APMF Sunday Sessions Presents: Vini "Maddog" Lopez + Special Guests

The Asbury Park Music Foundation’s recurring series Sundays Sessions hosted by Bobby Bandiera will feature a special intimate performance by Rock and Roll Hall of Fame drummer and Original Beat on E Street, Vini "Maddog" Lopez plus special guests Jarod Clemons and Lisa Lowell. This special benefit show will be on Sunday, October 20th from 3-5pm at APMF, located at 621 Lake Avenue, Asbury Park. The acoustic, singer/storyteller series offers an intimate show with table seating. Proceeds from ticket sales, snacks, drinks and our merchandise, benefit the music education programs for underserved youth in Asbury Park. 

Vincent "Vini" "Mad Dog" Lopez (born January 22, 1949, Neptune Township, New Jersey) is an American drummer. Between 1968 and 1974 Lopez backed Bruce Springsteen in several bands, including Steel Mill and the E Street Band. He also played on Springsteen's first two albums, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. and The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle. Both during and after his time with the E Street Band, Lopez played drums with numerous Jersey Shore bands.

Vini Lopez grew up in Neptune Township, New Jersey where he attended Neptune High School with both Garry Tallent and Southside Johnny. From 1956 to 1962 he played the soprano valve bugle in a Drum and Bugle Corps. Then as a teenager he taught himself the drums and began playing with Buzzy Lubinsky, a drummer/DJ based in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Lubinsky's father was Herman Lubinsky, owner of Savoy Records in Newark. Lubinsky would subsequently act as a mentor for the young Lopez. From 1964, with encouragement from Lubinsky, he began to try out for local bands. After a failed audition for The Storytellers, a band which included Bill Chinnock and Danny Federici, he successfully auditioned for The Blazers led by Sonny Kenn. They subsequently became Sonny & The Sounds and then Sonny & The Starfires. After graduating from high school in 1967, he continued to play with several local bands. These included the Downtown Tangiers Band, with Federici, Chinnock and Garry Tallent and Moment of Truth with Tallent, Tom Worieo, and Ricky DeSarno (guitars). DeSarno and Lopez would become regular collaborators after Lopez left the E Street Band. In 1970 Lopez worked at Carvers boatyard in Point Pleasant, New Jersey.

In 1968 The Upstage Club was opened at 702 Cookman Avenue in Asbury Park, New Jersey. The club would subsequently play a central role in the history of both Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band and Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes. In February 1969 Springsteen and Lopez got together with Danny Federici and Vinnie Roslin at The Upstage and formed a new band. Vini got in touch with Carl “Tinker” West and he became the band's manager and mentor. They initially played as Child but in November 1969 changed their name to Steel Mill to avoid confusion with another band. Springsteen and Lopez had already met each other on several occasions. On April 22, 1966 they both played with their respective bands, The Castiles and Sonny & The Starfires, in a battle of the bands competition at the Matawan-Keyport Roller Drome in Matawan, New Jersey.[9] During the early 1970s Lopez and Springsteen would go on to play together in several short-lived bands based out of the Upstage. These included Bruce Springsteen & The Friendly Enemies, The Sundance Blues Band, Dr. Zoom & The Sonic Boom Band and The Bruce Springsteen Band. Most of these bands included a core membership of Danny Federici, David Sancious, Garry Tallent, Steve Van Zandt and Southside Johnny. The latter band also included Delores Holmes and Barbara Dinkins. Dinkins would be replaced by Francine Daniels

In 1972, after Bruce Springsteen signed a recording contract with Columbia Records, he returned to The Upstage to recruit a band to record and then tour in support of his debut album, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.. Together with Danny Federici, Garry Tallent, Clarence Clemons and David Sancious, Lopez was a founding member of what eventually became the E Street Band. It was also around this time that Clive Davis first gave Lopez his "Mad Dog" nickname. By 1973 they had recorded a second album with Springsteen, The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle. Other recordings from this era featuring Lopez would later be released on Tracks and 18 Tracks.

In April 2014, Lopez was inducted by Bruce Springsteen into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the E Street Band and is now an ambassador for the Rock Hall.

Jarod Clemons, 20, is the son of the Big Man and Jacqueline Monteau of Florida. The music comes naturally to Jarod Clemons, a singer-songwriter rooted in rock. His father was the world-famous saxophonist for the E Street Band, and his mom, Jacqueline Monteau of Florida, was a singer. “Both parents really inspired me,” Clemons said. “Dad told me you can’t limit yourself. I was only playing drums and I said, ‘Why limit myself?’ Only I can tell myself how far I can go with something.”

Most of us know Lisa Lowell from her backing vocals with various artists, perhaps most famously as a member of Bruce Springsteen’s Sessions Band in 2006. Lowell’s also honed her prodigious chops for the past several years with Garland Jeffreys, Sheryl Crow, Buster Poindexter, Jon Bon Jovi, Cissy Houston, Chuck Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Ashford and Simpson, Bobby Blue Bland, Percy Sledge, Stephen Bishop, and B.B. King, to name only a few. Lisa - a self-described “journeywoman” vocalist, singer/songwriter and arranger - is the daughter of a jazz singer and a jazz drummer. Her new record, Beautiful Behavior, smokes and seethes with lush romanticism, love and loss. She’s joined by a spectacular cast of New York studio musicians like Hugh McCracken, Joel Diamond, Bill Holloman, Larry Campbell, Marc Shulman, and Adrian Harpham as well as some special guests (Bruce Springsteen, Patti Scialfa, Soozie Tyrell). Lowell just recently sang backup for Bruce Springsteen's latest venture, Western Stars, and appears in the accompanying video.

Doors open at 2:30.

*Donations will graciously be accepted, though they do NOT count as an entry ticket.