ Robin Wilson alternating as front men.
Dean DeLeo
During the grunge revolution, Stone Temple Pilots became radio stars with hook-filled hits that blended alt-rock grit, classic rock grandeur, psychedelia and touches of country twang. Key to their success was the sophisticated guitar stylings of New Jersey native Dean DeLeo.
Growing up in Point Pleasant Beach, DeLeo drew on influences like Jimmy Page, Tal Farlow and Jeff Beck, along with Speedy West and Jimmy Bryant. He and his bassist brother, Robert, headed to California, where they formed Mighty Joe Young with singer Scott Weiland and drummer Eric Kretz. After signing with Atlantic, the group became Stone Temple Pilots, and their 1992 debut, Core, ruled the charts.
A master of raging rock riffs, DeLeo also employed inventive chord voicings on songs like Plush and Interstate Love Song
A master of raging rock riffs – Sex Type Thing, Crackerman and Dead and Bloated are rugged earth-movers – DeLeo also employed inventive chord voicings on songs like Plush and Interstate Love Song. For spitfire solos, look no further than his spine-tingling lead on Vasoline.
Tragically, two previous STP front men (Weiland and Chester Bennington) passed away, but in 2017 the band announced Jeff Gutt as their new singer. Their most recent album is 2020’s Perdida.
Emily Remler
Emily Remler might have left us at the young age of 32, but her impact is everlasting; from start to finish, this woman did it her way. Born in Englewood Cliffs in 1957, Remler picked up guitar when she was 10 and was said to be heavily influenced by typical Sixties giants such as Jimi Hendrix and Johnny Winter before becoming enthralled with Charlie Christian, Wes Montgomery, Herb Ellis, Pat Martino and New Jersey-born Joe Pass.
In 2020, GW included Remler as one of “the 40 guitarists who changed our world since 1980,” the year the magazine was founded
And that checks out, given the fact that Remler’s hyper-unique blending of jazz and blues came to define her across the board. To that end, to call Remler “a jazz guitarist” would be doing her a disservice, just as it would to label her a “blues player.”
Remler was whatever she wanted to be, as evidenced by her telling People in 1982, “I may look like a nice Jewish girl from New Jersey, but inside I’m a 50-year-old, heavy-set black man with a big thumb, like Wes Montgomery.”
Remler eventually settled in New Orleans and relentlessly worked jazz and blues clubs with her Gibson ES-330 and Borys B120 in hand. Her debut record, Firefly (1981), is considered a classic, as are Take Two (1982) and Catwalk (1985).
Sadly, Remler suffered from opioid use disorder, and she died of heart failure while on tour in Australia in 1990. In 2020, GW included Remler as one of “the 40 guitarists who changed our world since 1980,” the year the magazine was founded.
Les Paul
The importance of Lester William Polsfuss (better known by his stage name, Les Paul) on popular music and guitar playing cannot be overstated. Perhaps his single most significant and enduring contribution to music is the famous guitar that bears his name, but during his lifetime he also innovated countless recording techniques, including tape delay, close-miking, overdubbing and multi-track recording, that are still in use today.
A talented multi-instrumentalist, Paul began to make a name for himself as a guitarist in the 1930s and Forties. With a style that blended country and jazz, he became a radio star and recorded with his own group, the Les Paul Trio, along with Bing Crosby, the Andrews Sisters and the Delta Rhythm Boys. In 1949, he married singer Mary Ford and formed a duo that scored hits like How High the Moon and Bye Bye Blues, on which Paul overdubbed layers of guitar tracks.
An inveterate tinkerer, Paul created an electric guitar known as “The Log,” and in 1950 he partnered with the Gibson Guitar Corporation as he refined his dream model, which resulted in the Les Paul. The guitar and its many iterations – the goldtop, the Black Beauty, the Les Paul Standard, the Les Paul Custom and the Les Paul Junior – would become the choice instrument for guitarists across the globe.
Although born in Wisconsin, Paul moved to Mahwah in 1951. He continued to perform well into his 90s – each week, he played a regular set at the Iridium Café in New York City – until his death in 2009 at age 94.
