Your Friday Bruce Fix

Bruce Springsteen, Jazz Musician, Does This Bus Stop At 82nd Street?, John Hammond

In this week's Your Friday Bruce Fix, I'll finish up the story I started two weeks ago regarding Bruce Springsteen's audition for John Hammond of Columbia Records on May 2nd, 1972.  After being blown away by Bruce's audition performance, John invited Bruce to come in the next day to record some demos. 

Five of the songs that Bruce recorded that day would end up being re-recorded and released on 'Greetings From Asbury Park".  Our first clip today features a song from the demo session that didn't make it onto Greetings and received very little subsequent attention other than from bootleg collectors. 

Here is 'Jazz Musician', sounding absolutely nothing like last week's full band arrangement of 'Cowboys Of The Sea', an acoustic version of which was also recorded during the demo session.  That's the voice of John Hammond himself introducing the song, and if you listen really carefully, you can hear some lyrical bits that would evolve into 'Tenth Avenue Freeze Out' a few years later.

One of the songs from the demo sessions that did make it onto Greetings was 'Does This Bus Stop At 82nd Street'.  On May 31, 1973, Bruce was in Richmond, Virginia.  That night, he was playing the Richmond Coliseum, on the second of a twelve show run opening for Chicago.  In the afternoon, Bruce went into Alpha Sound Studios for a live via remote radio broadcast on WGOE-FM.  This next clip is from that broadcast.

Finally, here's a rare clip from what I believe is the very first televised interview that Bruce did.  Both the video and audio quality are poor, but you can make out a newly beardless Bruce talking about John Hammond.  John was a central figure in Bruce's evolution from complete unknown to rock and roll future, and Bruce seemed quite fond of him.  This appears to be an excerpt from a longer documentary on the career of John Hammond.  Does anyone know anything more about this clip?

Happy Friday.

Bruce Springsteen Band, Cowboys of the Sea, CC Rider

In last week's Friday Bruce Fix, I featured a clip of a young, complete unknown singer/songwriter named Bruce Springsteen in an appearance at Max's Kansas City in New York.  I also mentioned that earlier that year, a day after meeting Bruce, John Hammond had Bruce come in to record some demos.  Based on those early acoustic demos and solo performances, Columbia saw an opportunity to market Bruce as the next Bob Dylan.

What they didn't understand was that Bruce really wasn't an acoustic act.  Sure he could do that, and do it well, but there was so much more to him.  He had been playing in rock bands for about eight years to that point.  This "next Bob Dylan" thing was a bit of a challenge for Bruce to overcome and he really had to fight to record fuller band arrangements of some of those demoed songs during the recording sessions for 'Greetings From Asbury Park'.

In early 1972, before the fateful meeting with John Hammond, Bruce was mostly playing with the Bruce Springsteen Band, which included the nucleus of the E Street Band, most notably Clarence Clemons and Steve Van Zandt.  This was a big band with a big, bluesy sound.  Oblivious to this, Columbia went about promoting their next Bob Dylan.

They might have taken a different approach or been very confused if they had heard this week's recordings, instead of or in addition to last week's performance, or the demo recording session the next day.  There doesn't seem to be any video of the Bruce Springsteen Band around, although there is some decent audio.

The first clip is from one of the final Bruce Springsteen Band gigs at The Back Door in Richmond, Virginia, in February of 1972.  It is an original composition called 'Cowboys of the Sea', which is one of the songs that Bruce recorded acoustically for the Columbia demos, just three months later.

On July 23, 1971, The Bruce Springsteen Band played an outdoor concert in Damrosch Park at the Lincoln Center in New York City.  This is primarily 'CC Rider', but it also morphs into 'Down The Road A Piece', at least lyrically.  It features some searing guitar leads from a 21 year old Bruce who was building a reputation as a long haired Jersey Shore guitar hero.  Had Columbia heard these recordings, the words "Bob Dylan" would not likely have come to mind.  So, if you hadn't heard acoustic Bruce, would you have signed this guy?

Happy Friday!

Bruce Springsteen, Henry Boy, Growin' Up

Bruce Springsteen's first manager, Mike Appel, managed to get Bruce an audition in Manhattan on May 2nd, 1972, with legendary talent scout John Hammond of Columbia Records.  All John had managed to do to that point in his abysmal career was discover Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Robert Johnson, Bessie Smith, Aretha Franklin, Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan.

According to Hammond, on the day of the audition, he came out of his office to welcome Bruce and Mike, and "Mike started yakking.  He said 'I want you to know that we're just, you know, being nice to you because you're the guy who discovered Dylan and we just wanted to find out if that was luck or whether you really have ears.'  So I said 'Stop, you're making me hate you!'".  An angry Hammond apparently sat down, looked at Bruce and said "Play!"

