The Bar Jukebox Will Never Go Out of Style

I was drawn to bar jukeboxes years before I could order a drink. My father was a creature of habit, and on most Fridays after he punched out from his job as an airline mechanic, you could find him at one of his favorite haunts, wearing his navy-blue work jacket with “Bert” written in cursive on the oval patch over his pocket.

There was the members-only bar at the American Legion; the White Elephant, a lounge with a neon elephant sign over the entrance; and the Three Pines, a tavern with loaded potato skins and an all-vinyl jukebox. The bartender at the Three Pines would serve me a Coca-Cola with a neon-red maraschino cherry lanced through with a plastic sword, and my father would slide me quarters for the jukebox. It was filled with classic 45s and I’d play songs I knew he loved, like The Doors’ “Riders on the Storm,” Blood, Sweat & Tears’ “Spinning Wheel,” or “Folsom Prison Blues” by Johnny Cash.

These days when you find a good bar jukebox, it’s something to appreciate. The best ones are usually at places on the dive bar spectrum…

These days when you find a good bar jukebox, it’s something to appreciate. The best ones are usually at places on the dive bar spectrum, whether it’s a proper dive or a well-worn neighborhood bar. Among my favorite models still standing is the haunted jukebox at Earnestine & Hazel’s in Memphis; the rock classics–filled jukebox at WXOU Radio Bar in the West Village; the one at Jimmy’s Corner in Times Square that’s stacked with old-school soul and R&B; and Rudy’s Bar & Grill in Hell’s Kitchen, where you can play Steely Dan’s “Black Cow” next to the corner table where the band used to hang out in the ’70s.

I have nothing against well-curated Spotify playlists. Good music is a reason I like hanging out courtside at bars. But these days the digital jukebox has taken over bars due to convenience’s sake and real estate. (A proper jukebox weighs a ton and can take up a lot of space and, like a vintage neon sign, can be persnickety and require expensive service calls.)

But, like bars themselves, a jukebox filled with records or CDs represents a moment in time. There’s a history to the generations of regulars who punched in C-16 to play Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” (the most-played jukebox song in America, according to the Amusement and Music Operators Association). With a digital jukebox, you get endless selections but you sacrifice the thrill of discovery earned from flipping back and forth through the display cards. And forget about the TouchTunes app, where you can select a song from your barstool and even pay an extra credit to bump to the front of the queue. That’s a jukebox experience I can’t get behind.

On my first visit, Billy [Penza] shut down a Metallica rock-block a couple of dudes had programmed. “Come on, it’s two o’clock in the afternoon…”

Billymark’s West, one of New York’s remaining dive bars, has a digital jukebox, but what makes it one of my favorites is that the owners, brothers Mark and Billy Penza, apply their encyclopedic music industry knowledge to offer commentary on your song choice. On my first visit, Billy shut down a Metallica rock-block a couple of dudes had programmed. “Come on, it’s two o’clock in the afternoon,” said Penza. “That’s too early for Metallica.” And then when the opening chords of my pick, The Jam’s “Town Called Malice,” filled the room, Penza lit up and asked if I had played it. When I nodded, he said, “Great song,” cracked open a longneck Miller Lite, and placed it in front of me.

Each Friday on my Substack newsletter, Last Call, I host Dive Bar Jukebox, where I ask writers, chefs, bartenders, musicians, and other interesting characters the question: “If we were hanging out together at a bar and I put 10 credits on the jukebox, what songs would you punch in and why?” With dozens of shared playlists, it’s been enlightening to see the passion that goes into each person’s song picks. Like the mixtapes of my youth I used to spend hours compiling, a well-thought-out playlist also comes with a deep cut of vulnerability. The same can be said of standing by yourself in front of a bar jukebox, soaked in the neon glow as you punch in your song choices and wait for the first notes.

The other night I was at Commonwealth in Park Slope, Brooklyn. There was a beautiful jukebox in the corner, filled with 100 custom-mix CDs from owner Ray Gish’s personal collection, with 2,000 handwritten song titles that appealed to my Gen-X sensibilities. According to Gish, the jukebox doesn’t get much play these days, and he was happy to see somebody show it the attention it deserved, though he did employ a firm “No Morrissey” rule and asked me not to play “Lost in the Supermarket” because it skipped.

I punched in around a dozen songs, including “Virginia Plain,” “Sway,” “Vicious,” “Rough Boys,” “Pictures of Lily,” and “Alex Chilton.” The momentary pause between songs as the mechanical arm selected and played each CD gave me a bit of performance anxiety, but as my songs filled the room of regulars, there were no complaints. Gish even pulled up a stool next to me and handed me a beer.