Category Archives: Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen, Great albums, Music Calendar

Today: Bruce Springsteen released “Live/1975–85” in 1986 – 26 years ago

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It’s not enough. By anyone else’s standards, of course, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band Live/1975-85 is an embarrassment of riches — five albums and ten years’ worth of barroom, hockey-arena and baseball-stadium dynamite; greatest hits, ace covers, love songs, work songs, out-of-work songs — the ultimate rock-concert experience of the past decade finally packaged for living-room consumption, a special gift of thanks to the fans who shared those 1001 nights of stomp & sweat and the best possible consolation prize for the poor bastards who could never get tickets.
~David Fricke – rollingstone.com

“Thunder Road” – October 18, 1975 at The Roxy Theatre:

a short promo:

From Wikipedia:

Released November 10, 1986
Recorded October 18, 1975 – September 30, 1985
Genre Rock
Length 216:13
Label Columbia
Producer Jon Landau, Chuck Plotkin, Bruce Springsteen

Live/1975–85 is a live album by Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band. It consists of 40 tracks recorded at various concerts between 1975 and 1985. It was released as a box set with either five vinyl records, three cassettes, or three CDs. There was also a record club only release which came on three 8-track cartridges, which is extremely hard to find.

Spirit in the Night – July 7, 1978 at The Roxy Theatre:

Springsteen’s long-awaited and highly-anticipated live album generated advance orders of more than 1.5 million copies, making it the largest dollar-volume pre-order in the history of the record business at the time. Record stores around the country found fans waiting in line on Monday morning before opening and one New York store reportedly sold the album right off the back of the delivery truck. The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard album chart, a rare occurrence that hadn’t happened in ten years since Stevie Wonder‘s Songs in the Key of Life in 1976.

Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) – (again) – July 7, 1978 at The Roxy Theatre:

Not surprising, given Springsteen’s reputation as a live performer and the sheer scope of the 40-song set, most reviews were overwhelmingly positive. There were, however, a few critics that felt the album could have been better, citing the omission of several concert highlights such as Springsteen’s live rendition of “Prove It All Night” and his rousing cover of John Fogerty’s “Who’ll Stop the Rain”, among others.

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..I need to address this issue of leaving out a 78-version of “Prove It All Night”. This is a tragedy.. it’s alright for those of us collecting bootleg concerts… and thus having heard the 78-version countless times, but what about the rest ? IMO Bruce made a real bad judgement…

So I really need to include a brilliant version in this post:

Prove it all Night – Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ. 19-9-1978:

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But.. back to “Live/1975-85”.. Here is the brilliant “The River” w/rap:

The River – September 30, 1985 at the LA Coliseum:

Let’s close the “youtubes” with Badlands..

Badlands – November 5, 1980 at Arizona State University, the night after the election of Ronald Reagan to the United States presidency:

Album of the day @ Spotify:

also check out:

Other November 10:

Continue reading Today: Bruce Springsteen released “Live/1975–85” in 1986 – 26 years ago →

Bruce Springsteen, Great albums

Bruce Springsteen – Tunnel of Love 25 year anniversary!

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“On his right hand Billy tattooed the word love and on his left hand was the word fear. And in which hand he held his fate was never clear”

I think Darkness on the edge of town is Springsteen’s best album, but I think Tunnel of Love is his most overlooked record. This is a quiet, often acoustic country-tinged album that has become more important to me the older I get.

It might sound less than Springsteen than his earlier albums, and he really goes a long way towards country music, but that’s ok, I really like it.  He released it while still touring with the E Street Band, but its sound signified a marked departure from the driving rock of his earlier albums.

“God have mercy on the man who doubts what he’s sure of.”

It’s a mix of Nebraska and Darkness with strong melodies and more melancholy. The Songs are about lost opportunities, misplaced love and regrets. It is a very sad album, maybe that is why Springsteen rarely play these songs in concert. He should play them, they are among his best.

The sleeve notes to the record Springsteen writes “Thanks Julie”.

Bruce Springsteen comes off as a tired man, is it his break-up record, his divorce album? It certainly sound like it. Great art sometimes comes from pain, and this album contains great art.

Brilliant Disguise:

His marriages are falling to pieces, both to his wife and to his band. He records this album at home, it is a true solo effort even if some E-Streeters dropped by to lend backing vocals or keyboard parts to certain tracks.

It is also a “what’s the meaning of love?” record.

Lyrically, Tunnel of Love showed us some of Springsteen’s sharpest writing to date.The songs have been covered a lot and these tunes prove especially attractive to musicians in the folk, country and singer-songwriter genre.  You’ll be baffeled by the number of country artists who took a crack at “Tougher than the Rest.” As I said it has songs about lost love and regrets and what’s more country than that?

“Would they ever look so happy again the handsome groom and his bride?” Springsteen sings in Walk like a man.

