Makin Waves with Jackson Pines: 'Music Revisited'

On behalf of his band mates – also Max Carmichael (banjo, mandolin, flute) and James Herdman (fiddle) -- I spoke with Joe about the band’s passion for the Pinelands, how it plays into present and future projects, how his late saxophonist father influenced ‘Wheel,’ and how Jackson Pines continues to balance the roots of the Pines with the rock of Asbury Park.

Is ‘Wheel’ your favorite Jackson Pines album? Why or why not?

It isn’t because we have no absolute favorite. Depends on the day. But this is the most pumped we’ve ever been on a group of new songs. That’s for sure.

‘Open Up the Door’ is a tribute to your sax-playing Dad. How and why did your Dad influence your pursuit of music, and you’re writing that song?

He was the most musical person I’ve ever met, hands down. He was almost always listening to, playing, or at least humming or tapping something. My bedroom was originally the music room in our house. When I arrived, they moved me into there, and although it became ‘my room,’ the record player and head unit cabinet was still in there. His answering machine for his band was still in there. By the time I was 10, all my instruments were in there. And by13, I turned it into a studio. So, it never changed really.

Beyond being a middle school band director, he was always playing baritone sax in bands, always gigging, and until the end he was always finding very unique performance opportunities— something I may have unwittingly internalized at a young age. He showed me that music is a communal necessity, and it’s something that lives off stage as much as on stage. I’d see him play with Holiday Express at the Basie one day, and see him the very next day on the streets of Princeton with his unique saxophone quintet, seamlessly weaving sets that pirouetted between Bach, James Brown, and everything in between.

In his 20s and early 30s, he ran his own band called Blvd. East. They were a funk/R&B group played a lot in the tristate area in the late ’70s and early ’80s. In Jersey, they played The Fast Lane and The Stone Pony often.

Since we never did a song with horns as Jackson Pines, we figured, let’s go all the way and instead of having a sax or a trumpet, having the full horn section my dad’s band had, for that full Jersey Shore sound.

My dad’s close friend and member of the sax quintet, Scott Grimaldi, wrote an incredible arrangement for it. Since he played bari on ‘Hammer,’ we knew it would work well. He laid down on baritone sax and tenor sax at Shorefire Studios along with Matt Bilyk on trombone, Marty Bound on trumpet, and Joey DeMaio on the board. Tyler Sarfert mixed it, and Dana Why mastered it. You can listen to it now on CD, bandcamp, YouTube, or streaming anywhere.

What is the label that released ‘Wheel,’ how did you connect with them, and how and why did you like working with them?

‘Wheel’ is out on Only One On The Mountain. It’s a label that is run by the same people who run Evan Honer’s Cloverdale Records. They caught wind of us after we toured the region from Montreal to D.C. and wrapped up the Philadelphia Folk Festival two summers ago. We knew mutual people from the Asbury Park scene, and they offered to reissue our debut record with some B-sides and remixes. That was ‘Purgatory Road (Deluxe Edition),’ which helped us get our music in front of more people and introduced us to some great collaborators, such as Julia DiGrazia and Shannon Lauren Callihan.

We like working with them because it’s all about the music and songs. We retain all the rights to our catalog, unless we wanna go into a deeper deal, and they only make money off a small percentage of our streaming only. Can’t beat it.

What is The Boghouse, and does James or anyone else live there?

It’s house deep in the Pines, where James has lived since the band first started. He moved there just after we recorded our first album, ‘Purgatory Road.’ It used to belong to a genius horticulturalist who had amazing gardens and ponds going there. We’ve used it as a place to rehearse, record, shoot videos for ourselves and others, such as Joe P., and everything else for a decade now.

We recorded ‘Close to Home’ (2021), ‘Pine Barrens Vols. 1 & 2,’ and half of ‘Wheel’ there, the songs without drums.

What are the Pine Barrens Folk Music Oral Histories, what is your involvement with it, and when and how can people hear it?