Eddie Hazel
Had he recorded nothing but the unaccompanied 10-minute solo Maggot Brain that kicked off Funkadelic’s 1971 album of the same name, Eddie Hazel’s place in guitar history would be complete.
Before recording, band leader George Clinton instructed Hazel to imagine the death of his mother in the first half of the solo, and in the second half to imagine that his mother was alive.
Hazel responded with a torrent of emotions – fuzz-and-wah-drenched cries and whispers, ghostly delay squalls and a fiery recurring melodic motif that conveys both anguish and joy at their most extreme.
Born in Brooklyn, Hazel grew up in Plainfield and played guitar as a youngster. At 17, he joined Clinton’s doo-wop group, the Parliaments, and as the group moved toward psychedelic rock, he switched from Gibsons and Gretches to a Stratocaster.
He contributed mightily to the band’s early recordings (his wildcat soloing on Funky Dollar Bill, from 1970’s Free Your Mind… and Your Ass Will Follow, brings the song to life), but following Maggot Brain he left the group and only put in occasional appearances on future albums.
Drug addiction plagued Hazel and stunted his output. In 1977, he released an acclaimed solo album, Game, Dames and Guitar Thangs, but in 1992 he succumbed to liver failure. Maggot Brain was played at his funeral.
Al Di Meola
One of the most influential guitarists of all time, Al Di Meola (born in Jersey City, raised in Bergenfield) helped put jazz fusion on the map. First inspired by the sounds of the Ventures and the Beatles, he gravitated toward the jazz styles of Tal Farlow, Kenny Burrell and Larry Coryell. By age 19, Di Meola’s preternatural chops were so advanced that he won a spot in Chick Corea’s band Return to Forever.
After two years with RTF, Di Meola struck out on his own and made an immediate impact with his first solo album, 1976’s Land of the Midnight Sun. But it was a pair of albums that followed – Elegant Gypsy (1977) and Casino (1978) – that changed the game forever.
Di Meola’s highly charged alternate and sweep picking, on both electric and nylon-string acoustics, set a new standard and was embraced by players such as Steve Morse, Zakk Wylde and John Petrucci. Along with his blitzing technical skills, he broadened the scope of fusion, incorporating rock, jazz, flamenco and classical music into his compositions.
Teaming with guitarists John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucia, Di Meola sold more than two million copies of the 1981 acoustic live album, Friday Night in San Francisco.
His voracious musical appetite has yielded over two dozen solo albums on which he’s bounced between acoustic and electric, and he even recorded two exquisite tributes to the Beatles.
After suffering a heart attack on stage in 2023, Di Meola is already back on the road in the U.S. and Europe. His new album, Twentyfour, will be released in July.
Zakk Wylde
“Ego-tripping is for jerks,” Zakk Wylde told us in 1989. “I hate posers and people who think they’re rock stars. It’s not a big deal just because you’re in a rock band.”
At the time he spoke those words, Wylde, who had previously only played in local bands in his hometown of Jackson, had just beat out a host of pro players to score the coveted lead guitar spot with Ozzy Osbourne, following in the footsteps of Tony Iommi, Randy Rhoads and Jake E. Lee.
Wylde established his own identity with Osbourne, crafting a guitar approach big on super-wide vibrato, aggressive pentatonic leads and hair-raising pinch harmonics
An original all the way, Wylde established his own identity with Osbourne, crafting a guitar approach big on super-wide vibrato, aggressive pentatonic leads and hair-raising pinch harmonics with crafty splashes of Albert Lee-inspired chicken pickin’. Visually, he stood out, too – his bullseye Les Pauls became a signature model, and he soon traded poofy hair and bell bottoms for a badass biker gang aesthetic.
A gifted writer, he co-penned dozens of songs with Osbourne, including Miracle Man, I Don’t Want to Change the World and Mama, I’m Coming Home (the latter becoming the singer’s only Top 40 solo hit).
During his sometimes-on/sometimes-off association with Osbourne, Wylde began fronting his own band, Black Label Society, and last year he joined a new lineup of Pantera, filling in for his late friend Dimebag Darrell.
