Bruce Springsteen, the #27 Artist of the Rock Era, Part One

"Springsteen is one of the best musicians in the world."

"He's a working class hero."

"Bruce is awesome!"

"He puts so much emotion into his songs, and his live shows are not to be missed."

"Bruce Springsteen is absolutely one of the greatest and most incredible entertainers to ever walk the earth! "

"One of the best Rock & Roll singers ever."

"Bruce is timeless Rock & Roll."

"Legend ♥"

"Bruce is truly the pinnacle of what Rock'n'Roll can be."

"The beauty of Bruce Springsteen's songwriting is that you can close your eyes and feel like you are really there in the moment."

"He writes amazing lyrics."

"The Boss is brilliant."

He is an incredible artist."

"Bruce is the best."

"Springsteen transcends Rock to a kind of transcendental music/emotion. One of the greatest talents in the last 50 years."

"Bruce equals Genius."

"His songs have so much passion!"

"Very talented musician and also a talented poet."

"Bruce's honesty and humility... he's always put it all right out there. It's very personal for him and it resonates in his work."

"One of the best songwriters ever."

"Bruce is a legend."

Bruce was born September 23, 1949 in Long Branch, New Jersey.  He went to St. Rose of Lima Catholic school but didn't like the strict nature of his schooling.  In ninth grade, he transferred to Freehold Borough High School.  There, he kept to himself, just wanting to play guitar.  He graduated from Freehold, but felt so out of place that he skipped the graduation ceremony.  Bruce briefly went to Ocean County College, but dropped out.

Springsteen listened to Frank Sinatra, and became inspired when he saw Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show.  Seeing her son's interest in music, Bruce's mother bought him a guitar in 1964.  It was the Beatles' famous appearance on that same Ed Sullivan Show that triggered Bruce's desire to perform:



"This was different, shifted the lay of the land. Four guys, playing and singing, writing their own material ... Rock 'n' roll came to my house where there seemed to be no way out ... and opened up a whole world of possibilities."

After seeing the Beatles, Springsteen practiced hard and soon performed at a nearby Elks Lodge.  His mother bought him a new guitar in 1965 and Bruce headed to the home of Tex and Marion Vinyard, who sponsored some of the local bands.  The Vinyards put him in touch with the Castiles, who brought in Springsteen as their lead guitarist.  

The Castiles (above, with Springsteen on far right) recorded some original material and played several venues, including Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village.

Later in the decade, Bruce joined Earth, which also played in clubs in New Jersey near his new home of Asbury Park, New Jersey.  During this time, he acquired the nickname "The Boss", as it was his job to collect the band's pay each night and distribute it.  

From 1969 to 1971, Bruce played in the group Steel Mill, which played at colleges in the region and later in California.  Word was beginning to spread about Springsteen's talent and he began to attract a fan base.

Bruce went from band to band--first Dr. Zoom & the Sonic Boom, then the Sundance Blues Band and the Bruce Springsteen Band.  Gradually, the pieces of what would become the E Street Band fell into place.  Organist and founding member Danny Federici, drummer Vini Lopez and songwriter, arranger and guitarist Steve Van Zandt played with Springsteen in Steel Mill.  Keyboardist David Sancious joined Bruce's backing band later.

Springsteen's unique outlook expressed in his songwriting drew the attention of Mike Appel and Jim Cretecos, who became his managers.  Appel convinced Columbia Records talent scout John Hammond to sign Bruce to a recording contract in 1972.

While recording his debut album, Springsteen jammed with saxophonist Clarence Clemons and his band The Joyful Noyze (sp) at The Shipbottom Lounge in Point Pleasant, New Jersey.  Clemons played sax on "Blinded By The Light" and "Spirit Of The Night" and officially joined the E Street Band in 1972.  Both songs were covered by the Manfred Mann Earth Band, with that group scoring a #1 hit with "Blinded By The Light".

 

From his debut album Greetings from Asbury Park, New Jersey in 1973, critics have loved him, but, since critics don't buy a whole lot of albums, sales lagged.  When Bruce became a superstar, interest in his back catalog propelled the album to Double Platinum status.