After hearing Bruce play for a half hour or so, Hammond decided he needed to hear how Bruce interacted with a live audience.  Within a few hours, Appel had booked Bruce into the Gaslight Au Go Go, a 300 seat venue in Greenwich Village that opened the month before following the merger of the Cafe Au Go Go, and the Village Gaslight (made famous by Bob Dylan in the early '60s).  Bruce played for maybe 30 minutes.  John Hammond was impressed and invited Bruce back to CBS the next day to record a demo tape.  Bruce recorded 14 songs in two hours.  Some of those songs found their way onto Bruce's first album. 

There is no known audio or video recording of that night at the Gaslight, although today's clip is sometimes attributed to that evening.  In fact, this clip comes from a gig a few months later, in August of 1972 at Max's Kansas City, in New York.  Bruce was an un-promoted, unbilled solo act for a six nights, opening for Dave Van Ronk.  At least one of the shows was filmed and this two song clip comes from that show.

From his short lived solo career, here is Columbia's new Bob Dylan, a complete unknown named Bruce Springsteen.  Would you have signed this guy?

Happy Friday!

Bruce Springsteen, Ride On Sweet William, Blinded By The Light

Inspired by the cold winter weather, last week's Friday Bruce Fix brought you two rather obscure tunes called 'Winter Song' and 'Randolph Street'.  Inspired by little more than last week's obscurity, this week's Friday Bruce Fix dares to be perhaps even more obscure, although I'm not sure how we'd settle the debate over which week's fix is most obscure.

'Ride On Sweet William' is a song that made a few live appearances in 1974 and does not appear to have ever been recorded in studio.  The audio recording in the clip that follows has been attributed to a concert at Liberty Hall in Houston on March 10, 1974, however the track listings I've seen from that show do not list 'Ride On Sweet William' or the song's other name, 'She's So Fine'.  So, perhaps it is from another show.  If anyone out there can clear up this confusion, please post a comment. 

If the date is right, another obscure fact about this song is that the drummer was Ernest "Boom" Carter, who had joined the band just a couple of weeks previously, for what would turn out to be a short tenure as drummer for the E Street Band.  Ernest's claim to fame is that he was the drummer on the officially released recording of 'Born to Run', his only recording credit with Bruce.  If the date is wrong, then don't read this part about Ernest.  Oops, too late.

I like 'Ride On Sweet William' musically more than lyrically.  In fact, I suspect its lyrical shortcomings are the reason Bruce relegated this composition to his considerable scrap heap of discarded original songs.  How are these for lyrical shortcomings?

"She's sweet, she's educated, she knows about history, geometry, she's so fine"

or

"I'll get in my car and burn it up, now switch on the radio and turn it up" 

Now, ride on sweet William.... 

Speaking of obscure, here's a version of an early Bruce Springsteen composition that was and still is known for its lyrics.  This is so obscure, that I had never heard it before, and was completely unaware of its existence, prior to finding it in my search for something obscure to go with 'Ride On Sweet William'.  Should I try to use the word "obscure" one more time?

This funky arrangement of 'Blinded By The Light' is from the Allen Theatre in Cleveland on February 1, 1974, just a month or so before the previous clip.  This band featured Vini "Mad Dog" Lopez on drums, and David Sancious on piano and keyboards, before they LEFT THE BAND (good idea guys....) and were replaced by Max Weinberg (after Ernest went "Boom") and Roy Bittan.  I think it's safe to say that the musical character of the E Street Band shifted with this personnel change.  It is also fair to say that extended jam intros of this type were not uncommon during the early 1970s.

Happy Obscure Friday!

Bruce Springsteen, Winter Song, Randolph Street

I'm easing into this new year with a bit of a cold that I've just about killed.  It has been fairly cold around here lately, and I've noticed that winter seems to have a pretty icy pair of vice grips on much of the continent.  Such thoughts led me to think, "Today, I need a winter song".  Fortunately for us, Bruce once wrote something called 'Winter Song'.  I guess that's close enough.

'Greetings From Asbury Park' had already been released a month earlier and on February 20, 1973, Bruce Springsteen was at 914 Sound Studios in Blauvelt, New York, working on material for his next album.  'Winter Song' didn't make the cut to appear on 'The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle', although the intro sounds like a musical idea that would survive and evolve into the intro to 'New York City Serenade'.

Bruce wrote prolifically between 1971 and 1973, and seems to have recorded a great many of those songs.  'Randolph Street', also known as 'Master of Electricity', was likely also recorded at 914 Sound Studios, in the summer of 1972.  It sounds like Bruce was nostalgic, and maybe a little wistful, thinking back to his grandfather who according to the lyrics may have been a self-employed electrician that passed away in the winter of 1963, followed by Bruce's grandmother in August of 1964. 