Claydes “Charles” Smith
Claydes “Charles” Smith stayed in the background, but his contributions to dance, funk and pop music are significant. Born in Jersey City, he learned jazz guitar from his father.
In 1964, he joined other local musicians – including Ronald Bell, Robert “Kool” Bell, George Brown, Dennis Thomas and Robert “Spike” Mickens – to form an instrumental jazz and soul outfit that went through various names (the Jazziacs, Kool & the Flames) before becoming Kool & the Gang.
Smith’s jazz approach to guitar – his chief influences were Wes Montgomery and George Benson, from whom he incorporated lead lines and high-octave vamps into his style – proved to be a crucial element of the Kool & the Gang sound. His supple, understated melodies in the 1974 song Summer Madness have been sampled dozens of times over the years.
As the band moved toward pop and disco in the mid-Seventies, Smith’s songwriting prowess resulted in numerous hits such as Jungle Boogie, Hollywood Swinging, Celebration and Joanna.
Smith continued to perform with Kool & the Gang until January 2006, when he took ill; he passed away the following June.
Frank Infante
During the mid-seventies, Jersey City native Frank Infante played in a number of blues-based rock groups, but when he joined friends Debbie Harry and Chris Stein in Blondie, he became a part of a musically adventurous outfit whose pioneering mix of punk, new wave, garage rock, disco, reggae and hip-hop would result in international stardom.
Throughout his five-year tenure in Blondie, Infante proved to be the secret sauce on a cavalcade of hit songs. Among his notable contributions are the rip-snorting riffs on One Way or Another, the scorching rhythm blasts on the Number 1 hit Call Me and the fabulously whacked-out solo on Rapture (he was “the man from Mars that eats guitars!”).
Infante’s post-Blondie activities have included stints with Iggy Pop and the New York Dolls, and with Blondie drummer Clem Burke he formed his own band, Infante’s Inferno. Currently, he’s writing material with Divinyls guitarist Mark McEntee.
Lenny Kaye
Even if he never picked up a guitar, Lenny Kaye (born in Manhattan but raised in North Brunswick) would be regarded as one of the most influential figures in rock ’n’ roll.
As a music critic in the late Sixties, he wrote trailblazing pieces for Rolling Stone, Crawdaddy and Jazz & Pop. His 1972 two-album anthology set, Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965–1968 (containing tracks by the Prunes, the Seeds and the Vagrants, among others), helped to popularize garage rock; Kaye’s liner notes contained one of the first uses of the term “punk rock.”
But it’s the guitarist’s partnership with Patti Smith that had a seismic impact on music. During the course of four albums, starting with 1975’s Horses and on through 1979’s Wave, the two combined beat poetry with raw, improvisational rock ’n’ roll driven by Kaye’s howling, explosive guitar playing.
Kaye went on to work with poet-turned-rocker Jim Carroll, as well as fronting his own band
Kaye went on to work with poet-turned-rocker Jim Carroll, as well as fronting his own band. He produced albums by Kristin Hirsch, Throwing Muses and Soul Asylum, and his production of Suzanne Vega’s 1987 album, Solitude Standing, yielded the Grammy-nominated hit single, Luka.
In 1996, he returned to work with Smith, a collaboration that continues to this day.
Richie Sambora
The pride of Perth Amboy, Richie Sambora saw his fame shoot through the stratosphere in the 1980s as the lead guitarist and songwriting partner for another famous Garden Stater – Jon Bon Jovi.
As a teen, Sambora immersed himself in learning the styles of guitarists like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and B.B. King. He performed with a number of local acts (one of them, Mercy, was briefly signed to Led Zeppelin’s Swan Song Records) and unsuccessfully auditioned to replace Ace Frehley in Kiss. And then he met Jon Bon Jovi in 1983. Once he joined the band Bon Jovi, Sambora and Jon began writing songs at a fast clip, and it wasn’t long till the hits started coming.
On platinum smashes like Wanted Dead or Alive, You Give Love a Bad Name, Bad Medicine and the talk box classic Living on a Prayer, Sambora’s solos leap out and grab you by the ear. Each lead functions as a mini “song within a song,” brimming with melody and expert phrasing, but also packing blues passion and judicious touches of shred flash.
