Asbury Park’s Last Troubadour
by Helen Pike
Posted by The Coaster on 08/12/04

Like the hotel lounge he’s performing in, Asbury Park native Danny Gallagher has been many things over the years.

Beginning with the Eddie Fisher classic “Oh My Papa” sung at the age of five on the stage of the old Holy Spirit Lyceum -- “when I was singing for the nuns” – he’s reincarnated himself musically with bands that sang doo wop, blue grass, country and western, traditional Irish melodies, the blues, and a little bit of rock and roll.

At 56, the itinerant minstrel figures he’s been singing professionally for 35 years. The auburn-haired Gallagher has a Texas homeboy look that reminds you of the rockabilly group ZZ Top. Only he doesn’t sport the intimidating sunglasses. Unlike that group of arena-touring musicians, Gallagher has performed the circuit of neighborhood bars, Dublin pubs, benefit concerts and Denmark coffeehouses. He’s also amassed quite a repertoire, including songs he’s written.

“You got those guys who rely on electric guitars to make noise,” Gallagher explained. “Then you’ve got those who, regardless of the kind of guitar they play, take you for a ride.”

One of those musicians is Bruce Springsteen for whom Gallagher was an early roadie as well as a roommate, sharing his Webb Street garage apartment across from the Miramar with the driven rocker.

“Bruce could send you out the window with just his lyrics,” Gallagher recalled of those early days in Springsteen’s songwriting career.

Flying Hearts is the name of Gallagher’s latest combo that offers three-part harmony and lyrics with something to say to fans of the genre and to those who want a night out listening to music that isn’t over-miked. One of Gallagher’s instruments is his pleasing voice, occasionally scratched by nicotine; the other is a well-used steel guitar with a built-in resonator that amplifies the sound. He’s teamed up with baritone Lee Hoelle of Ocean Township and alto Bonnie Johnson of Ocean Grove, both of whom also play guitar.

“Bonnie and I alternate singing the melody,” Gallagher added.

Flying Hearts sings every Thursday night at the Oak Lounge in the Berkeley Carteret Hotel, beginning at 8 p.m. Their act brings some welcomed diversity to Asbury Park’s current music scene and attention to an under-utilized venue that should have more performers like this. Flying Hearts also generously allow other musicians to jam with them. There is no cover charge.

The band is booked through August and Gallagher says this could be his last stand at the Shore before he returns to Ireland for good. He’s waiting out the birth of his ninth grandchild, a family reunion planned for December, and is taking care of some health issues acquired from years of hard living in Colorado, Texas, Washington, and Ireland.

“I don’t regret any of it,” he said.

After that, it’s au revoir Asbury Park even though “when you grow up in Asbury Park, everything else seems kind of a bore,” according to Gallagher.

Gallagher was raised by a father who loved music and took the youngster to some of the resort’s more well-known watering holes, beginning with Jimmy Isola’s on Kingsley Street and First Avenue where he heard Eddie King sing.

“He was a really well-liked piano player,” said Gallagher of the man often rumored to be the father of actor Jack Nicholson. “When he sang, people got quiet and listened.”

It’s ironic that Gallagher is living in a second-story studio carved out of King’s 1930s song-and-dance school on Cookman Avenue where sisters Lorraine and June Nicholson had studied. Others might remember the building as the site of Maggie Hogan’s ground-breaking lesbian nightclub, Chez Elle. Like so much of Asbury Park’s history, this building, too, is for sale, and its immediate future, like that of Gallagher’s, is uncertain.

“My father also took me to the Kingsley Lounge,” Gallagher said, referring to the former residential hotel that is now a low-income high-rise a couple of blocks north of the Berkeley Carteret. “I heard Arthur Bey play there. Arthur was the pipe organist at Convention Hall who had a contract to play the hall every week. His lounge act was pretty popular, too.”

Where the senior Gallagher didn’t take his son was to the original Oasis on First Avenue and Comstock Street where Rod Van Note “sang dirty songs and limericks. It was a real neighborhood hang-out.”

In the early ‘70s when music started becoming serious business in Asbury Park, the real hang-out for aspiring performers was the Upstage, the innovative after-hours music club located downtown on Cookman and run by hairdressers Tom and Margaret Potter. Both Gallagher and Hoelle sang there.

Together with Johnson, the trio performs the kind of story-telling music that brings the chef out of the kitchen and a small but steady influx of patrons in off the hotel lobby. Even the woman working her Blackberry and cell phone eventually put her electronic gadgets aside to listen, like this classic from Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman:

A friend came around.
Tried to clean up this town,
His ideas made some people mad.
But he trusted his crowd,
So he spoke right out loud
And they lost the best friend they had