While waiting to return to the studio, the Lawrenceville-based pop-rock band The Beagles have released six socially distanced videos lensed by award-winning director Scott Glazer. One of them, “Anew,” is the Makin Waves Song of the Week and a video premiere. PHOTO BY SCOTT GLAZER
Lawrenceville-based pop-rockers The Beagles have been itchin’ to get back into the studio to follow up their 2018 debut LP, “Bed of Roses,” and last year’s holiday EP, “Love at Christmas Time.” They’ve made demos and videos for several songs, including “Anew,” a collaboration between band co-founder Rob Freeman and sound healer-movement artist Joy Okoye. “Anew” is the Makin Waves Song of the Week and the video premieres here:
As the Song of the Week, “Anew” also can be heard 5 and 11 a.m., 5 p.m. and midnight through Thursday at ThePenguinRocks.com and 6:45 p.m. today and Monday on its “Radio Jersey” show.
“Anew” represents a new direction for the band. With gigs and studios out of reach because of the pandemic, The Beagles have been writing songs and gathering in socially distanced outdoor settings to arrange and record them live with director Scott Glazer capturing the process on video.
“The Beagles love working with Glazer, director of Wade Wilson’s ‘Agent of Chaos’ music video honored at the 2020 Trenton Film Festival,” said Rob, the composer of and guitarist-vocalist on “Anew.”
The song also features lyricist Joy Okoye on lead vocals, John Mazzeo on lap steel, Laura Manfredi on bass, and David Ross on drums.
“I wrote ‘Anew’ as a poem when an old relationship was ending,” Joy said. “I was figuring out how to heal from it, and this was part of my process. In the early Covid Era -- what I’m calling the #EpicPause -- ‘Anew’ began to resonate again. I read it at a poetry share and then posted it online for my #JourneyDance colleagues to read. 45 minutes after I posted it, Rob called and sang to me. He had turned it into a beautiful song!“
Rob added, “I was struck by how in so few words, like a series of haiku, Joy captured something vital about love and self-love that is central to her work as a sound healer. True lovers offer themselves as cups of liquid to fill the senses, soothe the body, and cleanse the soul. If this giving spirit gives way to defending one’s own, and a shell of a relationship persists, the residual simmering erodes trust and self-love until the cup can neither hold nor offer love freely.”
The Beagles will record a studio version of “Anew” as soon as possible, along with five other tracks that they’ve also captured on video and can be enjoyed here:
Bob Makin is a reporter for MyCentralJersey.com and the former managing editor of The Aquarian Weekly, which launched this column in 1988. Contact him via email and like Makin Waves on Facebook.
Join us for McCarter at the Museum - renowned performing artists in one-night only events at the Princeton University Art Museum.
Jason Robert Brown is a four-time Tony Award-winning composer and lyricist of The Last Five Years, Parade, Songs for a New World, 13, The Bridges of Madison County, Honeymoon In Vegas and The Connector, has performed as a soloist or with his band in venues around the world, including sold-out shows at the London Palladium and Carnegie Hall. His albums as a singer-songwriter include Wearing Someone Else’s Clothes and How We React and How We Recover on Ghostlight, and Coming From Inside the House and Live In Concert with Stephen Sondheim on Concord.
With Special Guest Tony nominee Betsy Wolfe. Tony Award-nominated actress Betsy Wolfe is currently starring as Audrey in the acclaimed Off-Broadway production of Little Shop of Horrors, following her recent Broadway run as Madeline Ashton in the hit musical Death Becomes Her. She previously originated the title role in Joy, the new musical inspired by inventor Joy Mangano, and earned a 2023 Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her celebrated performance as Anne Hathaway in & Juliet. Other Broadway credits include starring as Jenna in Waitress, Cordelia in the acclaimed revival of Falsettos, Bullets Over Broadway, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Everyday Rapture, and 110 in the Shade, as well as her critically acclaimed performance as Cathy in the Off-Broadway revival of The Last Five Years. Wolfe made her Metropolitan Opera debut in Die Fledermaus and has appeared as a guest artist with more than 65 symphony, pops, and philharmonic orchestras worldwide, including the New York Philharmonic and BBC Symphony Orchestra, with performances at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center. Her screen credits include First One In, Estella Scrooge, CBS’s Instinct, and the film adaptation of The Last Five Years. Wolfe is also the co-founder of BroadwayEvolved, the acclaimed musical theatre training program she launched in 2018 to train and mentor the next generation of theatre artists.
A limited number of early access tickets for McCarter Director’s Circle members and members of the Museum’s Partner Circle are available, on sale Wednesday, September 16, 2026 at 12:00 PM. General public on sale begins Friday, September 18, 2026 at 12:00 PM.
Please be aware there is no public drop-off or parking at the Museum. For visitors with mobility needs, please contact the Museum at least three business days in advance of your visit to request special access to the Museum via Elm Drive. Call 609-258-3788 and select option 1 to speak to a visitor services staff member, or email Louise Barrett at [email protected].
