In 1974, Jack Roig and Butch Pielka bought a bar sight unseen in Asbury Park, New Jersey, a faded, burned-out beach town where no one wanted to be. They named it the Stone Pony and turned it into a rock club that Bruce Springsteen would soon call home and a dying town would call its beating heart. But the bar had to fight to survive. Despite its success in launching and attracting rockers like Stevie Van Zandt, “Southside” Johnny Lyon, and Springsteen, the Stone Pony—like everything else in Asbury Park over the past half century—could weather the tides of a depressed city for only so long. How did the Stone Pony beat the odds and become an international rock pilgrimage site for Springsteen fans, punk rockers, jam bands, and pop, indie, and alternative musicians? And how did it continue to inspire and influence a hall-of-fame list of New Jersey and national rock stars? This thrilling oral history of the Stone Pony is the detailed chronicle of a proud and unique cultural mecca blooming i