Re-Run
I know AJ, along with others, will be interested in this. From Badlands, a project long whispered about...
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN - Born To Run
(30th Anniversary Edition)
Yes, it really is 30 years since the release of Bruce's classic album and in August a three disc edition of the album will be reissued in a deluxe package. The set will contain the original album remastered (and we would guess in 5.1sorround sound) plus replicated memorabilia from the era and two discs full of rarities. The "bonus" discs will contain tons of rare and un-broadcast concert footage from 1975 along with unearthed documentary footage and contemporaneous interviews with Bruce himself and all the major participants in the album's creation. This will be a deluxe package to treasure as Bruce himself has been heavily involved in the entire reissue project!
Danny Federici's fight has ended.
Before I was ready or able to post about Bruce Springsteen's political stands comes the sad news that Danny Federici has passed. Federici played accordion and various keyboards with Springsteen over the past five decades. He was a founding member of the E Street Band...
It seems we all grew up together.0dysseus,
I felt this was as good a place as any to ask. I haven't seen any of your comments on "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions" or "Magic" (perhaps I've overlooked them). What did you think of both?
Sad, sad news on the Danny Federici front too. I haven't been a Springsteen fan as long as your good self - come with the territory, being 17 and all - but in the occasional interviews I've seen with the man he came across as a great guy, and naturally his contributions to the E Street Band albums are many. A sad loss.
I'm sure that more (and better) reviews will start arriving in short order but the NYTimes covers a show I'm sad I missed. It was a concert to benefit the Music for Youth Foundation, "The Music of Bruce Springsteen."
...and you'll never guess which song Odetta chose to perform from the Springsteen catalog.
Participants included Steve Earle ("convincingly morbid," as always), Juliana Hatfield, Badly Drawn Boy, the Bacon Brothers and, fortunately, no Jewel. "Her unbilled replacement was Patti Smith - a serious upgrade." And of course the concert closed with an appearance by Springsteen himself.
I'm now eager to give another listen to the Hold Steady after they...
“There’s gonna be a rumble out there on that promenade,” snarled the band’s lead singer, Craig Finn, on “Atlantic City,” making the line his own. A moment later, guitars and drums kicked in heavily, and Mr. Finn ratcheted up with them.
There was nowhere to go from there except to the source: Mr. Springsteen... he beckoned the full cast onstage for a “Rosalita” reprise, offering the verses to any takers. Mr. Finn took up the gauntlet, barely able to contain himself: he seemed about to burst.
I know just how he feels.
Fantastic... now I have to start reading Tom Perrota. And I hate reading.
It's not because I liked Election (although I did.) It is because Perotta free associates The Hold Steady's "First Night" with Bruce Springsteen's "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)." That's an impressive choice for your favourite Springsteen song.
That is so true. I wish I was that literate.For the umpteenth time I am screwed over by the Universal Law of the Interconnectedness of Everything Cool. I also loved what Perrota had to say about REM covering a Beatles song.
"Sandy the aurora's rising behind us, the pier lights our carnival life forever
Oh love me tonight and I promise I'll love you forever."
Now you can know how it feels. Jumpy camera, poor audio... good times.
"And your poppa says he knows that I don't have any money, your poppa says he knows that I don't have any money, your poppa..."
Good stuffs! Thanks for the link.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Any of you pick this up yet? It's on my Xmas list..
Mine too...
I've heard the remastering, and it sounds keen. I have not heard the extras yet.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Wonder if anyone here has read this Slate piece about Springsteen.
It is impossible to dispute, much less refute, a drunken bull in a china shop when he snorts out an incoherent rant. What did Springsteen ever do to Stephen Metcalf that would warrant writing what I'm guessing is a review? Perhaps Wilco did the same thing. It's hard to tell from his writing. Nevertheless, I did enjoy Metcalf's frothy mixture of vitriol, honey, innaccuracies and incoherence. If anyone can explain the point of this article to me I would appreciate it as Mr. Metcalf does not seem to be so inclined.
I think it speaks well of Bruce Springsteen that "from the post-Landau period, the harrowing masterpiece Nebraska" included in its liner notes "Thanks always to Jon and Steve." A decade and a half later Jon Landau was still being listed as a producer on Springsteen's albums and even to this day Bruce's releases mention that he is represented by Jon Landau Management. You'd think that someone would fact-check something like that before it made its way onto an album and caused any embarassment.