Neither Springsteen's first single, "Blinded By The Light", nor his second one, "Spirit In The Night", charted anywhere in the world, but both became hits for Manfred Mann's Earth Band.  Greasy Lake, near Howel, New Jersey, got its name from the fact that homeless people living around the lake who used it for bathing and washing dishes.  The people were known as "Gypsy Angels" or "Spirits in the Night".  Route 88 runs through Ocean County in New Jersey.

 

 

Later in the year, Springsteen released the album The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle.  Again, there were no hits (a recurring theme through much of Bruce's career) and little sales, but like his debut, the album also eventually sold over two million copies.  One track that stands out that is in demand at live performances is "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)".

Bruce considers this his musical autobiography.  After the hard-working Springsteen toured up and down the Jersey Shore, he finally had signed a recording contract, proving naysayers wrong.  

"Incident On 57th Street" is a romantic song set against a New York City street fight, similar to the classic movie West Side Story.

 

Several early Springsteen songs are about characters that travel around New York City.  He sings of Billy in his Cadillac, the fish lady and the junk man.  "New York City Serenade" was originally called "Vibes Man", one of the songs Bruce played at his audition for Columbia.

 

The lyrics about Madam Marie refer to an fortune teller who was a fixture on the boardwalk in Asbury Park.  This is "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)".

After a 1974 concert at the Harvard Square Theater, music critic Jon Landau famously wrote, "I saw the future of rock and roll, and its name is Bruce Springsteen."  Landau liked what he saw so much that he became Springsteen's manager and producer.  Columbia, too, believed in their new artist, and, in a last-ditch attempt to put Bruce on the map, approved of a large recording budget for his next album.

 

The project took over 14 months to record, with six of those months devoted to the title song.  Springsteen battled frustrations that he wasn't able to translate the sounds he heard in his head to the studio, but Van Zandt, a longtime friend, helped Bruce out.  Finally in 1975, Springsteen released the album Born to Run.  The title song peaked at #23, easily one of The Top Unknown/Underrated Songs of the Rock Era*.

Springsteen and the E Street Band played two shows a night for five nights at the famous Greenwich Village club The Bottom Line.  The shows, broadcast live on WNEW-FM, caused a buzz in the New York area among both fans, critics and radio station personnel.  On the strength of the title song, the album rose to #3.

Springsteen's strength has always been his album tracks, and Album Oriented Rock stations played several tracks, including "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out".  It tells the story of how the E Street Band came to be.  

The "Big Man" in the third verse refers to saxophonist Clarence Clemons.  In 1971, Clemons, who was a social worker at the time, walked into a club called the Student Prince in Asbury Park where Springsteen was playing.  It was a stormy night and the door flew off the hinges when Clarence opened it.  Clemons asked to sit in and Bruce said ok.  Springsteen later talked about the incident and how Clemons "literally blew the door off the place."  

 

Born to Run has now sold over six million copies in the U.S. alone.  But before its release, Springsteen was in danger of losing his record contract if the record didn't sell.  

The phenomenal piano playing you hear is from a new musician in the band, who joined just prior to Born to Run.  Thirty piano players answered an advertisement in the Village Voice in August of 1974 which was looking for a pianist "who could play classical to Jerry Lee Lewis".  Roy Bittan had been working for bands and Broadway musicals in New York and saw the ad.  After two auditions, Bittan had the job.

Another standout track which helped save Bruce's career is "Thunder Road".

"Jungleland" is another tale of what life was like for Springsteen.  Bruce created several characters in the song, drawing comparisons to Bob Dylan.

"Terry" in the track "Backstreets" is not a real person, but rather a composite of girls he met.  He told Rolling Stone magazine in 2016 about what the song is about:  

     Just youth, the beach, the night, friendships, the

     feeling of being an outcast and kind of living far away

     from things in this little outpost in New Jersey.  It's

     also about a place of personal refuge.  It wasn't a 

     specific relationship or anything that brought the song 

     into being.

Springsteen was so overhyped that when he appeared on the covers of Newsweek and Time on October 27, he tore down promotional posters prior to a show in London.

Mysteriously, fans stirred by the sound of the album waited for a new release and didn't get one.  Legal difficulties with Appel kept Springsteen from recording for almost a year.  To keep the band active, Bruce arranged for dozens of shows throughout the United States.  

We're just getting started with this superstar.  Be sure to join us for Part Two, exclusively on Inside The Rock Era!