John Cafferty

In real life, Peter Falk was not Columbo, Ted Danson is not Sam Malone, Daniel Radcliffe is not Harry Potter and John Cafferty is not Eddie Wilson, the rock star in the 1983 box-office flop Eddie and the Cruisers, for which Cafferty wrote the chart-topping soundtrack.

And quite unlike the main character in the movie – spoiler alert: Eddie crashes his car and vanishes without a trace, ending his rock ‘n’ roll fantasies forever – Cafferty’s been thrilling audiences as much as ever in the decades since the film’s release. Using a blend of exceptional songwriting skills, musicianship and showmanship, he’s demonstrated a timeless appeal and continues to draw thousands from across several generations, despite the fact that there’s a 36-year gap between his two most recent albums.

MUSICAL BEGINNINGS, BEAVER BROWN

Born and raised in Narragansett, Rhode Island, Cafferty started playing guitar when he was 14, at the dawn of the mid-’60s British Invasion, and formed his first band, The Nightcrawlers, at age 15. After renaming the group The East-West Blues Band, they played blues, R&B and rock covers at school dances and small clubs before breaking up after graduation, when Cafferty became lead singer of The Luvin’ Kynd, a rock group that included drummer Kenny Jo Silva.

In 1972, when The Luvin’ Kynd disbanded, Cafferty and Silva formed Beaver Brown – named after a color they saw listed on a can of paint – with four well-known players on the Rhode Island club circuit: guitarist Garry “Guitar” Gramolini, bassist Pat Lupo, keyboardist Bobby Cotoia and saxophonist Paul Jackson. With a hard-edged but equally soulful sound (largely influenced by The J. Geils Band’s tough-but passionate vibe), the band served up a cocktail of classic R&B stirred into vintage rock ‘n’ roll, with Cafferty, the primary songwriter, singing with a balance of Wilson Pickett’s sentimentality and Mick Jagger’s bravado.

After playing their first-ever gig at Providence College in ‘73, Beaver Brown became one of the tightest, most sought-after bands in Rhode Island. In ‘77, after Michael “Tunes” Antunes had replaced Jackson on sax, the group landed a weekly gig at Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel in Providence and throughout ‘78 and ‘79 they played up and down the Northeast corridor and were a frequent act at Toad’s Place in New Haven. Often compared to Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band for their blue-collar image, tireless work ethic and dynamic live shows, the band became nearly as popular in beach-resort towns like Asbury Park, New Jersey as they were in New England; they’ve opened Springsteen multiple times over the decades.

FIRST SINGLES, EDDIE AND THE CRUISERS SOUNDTRACK

In September 1980, after self-releasing the singles “Wild Summer Nights” and “Tender Years,” both of which saw steady airplay along the Eastern Seaboard, Beaver Brown made their New York debut at The Bottom Line. Despite that high-profile gig and the consistent popularity of their live shows, however, major labels ignored the group except to write terse rejection letters saying they sounded too much like Springsteen. The band’s fortunes reversed in 1983, however, when Kenny Vance, a longtime fan who was the music supervisor for the movie Eddie and the Cruisers, hired Cafferty to write a few songs for the film. After hearing how well Cafferty’s tracks captured the movie’s mood, director Martin Davidson asked him to write the entire score.

Though the movie was a box-office dud, the album – recorded at Normandy Sound in Warren, Rhode Island by musician-turned-engineer Phil Greene – rocketed up the charts, reaching #10 in the Billboard Top 200. The song “On the Dark Side” hit #1 in Billboard‘s Top Rock Tracks chart and #7 in the Billboard Hot 100 while the second single, “Tender Years, peaked at #7 in the Billboard Hot 100. In 1984, the now full-fledged rock stars – officially renamed “John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band” – toured North America, including stops at The Channel in Boston and The Living Room in Providence, and appeared on the 1984/85 MTV New Year’s Eve Special with Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, UB40, General Public and Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

TOUGH ALL OVER, COBRA, ROCKY IV, ROADHOUSE, EDDIE LIVES!

After signing with the CBS imprint Scotti Bros. Records in 1985, the band recorded its first non-soundtrack album, Tough All Over (also at Normandy Sound); the title track hit #1 in the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart, the single “C-I-T-Y” reached the top 40 and “Voice of America’s Sons” became the theme song of the movie Cobra. In May, the band opened for KISS at Boston Garden, followed by a North American tour and their appearances in Japan. Cafferty’s solo recording of “Hearts on Fire” (written by Vince DeCola, Ed Fruge and Joe Esposito) was featured in the movie Rocky IV.

In 1988, the band recorded Roadhouse, a commercial disaster compared to their previous two efforts, but the supporting tour included sold-out shows at several major venues including the Providence Civic Center and the Hartford Civic Center in addition to concerts at Toad’s Place and The Channel, proving that their diehard New England fanbase was as devoted as ever. In August 1989, Scotti Bros. issued what became their final major-label studio outing, Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives!, which sold poorly and resulted in the label dropping the group from its roster.

1990S, 2000S

The 1990s included a major lineup change for The Beaver Brown Band, with Silva departing and being replaced by former Tavares drummer Jackie Santos, Dean Cassell taking over for Lupo and Steve Burke replacing Cotoia. The group continued to be wildly popular at live gigs across New England, playing Rhode Island venues like The Rustic (Coventry) and the Sandywoods Center (Tiverton), Toad’s Place, The Sting and the Oakdale Theatre in Connecticut, the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom in New Hampshire and The Matterhorn in Stowe, Vermont. Scotti Bros. released two Eddie and the Cruisers albums of Cafferty-penned songs, The Unreleased Tapes (1991) and Live and In Concert (1992), and Cafferty’s “Get a Life” appeared on the soundtrack for the 1998 film There’s Something About Mary, which also included songs by Jonathan Richman and The Lemonheads.

In the 2000s, the band headlined regularly across North America including shows at the Hatch Memorial Shell in Boston and multiple gigs at the Mohegan Sun Resort & Casino in Connecticut, where fans from across the globe often asked Cafferty to sign his autograph “Eddie.” In 2012, John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band were inducted into the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame, and in August 2021 they were the first group to play at the Providence Performing Arts Center since the start of the Covid pandemic in early 2020, sharing the bill with a New Jersey-based band that’s been compared to Springsteen and The E Street Band at least as often as Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band: Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes.

SOUND OF WAVES

In April 2025, Oregon-based Moonstone Music issued Sound of Waves, the band’s first new album since the release of Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives! nearly 37 years before. In an interview with PopEntertainment a few weeks after the album dropped, Cafferty talked about how the 13-track collection of his original tunes came together and how fortunate he’s been to be able to pursue his musical dreams throughout his life.

“We haven’t recorded any new music in 37 years, but we’ve played new music in clubs and concert halls, and I’ve written new music over the years. We just haven’t recorded it [since] we’ve been out of the record business, so to speak,” he said. “I always thought that I was going to record the songs that I’d written in the interim, but when I sat down to do it, all these new songs came out. It was a reflection of how I feel now. When I look over my shoulder, I see a life spent on doing something of my choosing. I’m blessed to have had that choice.”

(by D.S. Monahan)