Bruce and Julie filed for divorce less than a year after the release of the album.

As a teenager thirsting to escape your hometown and fantasising about meeting the girl of your  dreams, the urgency and optimism of Born to Run, the murky realism of Darkness on the Edge of Town, heartland rock of The River and Born in The USA will probably appeal more to you than Tunnel of Love. I know they did to me.

What a difference growing up make: today  Tunnel of Love rings just as true to me as the albums mentioned above does.

My Favourite song on the album is Tougher than the rest.

Rolling Stone magazine said it best:
Initially, in fact, Tunnel of Love sounds not only modest but also playful, giddy and lightweight. “Ain’t Got You” is a funny, partially a cappella Bo Diddley-style rocker that jokes about Springsteen’s wealth (“I got a pound of caviar sitting home on ice/I got a fancy foreign car that rides like paradise”) but expresses yearning for the one thing money can’t buy (i.e., “you”). In the next two songs, “Tougher Than the Rest” and “All That Heaven Will Allow,” Springsteen is head over heels in love, convinced that the sun will shine as long as he’s got the right woman by his side. Those three songs are a light, romantic, lovely beginning, and then it all comes crashing down.

Bobby said he’d pull out Bobby stayed in/Janey had a baby it wasn’t any sin/They were set to marry on a summer day/Bobby got scared and he ran away.
The song, “Spare Parts,” is a road-house rocker reminiscent of Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited”; the sound is abrasive and harsh; the story is bleak; and the moral is hard: “Spare parts/And broken hearts/Keep the world turnin’ around.”

From that point on, times are tough. In “Cautious Man,” the main character has love tattooed on one hand, fear on the other (Springsteen’s lift from the film The Night of the Hunter, in which Robert Mitchum played a preacher with love and hate tattooed on his knuckles). The relationships in “Two Faces,” “Brilliant Disguise” and “One Step Up” (“and two steps back”) are crumbling as trust gives way to betrayal and recrimination: “Another fight and I slam the door on/Another battle in our dirty little war.” In the title song, Springsteen voices a fear that underlies the entire album: “It’s easy for two people to lose each other in/This tunnel of love.”

Read more Rolling Stone review Tunnel of Love

– Hallgeir

Bruce Springsteen, folk, Rock, Singer Songwriter

Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska covered, part two

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From Clubhouse Records UK:

The Nebraska Sessions – A Tribute

Back in 1982 Bruce Springsteen released ‘Nebraska’, a collection of sparsely recorded tracks originally intended to be demos for his sixth studio album.

Almost exactly 30 years later the UK’s Clubhouse Records gathered a group of musicians together at The Betsey Trotwood pub in London to pay tribute to this fantastic album.

Throughout the course of a single day, 10 bands recorded the albums 10 tracks live straight to 4 track cassette tape just like The Boss did back in the day.

The sessions were filmed for posterity and collected together here for your enjoyment.

Acts involved on the day include; Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou, The Dreaming Spires, Danny George Wilson, The Cedars, Case Hardin, The Redlands Palomino Company, The Hi and Lo, Mad Staring Eyes, The Arlenes and Michele Stodart.

Audio produced, recorded & mixed by Trevor Moss. Video direction, lighting, camera and edit by Pierre Thiébaut.

That was last sunday, but here are the artists doing very fine versions of the Nebraska songs.

Clubhouse Records UK is a very interesting label, visit their website for more information.

Side One:

Nebraska
Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou :

Atlantic City
The Dreaming Spires:

Mansion On the Hill
The Redlands Palomino Company

Johnny 99
Case Hardin:

Highway Patrolman
Danny George Wilson:

State Trooper
Steve Arlene:

Side two:
Continue reading Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska covered, part two →

Bruce Springsteen, folk, Rock, Singer Songwriter

Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska Covered, part one

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Nebraska is one of those albums, that have inspired lots of artists. There are many singer/songwriters that says it is their favourite Springsteen record. There are tribute albums covering Nebraska, Badlands: A Tribute to Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska beeing  the best known. It was released by Sub Pop Records in 2000. Another is the new release, Long Distance Salvation.

Concerts/tribute shows are played to honor this now 30 year old masterpiece.

I have picked some of my favourite versions of these fantastic songs, I hope you like them. Seek out the artists, and if you haven’t got Nebraska, well, buy it, everybody should at least have one copy of this artwork.

If you haven’t got a clue about Nebraska, read this first.

