Tag Archives: Bruce Springsteen

Getting Personal With Bruce Springsteen

The Boss1

by Michael Goldberg

Bruce Springsteen has always written about the past, and as I’ve spent time with The Ties That Bind: The River Sessions, a multi-CD/multi-DVD set that focuses on music Springsteen made during sessions for The River (and includes a fantastic live show from November 1980, three weeks after The River was released), I’ve been reminded of how a yearning for the past (the high drama of youth) was so much a part of Springsteen’s Seventies recordings.

At age 23, on his first album, Greetings from Asbury Park, Springsteen was already looking back on songs such as “Growing Up’ and “It’s Hard To Be a Saint in the City.” Even on their release, Born to Run, Darkness at the Edge of Town and The River came across as romantic exaggerations of a time long gone. This wasn’t just due to the lyrics, which sometimes referred to events in the past tense.

Watch Springsteen and band do “Out In The Street” in Tempe, Arizona, 1980:

The sound of Springsteen’s music leaped back past the innovations of mid-to-late ’60s rock, a period that prominently included long-haired psychedelia complete with feedback, distortion and wah-wah pedal effects, to draw on Phil Spector’s Wall-of-Sound, the rhythm and blues of The Coasters, Sam & Dave and others, and party-rock hit-makers like Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels and Gary U.S. Bonds.

Watch Springsteen and band do “The River” in Tempe, Arizona, 1980:

Consider that in 1975, when Born to Run was released, including a saxophone in the lineup was akin to using a horse and buggy for transportation. Springsteen’s E Street Band, of course, proudly featured the great Clarence “Big Man” Clemons on sax, and the Big Man took a solo in practically every song.

Even when Springsteen wrote in the present, as he did for “Thunder Road,” his line about “Roy Orbison singing to the lonely” placed the time period of the action in the early/mid-‘60s …

Read the rest of this column at Addicted To Noise.

Watch Springsteen and band do “Thunder Road” in 1975:

– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post –

Bob Dylan’s MusicCares Tribute Concert Due On DVD – But What About Dylan’s Speech?

Dylan giving MusicCares speech.

The MusicCares Bob Dylan tribute concert from earlier this year which honored Dylan as 2015 MusiCares Person of the Year will be released on DVD, according to Billboard magazine.

The concert, which took place on Friday February 6, 2015, included performances by Bruce Springsteen, Jack White, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Norah Jones, Tom Jones, Los Lobos, John Mellencamp, Alanis Morissette, Willie Nelson, Aaron Neville, Sheryl Crow, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, John Doe, Jackson Browne and Neil Young. It is expected that they will all appear on the DVD.

As of now, it’s not known if Dylan’s 35-minute MusicCares speech will be on the DVD. In an earlier version of this post I reported that it would be included but that was an error. For now there is no info about the speech being included.

Dylan personally chose the performers and the songs they would sing at the MusicCares event.

Here are the songs performed:

Beck – “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat”
Aaron Neville – “Shooting Star”
Alanis Morissette – “Subterranean Homesick Blues”
Los Lobo – “On A Night Like This”
Willie Nelson – “Señor (Tales Of Yankee Power)”
Jackson Browne – “Blind Willie McTell”
John Mellencamp – “Highway 61 Revisited”
Jack White – “One More Cup Of Coffee”
Tom Jones – “What Good Am I?”
Norah Jones – “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight”
Dereck Trucks And Susan Tedeschi – “Million Miles”
John Doe – “Pressing On”
Crosby, Stills & Nash – “Girl From The North County”
Bonnie Raitt – “Standing In The Doorway”
Sheryl Crow – “Boots Of Spanish Leather”
Bruce Springsteen – “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”
Neil Young – “Blowin’ In The Wind”

Hear excerpts:

The DVD release date has yet to be announced.

You can read the Billboard story here.

Meanwhile you can read the Dylan speech here.

— A Days Of The Crazy-Wild blog post —

Video: PBS Segment on Rock Photographer Lynn Goldsmith – Photos of Dylan, Jagger, Patti Smith & More

Photo by Lynn Goldsmith as seen in NYC PBS documentary segment.

NYC PBS ten minute documentary on photographer Lynn Goldsmith, who has shot Bruce Springsteen, Mick Jagger, Patti Smith and of course Bob Dylan.