During his 30-year career with Bon Jovi, Sambora issued three critically hailed solo albums, and after splitting with the band in 2013 he began the duo RSO with Australian guitarist Orianthi.
Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan & Dave Schramm
Okay, neither guitarist hails from New Jersey, but thanks to their work with Yo La Tengo – regarded by many as the quintessential indie rock band, as well as being one of the leading lights of the “Hoboken sound” – they’ve more than earned their Garden State bona fides.
Kaplan and Schramm proved to be a fascinating guitar duo, mixing abstract noise and dreamy melodicism on the band’s 1985 debut, Ride the Tiger
A former rock critic, guitarist and singer, Ira Kaplan formed Yo La Tengo (Spanish for “I have it”) with his drummer-singer wife, Georgia Hubley, in 1984. Adding lead guitarist Dave Schramm a year later, the band became something of the house band at Maxwell’s, the tiny Hoboken club that hosted acts like the Bongos, the Feelies and the dB’s.
Kaplan and Schramm proved to be a fascinating guitar duo, mixing abstract noise and dreamy melodicism on the band’s 1985 debut, Ride the Tiger. A year later, however, Schramm left and Kaplan stepped into the lead guitar role, a position he holds to this day.
Schramm formed his own outfit, the Schramms, and has also performed with the Replacements, Soul Asylum and Chris Stamey. In 2015, he briefly returned to Yo La Tengo for the album Stuff Like That There. Kaplan has contributed to albums by artists like Amy Rigby and Antietam, and has dabbled in film composing. Last year, Yo La Tengo released their 17th album, This Stupid World.
Skid Row’s Dave Sabo & Scotti Hill
Guitarist Dave “Snake” Sabo was born in Perth Amboy and grew up in nearby Sayreville. In high school, he played in an early version of Bon Jovi. After being replaced by Richie Sambora (also from Perth Amboy), Sabo met bassist Rachel Bolan and the two set about forming their own band, Skid Row.
Enter Scotti Hill, who had previously driven 140 miles from his home in Middletown, New York, to Toms River, New Jersey, in the hopes of joining Bolan’s previous band, Godsend. With Hill ensconced in Skid Row, he and Sabo formed a formidable hard rock guitar duo – each taking turns at solos – that powered the band’s 1989 eponymous debut album (chock full of hits like 18 and Life, I Remember You and Youth Gone Wild) to mega-platinum success. The two got even heavier on the band’s 1991 follow-up, Slave to the Grind, another platinum seller.
The band’s history has been turbulent (a three-year hiatus from 1996, various lead singers), but Sabo and Hill have remained constant figures. On their latest album, 2022’s The Gang’s All Here, the two shredders peppered tracks with their first-ever dueling solos.
Robert Randolph
Like David Lindley before him, Robert Randolph does his best work sitting down. The pedal steel virtuoso has almost single-handedly (all right, he uses both hands) redefined the instrument, both in sound and style (in other words, it’s not just for country music).
With the mighty Family Band as his backing group, Randolph – who cites Stevie Ray Vaughan as a major influence – has blazed new trails for the pedal steel on albums that span gospel, rock, funk, blues and even some dashes of hip-hop.
Randolph honed his pedal steel skills at services, and it wasn’t long till his prodigious talents spread to the secular world
Randolph’s fiery playing will take you to church, and fittingly, that’s where it all started – at the House of God Church in his hometown of Orange. Randolph honed his pedal steel skills at services, and it wasn’t long till his prodigious talents spread to the secular world.
Opening slots for the Derek Trucks Band, Medeski, Martin & Wood and the North Mississippi Allstars got the word going. Eric Clapton became a fan and brought Randolph and the Family Band on tour.
Among Randolph’s most notable albums are the T-Bone Burnett-produced We Walk (2010), which features guests Ben Harper and Doyle Bramhall II, and 2019’s Brighter Days, produced by superstar studio man Dave Cobb.