Happy Friday!

Bruce Springsteen, The Fever

I just got off the phone with a friend who's not feeling well.  No, it's not H1N1 flu, but he does have a fever, and it seems to get worse at night.  Many Fridays I have no idea what I'm going to write about, but sometimes the inspiration comes from somewhere unexpected, like a friend's misery.  If my friend has a fever, then I think it's only fair that we spread 'The Fever' around on this Friday, for everyone who's feeling under the weather today. 

Hmmmm, I know that any flu is no laughing matter, but since having a fever tends to be one of the symptoms of flu patients, do you suppose there might be an opportunity for 'The Fever' to become the official song of the 2009/2010 flu season?  Is it even possible to sponsor a flu season?  You can sponsor the Olympics and they only last a couple of weeks.  A good flu seaons lasts for months!  Might be a great opportunity.  You don't see Jon Landau coming up with gems like this. Hey Bruce, let's do lunch.

Bruce wrote 'The Fever' back in 1971 and considered releasing it on his second album, 'The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle'.  He did record it in studio and his manager Mike Appel sent a copy of the recording to radio stations, perhaps including KLOL-FM in Houston.  On a subsequent tour through Houston in 1974, Bruce recorded it at KLOL for broadcast the same afternoon.  The next night, Bruce played it live in concert, for the first time following its only other live performances about a year earlier.  Here is that second ever live performance, from March 10, 1974, at Liberty Hall in Houston.

Bruce never did release 'The Fever' back in those days and in 1976 he let his Jersey shore pal Southside Johnny record it for his debut album.  This great song certainly helped Johnny launch his recording career.  If you haven't already seen it, be sure to check out the great live video clip of Bruce joining Johnny on stage in August of 1978 to perform 'The Fever', which you can find in the July 24, 2009 edition of Your Friday Bruce Fix. 

In December of 1978, Bruce played two shows at Winterland in San Francisco, site of The Band's 'The Last Waltz'.  The clip is from the first of those shows, and is one of my favorite performances of this great song. 

Happy Feverish Friday!

Bruce Springsteen, Thundercrack

I didn't plan it this way, but over the past month I have featured four cuts from Bruce Springsteen's second album, 'The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle'.  The catalyst for this flurry of classic tunes was Bruce's November 7th first ever top to bottom performance of the seven cuts off that album.  This week I'm featuring a song that might have been cut number eight were it not for the fact that there simply wasn't enough room left on the disc for another long song.

Bruce's sophomore effort yielded some of his most beloved concert pieces, including 'Kitty's Back', 'Incident On 57th Street' and 'Rosalita'.  'New York City Serenade' is one of Bruce's most rarely played in concert songs, and yet judging by its performance and the crowd reaction on November 7th in Madison Square Gardens (see the November 13, 2009 fix), I think we'd all love to be in the audience some night for a reappearance, with strings of course.

Now this is an educated guess, but I think 'Rosalita' was Bruce's pre-encore show closer for every full length concert from the beginning of the 'Born to Run' tour in 1975 (and many shows in 1974) until midway through the 'Born In The USA' tour towards the end of 1984, (and perhaps several times thereafter, and also as an encore).  I doubt that there are official records anywhere on this, but perhaps that makes 'Rosalita' the Cal Ripken of show closers.

Before 'Rosalita', a common closer was the song that opened the great aforementioned November 7th show, 'Thundercrack'.  I was fortunate enough to be in the pit (about 10 feet back, slightly on the Steve side of Bruce) in Toronto on the 'Magic' tour and caught my only ever 'Thundercrack'.  To this day, it is still my clearest memory from a night of many great ones. 

Here's the first of two of the many ways to do 'Thurdercrack', acoustically on piano from the great 'Devils and Dust' tour.

Way number two is from a May 1, 1973 performance at Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, with the inimitable Vini "Mad Dog" Lopez on drums.  By the way, on this night, Bruce opened for Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show and headliners New Riders of the Purple Sage.  I hope the marquee was big enough for all those names.

Happy Thundercrackin' Friday!

Bruce Springsteen, Kitty's Back, Merry Christmas Baby, Conan O'Brien, The Gift Of Bruce

One wintery Friday morning in the first week of December 2007, I emailed a video clip of Bruce Springsteen to four friends.  Without giving it much thought, in the subject line I wrote "Your Friday Bruce Fix".  In the body of the email, all I wrote was "Admit it, you need it.", and provided a link to a clip on YouTube. 

I had no thoughts of sending more clips in the future, certainly not every Friday, and I could have guaranteed you that it would never become a blog.  I'm not sure I even knew what a blog was.  A year later, and a year ago this week, after 52 Fridays of emails to a growing list of friends and assorted Friday Bruce Fixees, Your Friday Bruce Fix became a blog. 