P.B.F.M.O.H. is a collection of 10 interviews with people who were a part of the 20th Century Folk Music scene down in the Pine Barrens, specifically the ’60s to ’70s when Albert Hall was founded. The interviews are with the musicians themselves, if possible, or their children, spouses or friends. There are 10 narrators, and we mainly talk about the songs related to and the lives of The Albert Brothers, Merce Ridgway and the Pinehawkers, The Pineconers, Jim Albertson, and the ‘Homeplace,’ where folk musicians gathered weekly for decades.

Merce Ridgway Jr. and the Pinehawkers play Albert Hall in 1985. They are among the Pinelands music legends featured in the Pine Barrens Folk Music Oral Histories that the Perkins Center for the Arts and the State Council on the Arts commissioned from Jackson Pines Joe Makoviecki. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE PINELANDS HISTORICAL & CULTURAL PRESERVATION SOCIETY

Do any members of Jackson Pines or anyone else help you with the Pine Barrens Folk Music Oral Histories?

Yes. Cranston (Dean) has done an incredible job engineering the audio for four of them. And James has allowed us to conduct two of the interviews at The Boghouse, of course.

How many hours of the Pine Barrens Folk Music Oral Histories have been recorded?

They total about 12 hours between 10 interviews.

Out of all the Pine Barrens stories you’ve unearthed, which is your favorite and why?

There are so many. And many of the stories we’re gathering aren’t new to the folks telling them, but new to us who haven’t heard them all in one place before. But one many people didn’t know is that Merce Ridgway, who located the Auction Hall in Waretown where the Albert Hall shows began in 1974 and cut the deal to rent it weekly, did so with the very last money in his checking account. For Merce, it was too important to wait until next week’s pay after clamming the Barnegat Bay in his Garvey. He was the kind of guy who had to make it happen, and now. And he made it happen with his last dollar. And thanks to that generosity of spirit on behalf of musical community, Albert Music Hall is still picking and grinning nearly every Saturday night 52 years later. Just like he dreamed it.

When did Jackson Pines debut at Albert Hall?

Well, James and I have been playing there since 2011, when our previous band Thomas Wesley Stern debuted there. But Jackson Pines first played there in 2021, when live shows came back.

Since then, has interest in Pine Barrens music increased?

Maybe. Not because of us, though. The team at the Pinelands Cultural Society, the nonprofit org. that runs Albert Music Hall, is doing such a good job that attendance is up by 75 percent over the last two years. But it seems the usual 50-year cycle of interest in it is back again. There was one in the late 1930s, another revival in the 1970s, and again now. Funny how things work that way. Must be human nature.

What has helped to increase that interest?

Programs like ‘The Pinelands Short Course’ at Stockton (University), where you can hear science lectures, history presentations, and music. ‘Lines on the Pines’ is another event held on the same weekend, which is more vendor based. Programs at Whitesbog or Double Trouble. Local libraries. Environmentalist groups.

Hikers and outdoors enthusiasts have spread the love of the Pines on the internet, which leads to more interest in the local music. History and music social media influencers as well, believe it or not.

Also, data center, warehouse, detention facility plans are pissing people off statewide. Threatening communities’ infrastructure and wildlife. Not to mention the moral repugnancy of it all. This increase in activism to protect these areas leads to the music being revisited.

In the 1960s and ’70s, it was because rapid development of the Pines and Jersey Shore was pissing the locals off. Bands like The Pineconers helped start the Piney Power movement, writing songs about the beauty of the land and water and helped Brendan Byrne decide to protect the Pinelands. ‘Proud to be a Piney’ and ‘Home in the Pines’ are as potent now as they were then. The jetport failed back then, and overdevelopment can now, as well. It’s happening again, and their music is there to meet the moment.

The Pinehawkers and Dorothea Dix Lawrence are featured on the radio in New York City in 1941. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE PINELANDS HISTORICAL & CULTURAL PRESERVATION SOCIETY

What have you enjoyed most working with Dr. Angus Gillespie at Rutgers?

We met him at Rutgers just as he retired, but it’s been lovely working with him. He was the catalyst for the oral histories. I had planned to interview him about the making of ‘Songs of the Jersey Pines and Shore,’ the 1985 album by Merce Ridgway and the Pinehawkers, which Dr. Gillespie helped facilitate.