I too miss the Broadway-to-Satchmo range that Bruce, "though signed as a folkie," used to display until "by Darkness on the Edge of Town, gone were the West Side Story-esque jazz suites of The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle." It remains frustrating to settle for the epic sweep of rock-and-roll interspersed with intimate and personal acoustic albums. Hopefully Springsteen's faux-Okie sensibilities will give rise to something along the lines of Oklahoma (produced by those genuine men-of-the-prairie Rodgers & Hammerstein.) "Oh, the farmer and the cowman should be friends..."
Bruce's music "which is no longer as structured around his own working-class roots" has cynically exploited "the voices of the migrant workers and ghetto prisoners whose stories make up Devils & Dust" for blatantly commercial purposes even as "in recent years, Springsteen has settled into a pattern of selling a couple million albums (Born in the USA sold 15 million) to the Bruce die-hards." Metcalf skillfully weaves all of these points in just one brilliant, paradoxical paragraph. From Springsteen to Landau to "Pacino's Sonny Wortzik, the already quite sallow anti-hero of Dog Day Afternoon" Metcalf has a wide array of subjects for scorn It is a wonder and a tribute to his talents as a writer that he manages to dismiss them all.
I found the article on Bruce Springsteen to be, in Metcalf's unpretentious words, " ni carne, ni pesce, as the Italians say." As for the writer himself, he is tutti toro and has earned the right to sleep it off between the gravy boats and the wine glasses.
I had some major problems with the article ("Does it derogate Springsteen to claim that he is, in essence, a white minstrel act?" Really? And his musical vocabulary shrank circa Darkness?), but frankly, it strikes me as the typical bologna I read on websites such as Slate and Salon - borderline witty commentary that sounds hip and is perfectly fine as long as little matters such as content or facts don't trip you up.
Rock criticism is not in its prime.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
We all have heroes. Me. You. All of us.
There is no reason to think that it should be any different for superstar artists. It can even be argued that artists wouldn't be who they are today without a deeper emotional connection to their idols than the rest of us. Artists grow into who they are because they started out imitating other artists who they admired. In time, hopefully, performers grow into their own voice and serve to inspire new generations of viewers, readers and listeners.
If we close our eyes we can all call up images of those public figures who speak to us on a deeply personal level. They lead us to those who have influenced them as well as those that they influence. Musicians are listeners and fans. Actors are an audience and they are fans. Writers are readers and fans. Directors are viewers and fans. Political figures are adherents and fans.
Some artists, perhaps all, feel the pressure of popular success. It is difficult for a creative person to balance the demands of the marketplace and their vision. Many of them fall into the trap of gaining wider exposure at the expense of watering down their vision. Going commercial, compromise, selling out, political expediency... all of them make us feel betrayed.
Which brings me to Bruce Springsteen.
The best artists send us on an emotional voyage through their works. The greatest artists grow and change. Most importantly, great artists bring us along with them on their journey and we grow and change with them. We walk down a path together.
I cannot pretend to have followed Bruce Springsteen from the start of his career even if I had been able to. After discovering the Born to Run album I worked my way back and forwards through his career. I started to follow every new release he put out. It has been a great journey so far and I can't imagine it coming to an end. It has been a pilgrimage.
For me, the arc of his career is now more important than any of his individual albums. I won't pretend that I have enjoyed every album on its own merits. Lucky Town was particularly disappointing to me when I first heard it. But now I know that he and Patti Scialfa got married the year before Lucky Town was released (his first child was born a year before that.) Now that I'm older myself I have a deeper appreciation and affection for the album. When I hear "Better Days" after listening to the song "Tunnel of Love" I burst into tears. Every time.
"One Step Up" followed by "If I Should Fall Behind" is the most moving progression from a bad marriage to a loving one. Without "Leap of Faith" there wouldn't be the song "The Rising." Springsteen also couldn't have written "Empty Sky" without writing "My Beautiful Reward" first. The songs "Born in the USA" and "Glory Days" are updated in "Souls of the Departed" and "Local Hero" by a man who has grown older and wiser. "Book of Dreams" makes one recall the naïve days of "I Wanna Marry You." These songs are all expressions of an emotional and spiritual evolution. Whether or not it resonates with me, and Springsteen does, I can't ask any more of an artist.
I've heard Bruce Springsteen go through periods of imitating the writing of Bob Dylan, the production of Roy Orbison and the spirit of Buddy Holly. I've listened to an album that made him the most popular performer on the planet. I've followed along through the break up of a marriage and a band, a move from New Jersey to L.A. and a growing social conscience. We've all lived to see things that we never thought we would. The birth of his children, a good new marriage, a great old band, the return of poverty and despair to the powerless in society and a horrific attack on the powerful.
