After last week's mammoth Friday Bruce Fix featuring The Big Man (or is it Big Man?) himself, I've decided I need to pare this one down a little. I just can't feature five clips every week. That pace would kill me, and that wouldn't do any of us any good, would it?
By the time Bruce Springsteen went into the studio to record his first album, 'Greetings From Asbury Park', he had been writing and performing his own songs for perhaps seven or eight years in a variety of bands. He had amassed a wealth of material from which to choose featuring a range of styles and themes.
When choosing tracks to include on any of his albums, Bruce is always careful to ensure that those he chooses work well with each other and form a coherent whole. This sometimes means great songs are left off albums, and many of those found their way onto 1998's 'Tracks' 4 cd box set.
Today's first clip features a song that didn't make it onto 'Greetings From Asbury Park'. From a July 31, 1973 gig at My Father's Place in Rosalyn, NY, 60 minutes of which were broadcast on radio, here's a great version of 'You Mean So Much to Me'. It was originally written for and performed with the Bruce Springsteen Band in 1971.
Bruce never released 'You Mean So Much to Me' but later gave it to his Asbury Park buddy Southside Johnny who released it in 1976 on his first album 'I Don't Want to Go Home'. For that recording, Southside shared vocal duties with Ronnie Spector of the "Ronnettes", and also the former wife of Phil Spector, he of the wall of sound and Russian roulette fetish. Here's how it sounded with the Southside Johnny & Miami Steve wall-of-horns treatment.
The mid to late '70s were a particularly fertile song writing period for Bruce, with many outstanding songs being left off 'Darkness On The Edge Of Town' and 'The River'. 'Hearts Of Stone' is one such example. He wrote it in 1977, quite possibly with the intention of giving it to Southside Johnny. Whether or not that was his intent, this great song didn't really belong on 'Darkness'. Instead, it became the title track of Southside's all-time best album in 1978.
Clip number three for this week is Bruce's original recording that was later released on 'Tracks', followed immediately by Southside's classic interpretation. I think I hear Miami Steve singing background vocals on both tracks, and that's Stevie's fine lead guitar work on Southside's recording.
There, that wasn't nearly so mammoth, was it? Well, maybe just slightly less mammoth.
Happy Friday!
Nobody is more mammoth than you Rick!
Posted by: Michael Katz | October 23, 2009 at 03:30 PM