Ernie Isley
Millions of guitarists have been influenced by Jimi Hendrix, but in the early to mid-Sixties, Ernie Isley had the rare opportunity to watch the master up close, when Hendrix (then living in the family house in Englewood) briefly played guitar with the Isley Brothers. Oddly enough, it wasn’t Hendrix who inspired Isley to play guitar; as a teenager, his interest was piqued by Jose Feliciano’s cover of the Doors’ Light My Fire.
After that, the self-taught guitarist was off and running, joining his brothers’ band at age 14 as a drummer, then a bass player (which he played on Isley Brothers’ 1969 breakout hit It’s Your Thing) and later moving to guitar.
He contributed impactful, wah-driven rhythms to the anti-authority anthem Fight the Power (which he wrote), and his one-take solo on the Top 10 hit That Lady (which he also wrote) is a fuzzed-out psychedelic masterpiece. Isley dominated the band’s soulful cover of Seals and Crofts’ Summer Breeze with an extended, distorted lead that positively sails.
Isley has guested on albums by Janet Jackson and Joss Stone, and with his brother Ronald he joined Carlos Santana for the 2017 album The Power of Peace. In 1992, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the Isley Brothers. Even better? In June 2021, streets in Teaneck and Englewood were named after the Isley Brothers.
Alex Rosamilia
Formed in 2006 in New Brunswick, the Gaslight Anthem started out playing punk and Springsteen-inspired rock at local bars for free beer. Which makes them not very different from 1,000 or so other New Jersey bands.
But the working-class quartet (comprised of singer-rhythm guitarist Brian Fallon, lead guitarist Alex Rosamilia, bassist Alex Levine and drummer Benny Horowitz) began incorporating other elements – Sixties soul, British blues and even splashes of power-pop – into their sound. By the time of their 2007 debut, Sink or Swim, they left the bars behind.
Complementing Fallon’s gritty vocal style, Rosamilia – who counts players such as Jimmy Page, Peter Green and the Cure’s Robert Smith as influences – adds sparky, robust riffs, strong supporting melodies and blues-tinged solos that make their point and never overstay the welcome.
Not to suggest that he can’t blow – his speed-metal solo on the band’s biggest radio hit, 45, packs more thrills and chills in 20 seconds than most guitarists can muster in an hour.
After a steady succession of albums, the Gaslight Anthem took a six-year break from 2015 to 2021, during which time Rosamilia explored his heavier side with his own band, Servitude. Last year, the Anthem released its first album in nine years, History Books, that featured a guest spot by none other than Bruce Springsteen.
My Chemical Romance’s Ray Toro & Frank Iero
Newark-based superstars My Chemical Romance bring together a wide array of styles: emo, goth, musical theater and pop-punk, along with splashes of the Beatles and Queen. Fittingly, the band’s ax team – lead guitarist Ray Toro and rhythm ace Frank Iero – inhabit two radically different musical worlds.
Kearny native Toro grew up listening to his brother’s record collection, chock-full of classic rock. As a guitarist, he formed his style by emulating Randy Rhoads and Brian May.
Belleville-born Iero comes from a musical family; as a kid he watched his drummer grandfather play Dixieland while his father (also a drummer) favored the blues. But it was the sounds of the Clash, the Ramones and Sonic Youth that got him started on the guitar, and by age 11 he was playing in punk bands.
In MCR (which formed in 2001), Toro and Iero are an ego-less, traditional lead-rhythm unit. Occasionally, they trade off on short melody lines, but it’s Toro who belts out the showboat solos.
Among his more notable moments are the spunky, Brian May-flavored harmonized solos in Dead and Na Na Na, while on the hard-charging Save Yourself, I’ll Hold Them Back, he aims for the nosebleed seats with a palm-muted, metallic blues scorcher.
Following their last platinum album, 2010’s Danger Days, MCR went on an extended hiatus, during which time Toro and Iero pursued side projects. In 2019, they regrouped and went on a reunion tour, which concluded last year.
Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein
To complement his imposing body builder’s frame and his ghostly “devilock” stage image, Paul Caiafa – best known as the longtime guitarist for horror punk pioneers the Misfits – gave himself an equally memorable professional name: Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein.
Born and raised in Lodi, Doyle is the brother of Misfits bassist Gerald Caiafa Jr. (better known as Jerry Only), who along with fellow townie Glenn Danzig, formed the band in 1977.
