The B-52s formed in 1976 Athens, Georgia, when singer-songwriter Fred Schneider—born in Newark, raised in Belleville, and graduated Shore Regional High School in West Long Branch—drunkenly got up to sing at a Chinese restaurant with a friend. That friend was Kate Pierson, another transplanted Jerseyite, born in Weehawken and raised in Rutherford. Together with Keith Strickland, Cindy Wilson and Ricky Wilson, they formed a band, named it after a popular bouffant hair-do, and played their first gig at a private 1977 party. It went so well, they started driving north to New York City for gig at CBGB. It wasn’t long after that they—with their thrift-store fashion sense and genre-defying material—became the darlings of the post-punk era.
The legendary Chris Blackwell—who started Island Records in 1959—signed them on a lark and their self-titled 1979 debut sold a cool half-mil. By the time their second album came out—1980’s Wild Planet—they were rock stars. Those two albums set the scene for the entire “alternative” sub-genre. When MTV came along in 1981, their obvious visual appeal transcended mere stardom into super-stardom, especially in 1982 with Mesopotamia (produced by David Byrne of Talking Heads) and 1983 with Whammy.
In 1985, work started on Bouncing Off The Satellites but guitarist Ricky Wilson died from AIDS. Sister Cindy Wilson: “he was one of the strongest elements of The B-52s from the beginning.” It took four years but Cosmic Thing—co-produced by Nile Rodgers and Don Was—sold more in 1989 than any other of their projects. A worldwide tour lasted 18 months. But it would prove too much for Wilson who, without her brother, lost her passion for the band. Despite songs like “Rock Lobster,” “Dance This Mess Around,” “Private Idaho,” “Love Shack,” “Roam” and “Deadbeat Club” becoming fixtures on international playlists, Wilson departed in 1990. “I’d Been a B-52 for a long time,” she explained, “and it just felt like time for a change.” So she had a baby.
Four years later, she returned. Time Capsule, in 1998, featured a tribute to Blondie called “Debbie.” The 2002 anthology Nude On The Moon brought renewed attention. Schneider said, “we just did our own thing, which was a combination of rock’n’roll, funk, Fellini, game shows, corn and mysticism.” Funplex, in 2008, was their first new album in 16 years. In 2011, they returned to where they started for a concert project called With The Wild Crowd: Live In Athans GA. In 2013, Keith Strickland stopped touring with the band. “I will continue to be in The B-52s. I will just not tour. My barnstorming days have come to an end, but I wholeheartedly support Cindy, Fred and Kate decision to continue.”
In 2015, they released a rare show from 1979, announcing on their website that, “we opened for Talking Heads at the Berklee Center in Boston just six weeks after our first record was released. We were a little scared of the audience so we kept our heads down and focused—and we danced like mad when there was a break. Ricky was so fierce on the guitar—so intense—it was all so raw and live.”
Earlier this year, they were honored by The Count Basie Center for the Arts when Schneider and Pierson—along with Dramarama from Wayne—were inducted into the venue’s Walk of Fame, at which Pierson noted, “Fred and I are proud to be from New Jersey. It’s old theaters like this, and record stores, and DJs, and students, that keep the love of music going, the genuine love of music.”