Memories from the Meadowbrook

Book excerpt: It became a home-away-from-home for America’s “greatest generation.” “Coming to you live from Frank Dailey’s Meadowbrook, Route 23, the Newark-Pompton Turnpike in Cedar Grove, New Jersey,” said the announcer in those all-so-familiar radio broadcasts beamed at home and abroad. This is where Frank Sinatra sang with the Dorsey Brothers in the age of swing and the big bands. Glenn Miller. Harry James. Kay Kraser. All played here, and more. It’s time came and – oh, so quickly – went. In the 1960s, it made history again at a premiere dinner-theater in the round, drawing Van Johnson and scores of other headliners of the day. Finally, it became a rock ‘n’ roll venue, drawing the likes of Duran Duran, Cyndi Lauper, and The Romantics, until one late evening its last DJ spun Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood,” not knowing it marked an eerie farewell to arguably America’s greatest music venue of its time.