Through it all, somehow, I feel that I have a shared history and a shared purpose with Bruce Springsteen. I have just gotten my hands on his newest effort, Devils and Dust , and my expectations are so high that I'm afraid to start listening. I am confident that, no matter what my first reaction is, I will love it as part of the path that we are walking together. It is a path that looks as if it is turning towards the trail blazed by another hero of both of ours, Woody Guthrie.
The more that I listen to him, the more Woody Guthrie I hear. Springsteen has said that he thinks that "This Land Is Your Land" is the most beautiful song ever written. In his version on Live '75-'85 Springsteen calls it an "angry song" written in reaction to "God Bless America." When I think of Guthrie's Dust Bowl Ballads I think I know where Springsteen is getting his dust. I wonder where he is finding his devils. In the other spoken introduction to one of the four cover songs in Live '75-'85 Springsteen says that "blind faith in your leaders, or in anything, will get you killed..."
I think back to Springsteen's courageous appearance on ABC's Nightline program. By allowing Ted Koppel to air parts of his musical rehearsals and opening up his composition book Bruce Springsteen was able to spend two consecutive nights talking about healthcare and mental health. It was a stunning act of concern and caring for people who, in all likelihood, will never attend one of his concerts and never buy one of his albums. Support for the downtrodden is the thing that binds Springsteen and Guthrie most closely. Guthrie used to have "This Machine Kills Fascists" on his guitar(s) and there never was a truer soldier for American principles. Springsteen is carrying on that fight. In retrospect, it is a fight that he has always been waging.
In the day we sweat it out on the streets...
Well...
Now a post like this and the good news about Born to Run will always get me out of my little hiding spot.
I have been with Springsteen for most of his career. I missed Greetings from Asbury Park when it first came out but I have been there ever since then. He is easily my favorite Artist. Give the new album a listen you will be impressed. I know I am. It is his best album since Tunnel of Love (which just happens to be my favorite Bruce album)
Beautiful post and sentiments I certainly wholeheartedly concur with...
And yes I will purchase the Bruce reissue too....
Thank you for the compliment. Coming from you (especially after what I know now) it means a lot.
When I rummaged through your content to figure out why this would get you out of your hiding spot I found your excellent The ABC's of Rock n'Roll--A Personal Odyssey. Very nicely done. I didn't quite comprehend J but I feel no need to understand absolutely everything. Besides which, I was looking for S.
That is such a fantastic line, "because of Bruce Springsteen I married a neighborhood." Perhaps the Springsteen connection gives it greater emotional weight than it would have otherwise but I was fascinated... and moved. Terrific writing, just... thank you. It's hard to write like that often (or at all) but it does make me wish that you'd come out of hiding more frequently.
I wish that I could find a way to write more often about the deeper emotional connections we (you, I, lbangs, everyone) have to art and artists. It is awfully easy to get caught up in new releases, trailers, trivia and gossip... and awfully fun, too. But I really appreciate the chance to think and reflect about what matters in an emotional life. I'm still trying to find the place where, at least most of the time, I think I belong.
Thanks for putting it in that way. And thanks to lbangs for making this happen.
Lights out tonight, trouble in the heartland...
Hey,
I just read this nice response. Thank you.
Sometimes (well most times) I wish I would come out of hiding more often too. Life has a way of getting away from you if you dont spend a little time on the intropspective carousel. I have been going 100 miles an hour lately and I am not even sure where I am heading....
Thanks again
0dysseus lets loose a wonderful post; not only do I get to read and to enjoy it, it even brings jgandcag out of hiding!
Post of the week!
I fear I was too young to claim to be with Bruce from the beginning; I had to join the crew with Born in the U.S.A..
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Wow. I am pretty floored by your tribute to Mr. Springsteen, although he is certainly worthy. It is easy for folks to see the man today and have no clue of how he got to where he is. He was lauded as the new Dylan, but his early works tanked, and the entire world for a bit saw him as a hype-inflated balloon that had burst. He never quit. Most folks had no clue what to think when Born to Run conquered the world back in 75. He was gifted and talented, but he also persevered. He earned every bit of the superstar status he wears so admirably and responsibly today. If he was anything less than the amazing artist he is, he would be a footnote and a joke today.
And I'll take Lucky Town over Human Touch any day, although I'd certainly rather dig my Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, and others.
Your post is terrific, and my response simply is not up to it. Thanks. I appreciate it.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
That is awesome news! Thanks, I might just have to pick that one up!