After 40 years (throat permitting), Bon Jovi rocks on

Like a good father should, John Bongiovi Sr. took his son to a some music teachers.
One was at the school, one was private, both said the same: The kid was not a singer.
Except now he is one. As Jon Bon Jovi (shown here), he’s one of the top-selling rock frontmen. His band has soared beyond 100 million records; five of his Grammy nominations (including his one win) are for vocals.
“I pride myself on having been a true vocalist,” he said. “I’ve sung with Pavrotti. I know how to sing; I’ve studied the craft for 40 years.”
That adds to the poignancy of a four-part documentary that debuts Friday (April 26) on Hulu and Disney+. Alongside a history of his band, it focuses on Bon Jovi struggling with vocal issues – trying other steps and then resorting to surgery.
“I’m doing very well and sang for my first time in public just the other night,” Bon Jovi told the Television Critics Association in February, 19 months after his surgery, “so I’m feeling good. When we shot this, there was no definitive answer.”
For most fans, the vocal subtleties aren’t what matters anyway. “Jon’s great strength is creating big, powerful rock choruses,” his friend Bruce Springsteen says in the film.
That propelled the band (also called Bon Jovi) that keyboardist David Bryan calls “five guys from nowhere.”
Well, actually from working-class New Jersey towns like Sayreville, where Bon Jovi graduated from high school. None of the guys he knew went to college, he says in the film, but three of his closest friends went into the military.
That might have been a logical choice for Bon Jovi; his father (a hair-stylist) and mother (a florist) were ex-Marines. But by then, he was obsessed with music.
His mom had given him a guitar when he was 7 or 8, but he ignored it until his teens began; the timing was perfect.
New Jersey had a strong club scene, where rockers – led by Springsteen and Southside Johnny – ruled. It also had an 18-year-old drinking age. By 15, he was getting in; by 16 or so, he was onstage with his band.
He brought that Jersey work ethic. “He was a hard-working guy,” Springsteen says in the film. When his first single (“Runaway”) was rejected by every label, Bon Jovi went to a disc jockey at a new New York station; interest soared and a record deal followed.
Another advantage was visual; in the film, the former Dorothea Hartley describes their romance succinctly: “I’m shallow; he was cute.”
Others also noticed this. Bon Jovi had a side career acting in movies and as the love interest in 10 episodes of TV’s “Ally McBeal.” Many women have cheered him from the front row; Hartley, however, married him.
They’ve been married for 35 years; for 40, he’s had some of the same bandmates and the same label. Record-company presidents? “I’ve seen them go. I’ve seen the buildings come and go …. The only thing that doesn’t change is: I’m still at the same label.”
This stability blocked some types of songwriting. “I didn’t break up with people, like Taylor (Swift) did all the time,” he told the TCA.
So he used co-writers, imagination and an expanded scope. He hit No. 1 early, with “Livin’ on a Prayer,” “Bad Medicine,” “You Give Love a Bad Name” and more. His band has reportedly 130 million records and drawn audiences totaling 34 million.
Bon Jovi skipped drugs; others didn’t. The film mentions one rehab for drummer Tico Torres, two for bassist Alec John Such, three for Richie Sambora. Such was fired from the band in 1992 and died of a heart attack in 2022. Sambora – a key force as lead guitarist and as the prime co-writer and co-vocalist – quit in 2013, after 30 years.
And Jon Bon Jovi just kept going. Gotham Chopra, the film’s director, sensed his impact whenever he visited his parents’ homeland in India.
“Bon Jovi was what America was,” he said. “All my cousins wanted to come to America to sort of have crazy hair and sing Bon Jovi songs.”
That’s exactly what Jon Bon Jovi – with less-crazy hair at 62 – wants to do now. He talks optimistically about the film, the new album (“Forever,” arriving June 7) and its single (“Legendary”). Still, he said, he’ll wrap things up “if I can’t go out and do two-and-a-half hours a night, four nights a week” at sheer, Bon Jovi intensity.