The stage at The Lizzie Rose Music Room in Tuckerton.
Lou Reichert is the kind of guy who just can’t relax.
“I’m not someone who can sit in front of the TV all day, do lunch and dinner, and go to bed,” says the Little Egg Harbor resident.
“This keeps me busy,” he adds, referring to The Lizzie Rose Music Room, an intimate live performance venue in a beautifully restored 1860 Sea Captain’s House, located in the small coastal borough of Tuckerton. Reichert operates the facility as a nonprofit organization that attracts a wide range of musicians.
Reichert is a blues lover at heart, and it was his interest in bringing blues bands to the area that set off a chain of events leading to the music room. It started when he was driving down Route 9 and noticed four vacant Victorian homes and thought one of them might offer a good spot for live music.
“I just told the owners what I had in mind and they said, ‘Okay, why don’t you give it a try.’ ”
“That was 10 years ago. Since then, more than 200 acts have taken the stage at Lizzie Rose. “The challenge at first was to see if this would work,” says Reichert. “You have to crawl before you can walk. And we did.”
The venue’s lineup includes pretty much every kind of music genre you can imagine: blues, folk, jazz, rock, bluegrass, singer-songwriters, and hot tribute bands like Everyday People (Sly and the Family Stone) and StoneFlower (Santana). Even a Celtic group or two is thrown in, for good measure.
The only problem is, Lizzie Rose isn’t exactly located in a highly populated area of our highly populated state. It sits along a two-lane highway wedged between wetlands and the pinelands, with Long Beach Island its closest Jersey Shore neighbor.
Lou Reichert at Lizzie Rose Music Room.
Says Reichert: “We’re not North Jersey. We’re not New York. We’re unique.”
And if you anticipate lubricating your experience with some brews, or grabbing a burger and fries before the show, that won’t be happening.
“We’re not a bar,” says Reichert. “We’re not a restaurant. We’re strictly a listening room.”
Yes, it’s all about the music. And on that score Lizzie Rose delivers. “We only have 75 seats and every seat is the best seat,” says Reichert.
With the stage situated in front of gorgeous stained-glass windows and below an open 30-foot turret, the sound is unique to the room. “Everybody says how great the acoustics are,” Reichert notes.
Including the musicians, many of whom return to play every year. Some audience favorites include blues singer Shemekia Copeland, singer-songwriter Dana Fuchs, and the Misty Blues band from Berkshire County, Massachusetts.
Lizzie Rose presents 8 to 10 shows a month. Ticket prices range from $30 to $50 a show, and a yearly membership, available for $50, provides advance notification of upcoming events, early access to tickets, and discounts to selected shows. Parking is free.
Reichert describes the venue’s typical audience as “gray hairs.”
“We’ve got a bazillion retirement communities around here, in Toms River, Tuckerton and Manahawkin,” he says. “There are some young folks thrown in, but they’re not generally interested in our kind of music.”
However, he says most of the shows sell well. “It’s mostly couples, so with only 75 seats you only need to sell about 35 pairs of tickets to have a full house.” And even though the club is off the beaten path, people come from throughout the state. “We draw as far north as Freehold and south as Cape May.”
Katie Henry will perform at Lizzie Rose Music Room, Feb. 14.
Reichert says the most difficult part of running Lizzie Rose is programming. Some acts are out of their price range. Some, frankly, don’t want to be seen playing a 75-seat venue in the middle of the Jersey wetlands. And some simply experience circumstances that are out of their control.
“Recently, we were working on getting Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul & Mary). It was going to happen. But then we got a call three or four months ago that he was in hospice, and then he passed away.”
Arranging accommodations for the acts is also challenging because there are few places nearby to stay. So Reichert will give an act what he calls “buy-out money,” which bands can use to secure their own accommodations.
Despite the limitations, Lizzie Rose remains a popular music destination. “For our size, we’ve been very successful,” says Reichert, whose wife Marsha helps with ticket sales and other office tasks.
The most demanding, and scary, part of the past 10 years was working through the COVID lockdown. Luckily, Reichert has a friend who owns the nearby Atlantic Shore Pines Campground.
“During the pandemic we spent two summers putting on shows out there,” he says. “We called it The Pavilion in the Pines Summer Concerts presented by Lizzie Rose Music Room.”
Reichert is relieved they made it though and that the operation is back to normal, which means depending on ticket sales, donations and sponsorships from local businesses to stay afloat — and that’s without anyone, other than the talent, getting paid.
Guy Davis will perform at Lizzie Rose Music Room, Feb. 16.
“This is all volunteer work. Nobody’s getting paid here, not even me,” says Reichert. “But I’m okay. I’m comfortable. I’m retired. I have a pension, and I do some part-time gigs.”
The group has about 40 volunteers who work on a rotating basis. “We have a stage manager, a house manager, and a person who closes up,” says Reichert. “It’s a great group. We do it because we enjoy it. We just try to have fun with it.
“The perk is getting to hear great music. There’s usually a friendly competition to work a night when there’s a great act. Like in April, Martin Barre, the original Jethro Tull guitarist, is coming in. That will be a big show.”
Paid or unpaid, operating a concert venue that runs about 100 shows a year is a heck of a lot of work. So it’s a good thing Reichert doesn’t like to relax. What is even more impressive is that the man is 80 years old.
“I’m in good health. I stay active. I’ve been cycling since I turned 50. I discovered spinning and got hooked. I continue to do two classes a week.”
But it still begs the question: How long will Reichert keep up the pace at Lizzie Rose?
“Well, I had planned to give it up this year. But I decided to make it open-ended,” he says. “I don’t want to step away until I can be confident I have people in place who can handle the booking and promoting at the level we have now. If my health stays the same, we’ll just see how it goes.”
Upcoming performers at The Lizzie Rose Music Room in Tuckerton include The Billy Walton Band, Feb. 7; Rachel Z & Omar Hakim, Feb. 8; Katie Henry, Feb. 14; Peter Karp, Feb. 15; Guy Davis, Feb. 16; and James Maddock, Feb. 21. Visit lizzierosemusic.com.
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