When the Folklife director from the Perkins Center and the N.J. State Council on the Arts caught wind of that idea, they asked if I could expand it into a full Oral History project. And that’s where it all started.

How did you feel when Jackson Pines were chosen by the Springsteen Center to play one of its America 250 concerts?

It is always an honor to play music or be involved with that excellent endeavor and those folks. Was just talking to the music director today about what we’re gonna play. It’s gonna be a very special night.

Have you played the Avenel PAC before? If so, what do you think of it as a venue?

No. First time! We’re excited to play for everyone, and especially to hear the Joe Cirotti Trio. They absolutely shred. It’s gonna be a great night.

What can folks expect at the show on July 17 at Thompson Park? Is there anything unique about that show?

We’ll be playing a long set, full band with everyone. Lately, we’ve been playing concerts focusing on our original music or shows that zero in on the folk traditions we’ve learned. But on this night, we’ll be playing songs from every one of our original albums, both of our ‘Pine Barrens’ records, as well as new ones from the Halpert Archives that will be on ‘Pine Barrens Vol. 3’ next year.

So, it’s kind of an all-around evening after many shows that are more focused.

Jackson Pines jam with Ocean Avenue Stompers and Danny Clinch in February at The Stone Pony. PHOTO BY MICHAEL KRAVETSKY

What did you enjoy most about playing a Stone Pony anniversary show with Ocean Avenue Stompers?

The hang. The camaraderie. The songs. The sweat stains (and horn spit) on the stage at the end. Everything. That was the best night we’ve had in years. We’re so proud of everyone who came together to play new and very old music that night. And the crowd for supporting our album release of ‘Wheel’ and The Ocean Avenue Stompers’ 10-year anniversary. They’re an important part of that town and scene, and it’s so great to collaborate and quote some of our favorite jams by playing songs from Springsteen’s ‘Seeger Sessions’ to close out The Pine Barrens Stomp. It was too obvious not too, I mean, Asbury Park, Folk Music … 20 years later.

There’s nowhere like the Pony when it’s packed, even in the dead of winter. So grateful they asked us to do it. We’re still buzzing from that night.

Have any summer shows you’d like to announce that you haven’t yet?

We’ll be in Philly on June 26 at Harmonie Hall, as well as Low Dive on July 24 with our buddy Zach King from Perry County, PA. He is like the Jackson Pines of Central Pennsylvania in that he collects old songs and keeps the old tunes from the history of the area he is from alive. We’ll do that boardwalk special and then play Albert Hall together on July 25. It’s gonna be a fun weekend.

I can’t give details yet, but I’ll be appearing at the New Jersey Folk Festival this year on Aug. 29. I’m always honored to be a part of the festival Dr. Gillespie started himself in 1974! He’s since passed the baton and is now Guest of Honor and Director Emeritus.

Are Cranston Dean, Max Carmichael and James Herdman still in Jackson Pines with you and James Black?

Yep. Best band in the land. We’re super grateful for them whenever they can make time in their busy lives to play with us. You’ll see combos of the trio, quartet, and quintet all year and the odd duo show once in a while to throw it back to how it all began.

Any solo projects coming up for the members of Jackson Pines?

Cranston Dean is a singer-songwriter and bandleader in his own right, so I wouldn’t call it a project. But keep an eye out for his new singles and a new record from him sometime in the next year.

When and how will Jackson Pines follow ‘Wheel’ with a new release?

We’re currently working on the songs and arrangements for ‘Pine Barrens Vol. 3.’ No release date, but we’re beginning to work it, and it’s coming next year. We’re also working on a special single release with a very special guest, but more on that in the near future …

Bob Makin has produced Makin Waves since 1988. Follow Makin Waves on Facebook and Instagram and contact Bob at [email protected].

About the author:

New Jersey Stage is proud to be the home of Bob Makin's Makin Waves column since 2017. His Song of the Week column comes out every Friday. He also writes an Album of the Month and Interview of the Month as well.

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