Southside Johnny And The Asbury Jukes - This Time It's for Real (Remastered) (1977/2017) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

This Time It's for Real is the second album by New Jersey band Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, featuring three compositions by Bruce Springsteen and Steven Van Zandt, as well as an additional five by the latter. Like their first album, I Don't Want To Go Home, there are a number of guest artists and duets, a trend that would be dropped for their next album, Hearts of Stone. "Check Mr. Popeye" features Kenny "Popeye" Pentifallo on vocals with The Coasters on background vocals. The track "First Night" features the Satins on background vocals and Steven Van Zandt on duet vocals. "Little Girl So Fine" features background vocals by the Drifters.

According to Van Zandt, the two new Springsteen/Van Zandt compositions ("Love on the Wrong Side of Town" and "Little Girl So Fine") were written, at least in part, during recording sessions at Columbia Recording Studio in December 1976. Versions of both songs with unfinished lyrics appear on Van Zandt's compilation album The Early Work, recorded in 1976-77. A third composition, "When You Dance", was written by the pair when they were both members of the Bruce Springsteen Band in 1971.

AllMusic Review by Mark Deming
Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes' second album suffers a bit in comparison to their debut, I Don't Want to Go Home; while the first album boasted a number of songs that would become staples of the band's killer live show for years to come (such as "The Fever," "Broke Down Piece of Man," and "I Don't Want to Go Home"), This Time It's for Real kicks off with a powerhouse, roof-raising anthem (the title cut) and never comes up with another song that hits quite as hard. Most of This Time It's for Real finds Southside and the Jukes (and their behind-the-scenes mastermind, Miami Steve Van Zandt) in a soulful mood, with vintage R&B groups the Coasters, the Drifters, and the Five Satins lending vocals to three tunes. While much of the album stays in a mid-tempo R&B groove, the band is in superb form throughout (especially the truly mighty Miami Horns), and Southside Johnny more than holds his own as a soul belter, no mean feat with some of the great men of R&B on hand as guests. A stack of fine songs from Van Zandt (and his old buddy Bruce Springsteen) adds the icing to the cake; while purists might wish it rocked harder, This Time It's for Real proves that Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes were one of the finest R&B-based show bands of the 1970s.

Tracklist:
01 - This Time It's for Real
02 - Without Love
03 - Check Mr. Popeye (2016 Remastered)
04 - First Night (2016 Remastered)
05 - She Got Me Where She Wants Me
06 - Some Things Just Don't Change (2016 Remastered)
07 - Little Girl so Fine (2016 Remastered)
08 - I Ain't Got the Fever No More (2016 Remastered)
09 - Love On the Wrong Side of Town
10 - When You Dance


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