While attending Lodi High School, Doyle worked as a roadie for the band and learned how to play guitar by jamming with Danzig and Jerry. When the group’s second guitarist, Bobby Steele, bailed before a studio session, Doyle – who was all of 16 at the time – was brought in as a replacement. He made his recording debut on the 1981 EP, 3 Hits from Hell.
Nobody will mistake Doyle for a virtuoso soloist, but like the Ramones’ Johnny Ramone, he favors barre chords, downstrokes and maximum overdrive power.
In addition to the Misfits, he’s performed with a number of outfits (most notably Danzig’s eponymous band), as well as his own groups, Gorgeous Frankenstein and Doyle. After breaking up in 1983, the Misfits reunited in 2016 with a lineup that included Doyle and Jerry.
Ben Weinman
After receiving degrees in psychology and corporate communications, Ben Weinman was on his way to take the business world by storm. But when his extreme metal band Dillinger Escape Plan started to take off, he left the suit-and-tie world behind to concentrate on music.
It wouldn’t be long for the Morris Plains-based group to be hailed as one of the most adventurous outfits around, and Weinman – the band’s lead guitarist and chief songwriter – would go on to win numerous accolades (in 2008, GW named him one of the 50 Fastest Guitarists of All Time – and he even made an appearance on one of two September 2013 GW covers).
The Morris Plains native grew up jamming to blues-based players like Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix, but his playing style took on wider dimensions with influences that included John McLaughlin, Robert Fripp and Marty Friedman. In 1996, Weinman formed the hardcore punk band Arcane, which eventually morphed into the Dillinger Escape Plan.
On records that mixed wildly aggressive progressive metal with elements of electronic music and jazz, his outlandish, sometimes nerve-fraying playing proved impossible to copy (try to get a handle on 43% Burnt, from Calculating Infinity, if you dare).
After the Dillinger Escape Plan disbanded in 2017, Weinman formed Giraffe Tongue Orchestra (which includes members of Alice In Chains, the Mars Volta and Zappa Plays Zappa), joined Suicidal Tendencies and performed with acts such as Nine Inch Nails and the Prodigy. Best of all – as mentioned in our June issue – the Dillinger Escape Plan have regrouped for a handful of shows this year.
Bucky Pizzarelli
Good ol’ Bucky Pizzarelli was a Jersey boy from start to finish. Born in Paterson in 1926 to a music-loving family that included his uncles Pete and Bobby Domenick, who were professional guitarists and banjo players, Pizzarelli was predestined for musical greatness – or, at the very least, a career via six-strings.
By the Fifties, Pizzarelli was recording with Joe Mooney and soon became a staff musician alongside pianist Skitch Henderson. But things really got cookin’ when Pizzarelli became a member of the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson band, providing a backdrop for Carson’s humor and some of the greatest musicians of his day. In the years that followed, Pizzarelli became a band leader and even performed with Benny Goodman at the White House.
Pizzarelli became a member of the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson band, providing a backdrop for Carson’s humor and some of the greatest musicians of his day
Later in his career, he participated in the 1985 Jersey Jazz Guitars concert at Rutgers University alongside Les Paul and Tal Farlow, aired on New Jersey public radio as part of a three-part Summerfare Series.
Toward the end of his life, Pizzarelli slowed down but remained active before passing away in Saddle River on April 1, 2020, at age 94. He and his Gibson and Epiphone archtop-loving spirit are kept alive by his two sons, guitarist John Pizzarelli and double bassist Martin Pizzarelli.
Tal Farlow
Known for his massive hands, which engulfed the entirety of the fretboard of his various Gibson jazz boxes, Tal Farlow wasn’t born in New Jersey, though he did spend a large chunk of his life there. Farlow was born in North Carolina, not that it mattered – because after moving to Sea Bright, he became known as the proverbial dean of the Jersey Shore jazz scene.
Despite becoming a national name, Tal Farlow first picked up the instrument when he was 22 and was entirely self-taught
With his immeasurable jazz chops, love for the genre and a gorgeous array of Gibson ES-350s, Farlow was indeed the man for the job. Still, it’s crazy to think about, given that despite becoming a national name, he first picked up the instrument when he was 22 and was entirely self-taught.
