September always felt like the first month of the year to me. It’s when I would start school every year. It’s when the oppressive summer heat finally dissipated. And it’s when I was always so ready for football when my beloved Mets would invariably fall flat. It’s also the month that my grandparents, mom and myself would huddle around our small black’n’white television to watch Newark’s Jerry Lewis sing “The Song” every year at the end of the MDA telethon and wait for him to cry. “The Song” was “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from the 1945 Broadway musical Carousel. And he always cried and we always donated. September just doesn’t seem the same without it. It enters “The Hot 100” at #74.

We’re got another power-packed issue this month. Our “Up-Close” is with the President of the New Jersey Hall of Fame, Steve Edwards, who dared me to come sing a duet with a hologram of Tommy James on “Mony Mony” and then post it on social media. (I’m thinking about it.) Their new museum in East Rutherford is part of the American Dream complex and I hear it’s stunning. Looks like I gotta take a trip there as, from what Steve says, there’s a multitude of amazing experiences one could have…including flying to the moon, like Sinatra once sang.

“Jersey History” this month discovers Rose Marie McCoy of Teaneck who wrote my favorite Elvis song. In fact, she wrote 857 songs that 400 singers have covered. How could she not be in the Songwriters Hall of Fame? How could Tommy James not be in the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame? But who am I to ask such existential questions? “Visual Sound” has that angry “One In A Million” that Janis Ian wrote and sang with Joan Baez. It also has Asbury Juke Glenn Alexander’s father-daughter duet on the last song Janis Joplin ever wrote. Besides clips from Alicia Keys and Eddie Murphy (both from Englewood), we found a rare 10-minute prog-rock epic from none other than the late alt-folk darling Melanie. You’ll also meet Twisted Livin’ from South Jersey and read about Newark author Philip Roth’s brilliant 1974 My Life As A Man. Here’s hoping you have as much fun reading it as I had writing it.