JON BON JOVI - THE UN BREAKABLE

THE BELOVED ROCKER LOOKS BACK ON HIS BAND'S RUNAWAY SUCCESS AND REVEALS HOW HE'S RECOVERING FROM CAREERTHREATENING VOCAL ISSUES  

- JEFF NELSON

Jon Bon Jovi is on the rooftop of a Midtown Manhattan photo studio, chivalrously helping a stylist's young assistant back into her leather jacket after she let him borrow it during his People photo shoot. "Thank you, nice lady!" the rock star says graciously, holding out the coat as her arms slide snugly back into the sleeves. More than four decades ago Bon Jovi worked as a gofer some 17 blocks uptown at the New York City recording studio the Power Station. "The biggest thing I learned there was the bigger the star, the nicer the person," he says. "It was the Rolling Stones who would hold the door open for you when you were coming in with the burgers and the coffee." Then an aspiring musician, Bon Jovi notes he "wasn't rubbing elbows with the Rolling Stones, but while you were sweeping the floor or parking their car, you would observe. The bigger stars would take a moment to say, 'How's that demo going?" That stayed with me."

Within a few years Bon Jovi went from running errands to releasing his eponymous band's breakout hit "Runaway"-and soon joining the ranks of the guitar heroes he saw at the Power Station. "I was willing to outwork everybody-I think that's what it came down to," says Bon Jovi, 62. "I definitely wasn't the best at anything. I was just the hardest working, and it was nothing more than the desire to get better every day."