Side one:

Deer Tick – Nebraska (live)

The Band – Atlantic City (live)

Emmylou Harris – Mansion on the Hill (live)

Johnny Cash – Johnny 99 (offcial video)

Continue reading Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska Covered, part one →

Bruce Springsteen, Great albums, Sound

Today: Bruce Springsteen released Nebraska in 1982 – 30 years ago

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“The fact that you didn’t intend to release it makes it the most intimate record you’ll ever do. This is an absolutely legitimate piece of art.” Steven Van Zandt

“I felt that it was my best writing. I felt I was getting better as a writer. I was learning things. I was certainly taking a hard look at everything around me.”
Bruce Springsteen

I really love this album. I did not buy it in 1982 I got it a few years later, I listened to it at the record store when it was released, but it didn’t impress me. I couldn’t connect to it musically or lyrically. It is not an album that imidiately catches your attention, it needs to be listened to, properly.

When I did that I became very impressed!

Some facts (from Wikipedia):

Released September 30, 1982
Recorded Mostly January 3, 1982 at Springsteen’s Colts Neck, New Jersey bedroom
Genre Americana, folk rock, folk
Length 40:50
Label Columbia
Producer Bruce Springsteen

Nebraska is the sixth studio album by Bruce Springsteen, released in 1982 on Columbia Records.

Sparsely-recorded on a cassette-tape Portastudio, the tracks on Nebraska were originally intended as demos of songs to be recorded with the E Street Band. However, Springsteen ultimately decided to release the demos themselves. Nebraska remains one of the most highly-regarded albums in his catalogue. The songs on Nebraska deal with ordinary, blue collar characters who face a challenge or a turning point in their lives. Unlike his previous albums, very little salvation and grace is present within the songs.

Initially, Springsteen recorded demos for the album at his home with a 4-track cassette recorder. The demos were sparse, using only acoustic guitar, electric guitar (“Open All Night”), harmonica, mandolin, glockenspiel, tambourine, organ and Springsteen’s voice.

Springsteen then recorded the album in a studio with the E Street Band. However, he and the producers and engineers working with him felt that a raw, haunted folk essence present on the home tapes was lacking in the band treatments, and so they ultimately decided to release the demo version as the final album. Complications with mastering of the tapes ensued because of low recording volume, but the problem was overcome with sophisticated noise reduction techniques.

Springsteen fans have long speculated whether Springsteen’s full-band recording of the album, nicknamed Electric Nebraska, will ever surface. In a 2006 interview, manager Jon Landau said it was unlikely and that “the right version of Nebraska came out”. But in a 2010 interview with Rolling Stone, E Street Band drummer Max Weinberg praised the full band recording of the album as “killing.”

Critical Reception:

Allmusic:

by William Ruhlmann

“There is an adage in the record business that a recording artist’s demos of new songs often come off better than the more polished versions later worked up in a studio. But Bruce Springsteen was the first person to act on that theory, when he opted to release the demo versions of his latest songs, recorded with only acoustic or electric guitar, harmonica, and vocals, as his sixth album, Nebraska. It was really the content that dictated the approach, however. Nebraska‘s ten songs marked a departure forSpringsteen, even as they took him farther down a road he had been traveling previously. Gradually, his songs had become darker and more pessimistic, and those on Nebraska marked a new low. They also found him branching out into better developed stories…”

Promo poster for Nebraska in 1982

Robert Christgau:

Literary worth is established with the title tune, in which Springsteen’s Charlie Starkweather becomes the first mass murderer in the history of socially relevant singer-songwriting to entertain a revealing thought–wants his pretty baby to sit in his lap when he gets the chair. Good thing he didn’t turn that one into a rousing rocker, wouldn’t you say, though (Hüsker Dü please note) I grant that some hardcore atonality might also produce the appropriate alienation effect. But the music is a problem here–unlike, er, Dylan, or Robert Johnson, or Johnny Shines or Si Kahn or Kevin Coyne, Springsteen isn’t imaginative enough vocally or melodically to enrich these bitter tales of late capitalism with nothing but a guitar, a harmonica, and a few brave arrangements. Still, this is a conceptual coup, especially since it’s selling. What better way to set right the misleading premise that rock and roll equals liberation? A-

Rolling Stone Magazine:

Nebraska is an acoustic triumph, a basic folk album on which Springsteen has stripped his art down to the core. It’s as harrowing as Darkness on the Edge of Town, but more measured. Every small touch speaks volumes: the delicacy of the acoustic guitars, the blurred sting of the electric guitars, the spare, grim images. He’s now telling simple stories in the language of a deferential common man, peppering his sentences with “sir’s.” “My name is Joe Roberts,” he sings. “I work for the state.”

 

“Now judge I had debts no honest man could pay
The bank was holdin’ my mortgage and they were gonna take my house away
Now I ain’t sayin’ that makes me an innocent man
But it was more ‘n all this that put that gun in my hand”

Bruce Springsteen would try to recreate Nebraska in 1995 when he released The Ghost of Tom Joad,  an album that is very similar musically and lyrically. As much as I love The Ghost of Tom Joad, it was impossible to recreate the “accident” that happened on this simple casette demo, recorded in a New Jersey bedroom in January 1982.

– Hallgeir