But it’s a good thing it went down that way, as Farlow’s oddball style, which found him using the higher four strings for the melody and chord structure and the bottom two for the bass counterpoint (played with his thumb), was utterly unique.
That, along with his use of artificial harmonics and tapping on his guitar for percussion, are just a few reasons why the man known as “The Octopus” owned the New Jersey jazz circuit while in residency.
Farlow’s records Autumn in New York (1954) and Tal Farlow Quartet (1954), released on Verve and Blue Note, are the stuff of legend. But don’t sleep on his latter work or his many collaborations with Buddy DeFranco, Red Norvo, Sonny Criss, Gil Melle, Sam Most, Anita Day, Clark Terry and Mary Lou Williams, either.
Farlow remained relatively active until the end, but on July 25, 1998, esophageal cancer did him in. He passed away at age 77 at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. If you can find Gibson’s Tal Farlow model, released in ’62 – grab it. We’d also direct you to the dozens of albums’ worth of music he left behind to catch the “Octopus’s” vibe fully.
Marc Ribot
Born in Newark in 1954 and raised in South Orange, Marc Ribot grew up a music-loving kid who, despite admitted limited technical aptitude, went on to become one of the more sought-after and off-kilter session guitarists… ever.
You probably don’t know Ribot by name, but you’ve more than likely heard him play. He’s been an integral part of iconic records by Tom Waits, John Zorn, Jack McDuff, Wilson Pickett, Elvis Costello, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, the Black Keys, Mike Patton, Neko Case and more. How’s that for eclectic?
If you’ve dug on Tom Waits albums like Rain Dogs (1985) and Franks Wild Years (1987), Elvis Costello’s Spike (1989) or Robert Plant & Alison Krauss’ Raising Sand (2007), you probably know how Ribot likes to approach the fretboard. Those albums are great; but if you want to experience Ribot in his full-on, 69-year-old glory, his latter work with Ceramic Dog, who dropped Connection in 2023, is where it’s at.
Walter Trout
Blues bruiser Walter Trout lives in California these days – but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t still think about his New Jersey roots. The title track to his 2022 album, Ride, was inspired by the train that went past his childhood home.
The Strat-packing 73-year-old guitarist – who was born in Ocean City but also spent time in Laurel Springs and Moorestown – spent the first quarter century of his life in the Garden State. Since then, he’s been on one hell of a train ride that has led to more than 30 albums, regular triumphs at awards ceremonies (including the Blues Music Awards, SENA European Guitar Awards and British Blues Awards), prized gigs with Big Mama Thornton and the great John Lee Hooker and memberships in Canned Heat and – coolest of all?
Yes, coolest of all! – John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, which is an elite club, to be sure. (You can even hear Trout – paired with guitar great Coco Montoya – on Mayall’s most beloved Eighties album, Chicago Line.)
Trout’s latest album – 2024’s excellent Broken – is out now.
Criss Oliva
The tale of Criss Michael Oliva is a tragic case of what might have been. Oliva, born in Pompton Plains in 1963, came of age alongside guitarists like George Lynch and Warten DeMartini. And despite his lack of name recognition outside of metal circles, there’s an argument to be made that he was at least just as great as any of them.
That’s high praise, but if you ask some of Oliva’s contemporaries, such as Dave Mustaine and Alex Skolnick, who have perpetually showered praise on Oliva, the argument for his greatness comes into clearer focus. But let’s say you’re not the type who is easily swayed; all you have to do is dig into any of the eight records Oliva made with Savatage, such as 1983’s Sirens, 1986’s Fight for the Rock or 1993’s Edge of Thorns, and you’ll see what the deal is.
On October 17, 1993, in the wee hours of the morning, Oliva and his wife Dawn were traveling to the Livestock Festival in Florida (where they lived at the time), and an oncoming car hit Oliva’s Mazda RX-7, killing him instantly. Dawn survived, as did the other driver. The metal community mourned, with New Jersey thrash metal outfit Overkill paying homage with their 1994 track R.I.P. (Undone).