Last week I featured what I feel is the definitive performance of 'Incident On 57th Street'.  This week, I give you another definitive version of a song from Bruce's second album 'The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle'.  This performance of 'Kitty's Back' comes from Bruce's appearance on 'Late Night with Conan O'Brien', on December 11, 2002, aligning nicely with the anniversary date of the launch of Your Friday Bruce Fix.  I suppose one could make the argument that Bruce was the original Bruce Fixer, but December 11 fell on a Wednesday that year, and "Your Wednesday Bruce Fix" just isn't sticky enough to catch on. 

This clip of 'Kitty's Back' is the one that I sent to the original four Bruce Fixees two years ago.  This amazing performance is the source of my inspiration and motivation to share the gift of Bruce with my friends.  The band on stage that night was a hybrid of the E Street Band and the Max Weinberg 7, and on the second and final song of the night, they were joined by "the man himself", Conan O'Brien, on guitar.  Ordinarily, I would rather wait until later in the month to feature 'Merry Christmas Baby', but it comes bundled with 'Kitty's Back' in this clip.  I guess it's not too early to start spreading some Christmas cheer.

So, happy Friday Bruce Fix anniversary to us, to the original four fixees, and to every other Bruce Fixee that has come along for the ride ever since.  In fact, today would be a great day for everybody to spread the gift of Bruce.  Wish your friends, family and colleagues a Happy Friday Bruce Fix by sending them the link to this blog.  It's a great way to mark the day, and to begin the holiday gift giving season.  Here's my gift of Bruce to you, and yours to them, and theirs to whoever.  Here's 'Kitty's Back'.  Crank up the volume and watch repeatedly until you no longer tap your toes.  It could be a while....

Kittys Back-Merry Xmas Baby- bruce springsteen live
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Happy Friday Bruce Fix!

Bruce Springsteen, Incident On 57th Street, The Main Point, Widener College

One of Bruce's legendary concerts from the early days took place on February 5, 1975 at The Main Point club in Bryn Mawr, PA, in the suburbs of Philadelphia.  (Bryn Mawr is Welsh for "big hill" in case you were wondering.) The show was a benefit for the club, and was broadcast, but not quite simulcast, by WMMR-FM on a two hour delay.  The broadcast was bootlegged and circulated, initially as a double album called "You Can Trust Your Car To The Man Who Wears The Star".  The album title was borrowed from a Texaco advertising slogan in use around that time, and the album art featured a great drawing of Bruce dressed as a Texaco gas attendant wearing the Texaco hat with the star that was a central part of the Texaco brand imagery in the early 1970s.

Conventional wisdom says that a rock act must take the stage with a great deal of vigor and immediately blow the fans out of their seats by leading off with some high energy rock anthem.  A few examples of Bruce Springsteen's anthemic openers that leap to mind are 'Badlands', 'Born In The USA' and 'The Rising'.  There is another approach, however, that Bruce has used to great effect, especially in those early years in the smaller clubs.

In this particular case, Bruce came out accompanied only by Roy Bittan on piano and Suki Lahav on violin, and a well timed stage prop siren at the end.  I think this is the definitive version of 'Incident On 57th Street'.  It's perfection.

Two nights later, Bruce was at Widener College in Chester, PA, also close to Philadelphia.  Some black & white video footage from this show in the school gymnasium has been circulating among collectors since the late 1970s, and one rumor has the source of this video as Widener College film students who may have in fact had permission from Bruce to film this show.  The audio quality is not great, but I thought you might like to get a glimpse of what such a great concert opening (in a gymnasium) looked like.  Once again, here's 'Incident On 57th Street'.

Happy Friday!

Bruce Springsteen, The E Street Shuffle, New York City Serenade

After the rather long written portion in last week's Friday Bruce Fix, today I'll try to let the music do the talking, at least most of the talking.  There is someone else that has a few words to say.

The 'Working On A Dream' tour began at the end of March and will end shortly in Buffalo on November 22nd.  In the final two months or so of the tour, Bruce has frequently performed entire albums in their proper sequence.  By far, the album he has featured most often is 'Born to Run', which I would absolutely love to experience live.  However, I think if I could have picked one night to be in attendance, it would have been November 7th at Madison Square Gardens in New York, for what may end up being the one time that Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band played, in sequence, all seven tracks from 'The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle'. 

With horn and string sections on stage for the appropriate songs, here are two samples for you, in fact the opening and closing tracks from the album.  First up is 'The E Street Shuffle' followed by the rarely played 'New York City Serenade'. 

Finally, I just had to share this with you in case you hadn't seen it.  I thought it best to include this in a fix while the tour was still on.  It seems this fellow was a bit disappointed with his tickets to his very first Springsteen show.

Happy Friday!