And here’s a CBS This Morning segment on Goldsmith that includes a shoot with Patti Smith.

[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll/ coming-of-age novel, “True Love Scars,” which features a narrator who is obsessed with Bob Dylan. To read the first chapter, head here.

Or watch an arty video with audio of me reading from the novel here.]

–- A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-

Video: Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young Play Bob Dylan’s ‘All Along The Watchtower’ – 2004

Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen, Oct. 2004.

Great performance by Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen of Bob Dylan’s “All ALong The Watchtower” at the Xcel Energy Center, St. Paul, MN on October 5, 2004.

[In August of this year I’ll be publishing my rock ‘n’ roll/ coming-of-age novel, “True Love Scars,” which features a narrator who is obsessed with Bob Dylan. To read the first chapter, head here.

Or watch an arty video with audio of me reading from the novel here.

–- A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-

Video: Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen Rock ‘Tumbling Dice’ at ‘Rock In Rio’

Mr. Jagger, meet Mr. Springsteen.

Bruce Springsteen joined the Rolling Stones for a rocking version of “Tumbling Dice” in at the Rock in Rio festival in Lisbon on May 29, 2014

Check it out!

And another view:

–- A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-

Money Changes Everything Dept.: Which Artists Have Earned at Least a Billion from Touring?

Rolling Stones top the list. Photo via the Rolling Stones Facebook page.

A new report in Billboard lists artists who have earned at least a billion dollars from touring.

The list is of the 25 highest-grossing touring artists from 1990 through 2014. Here are the top five:

1. The Rolling Stones

Gross: $1,565,792,382

Attendance: 19,677,569

Shows: 538

2. U2

Gross: $1,514,979,793

Attendance: 20,536,168

Shows: 526

3. Bruce Springsteen

Gross: $1,196,116,507

Attendance: 15,010,773

Shows: 727

4. Madonna

Gross: $1,140,230,941

Attendance: 9,694,079

Shows: 382

5. Bon Jovi

Gross: $1,030,082,884

Attendance: 12,333,668

Shows: 578

Check out the whole list here.

Video: Bruce Springsteen, John Fogerty Do ‘Green River,’ ‘Proud Mary’ at Jazz Fest

Bruce Springsteen, John Fogerty at the New Orleans Jazz Fest.

Terrific version of “Green River” performed by Bruce Springsteen, John Fogerty and the E Street Band at the New Orleans Jazz Festival on May 3, 2014.

Plus an excerpt of “Proud Mary”:

Springsteen, “The Promised Land”:

Here’s better video of a portion of “The Promised Land”:

[In August of this year I’ll be publishing my rock ‘n’ roll/ coming-of-age novel, “True Love Scars,” which features a narrator who is obsessed with Bob Dylan. To read the first chapter, head here.]

– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-

Video: Watch Sharon Van Etten Cover Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Drive All Night’

Sharon Van Etten’s Are We There is due out May 27, 2014. It just got a mindblowing review in the New Yorker.

While we wait for it we can watch Van Etten cover Bruce Springsteen’s “Drive All Night” at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, NJ.

Plus here she talks about her connection to Springsteen.

[In August of this year I’ll be publishing my rock ‘n’ roll/ coming-of-age novel, “True Love Scars,” which features a narrator who is obsessed with Bob Dylan. To read the first chapter, head here.]

– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-

Audio: Listen to Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Hurry Up Sundown’ off ‘American Beauty EP’

For Record Store Day this Saturday April 19, 2014 Bruce Springsteen is releasing a four-song record, American Beauty EP.

The EP includes three unreleased tracks recorded during the High Hopes sessions — “American Beauty,” “Mary Mary” and “Hey Blue Eyes” — plus the single, “Hurry Up Sundown.”

Springsteen played all instruments on “Hurry Up Sundown” except drums, which are handled by Josh Freese (A Perfect Circle, Devo, Nine Inch Nails).

Listen to “Hurry Up Sundown” right now right here.

-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –

Video: Bruce Springsteen & E Street Band Perform ‘The River’ at R&R Hall of Fame Ceremony

Here’s Bruce Springsteen & E Street Band performing “The River” last night at Barclays Center
Brooklyn, NY.

-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –