I enjoyed last week's interview so much, I thought I'd continue down the same path, this time Bruce Springsteen's interview with Bob Harris of The Old Grey Whistle Test. This is also from the 'Darkness On The Edge Of Town' tour, although I can't place the date. Since the tour never left North America, the interview likely took place after one of the shows in the USA.
In the interview, Bruce cited Duane Eddy and his rock and roll guitar sound as one of his early influences. Have a listen to 'Rebel Rouser' and see if Bruce's breakout hit 'Born to Run' comes to mind.
In case it didn't, have a listen to this. This is a great rare film clip from 1976 on one of those four tours Bruce spoke of doing to keep the band afloat during the legal battles that kept him out of the recording studio and delayed the arrival of 'Darkness on the Edge of Town'. This song is definitely propelled by some fast and furious Duane Eddy twang.
Since Bruce mentioned Peter Townsend in the interview as another of his influences, here's a clip from Bruce's first trip across the pond to London to play the Hammersmith Odeon in 1975. Pete was in the audience and perhaps he requested this backstage before the show, or maybe Bruce just knew Pete would like his guitar interplay with Steve.
In last week's Friday Bruce Fix, I closed with the earliest known televised interview of Bruce Springsteen dating back to 1976. This week, I'm opening with an interview conducted by J.J. Jackson for a Los Angeles television station. J.J. Jackson, otherwise known as Triple J, was one of the original "Fab Five" MTV VJs when the channel was launched in 1981.
When I first saw this interview, I thought that this was the same J.J. Jackson who recorded the mega hit single 'But It's Alright' back in 1966. Shockingly, I may be wrong. Others may share my confusion as an examination of the two J.J. Jackson entries in Wikipedia shows both with identical birth dates of April 8, 1941, both born in The Bronx, NY.
It's either a phenomenal coincidence that John J. "J.J." Jackson the VJ, and Jerome Louis "J.J." Jackson the soul singer were born on the same day, in the same city, OR one or both of those entries is not entirely accurate, or is just plain wrong. Could they actually be the same guy? I don't feel like researching this any further to clear up the confusion. If anyone knows the truth, please post a comment to enlighten us.
I prefer to think this was indeed a phenomenal coincidence, and that not only were the two J.J.s born on the same day, in the same city, and both went into the music business and eventually went by the same handle, but I'd also like to think they were born in the same hospital around the same time and that maybe there was some confusion and that the two babies were switched at birth and brought up by the other's biological parents.
If I'm to believe what I've read, J.J. the VJ, aka Triple J, passed away, on St. Paddy's Day, March 17, 2004. I think J.J. the soul singer is still alive, unless of course, through some phenomenal coincidence, he died on the exact same day. By the way, it IS a phenomenal coincidence that I'm writing about this just two days after St. Patrick's Day. I had no idea J.J. (at least one of the two) was even dead.
This interview is widely considered Bruce's first television interview, but after last week, we now know this is not quite the truth. This fix has certainly turned into a one big mess of dubious facts, clarifications, coincidences, confusion and unanswered questions. Some fix.... what's the opposite of a fix?
Towards the end of the interview, Bruce mentioned playing Buddy Holly every night before he goes on stage to keep himself honest. On this night, he actually opened with a Buddy Holly tune, 'Rave On'.
I thought it would be fun to play another song from Bruce's historic performance that night, July 7, 1978, at The Roxy. In the Bruce Fix three weeks ago on February 26, 2010, I featured an early acoustic performance of 'Growin' Up'. Six years later on the Darkness tour, it had morphed into a full band, show stopping centerpiece, with a great story.
Finally, this fix (or whatever it is) would not be complete without hearing from our man J.J. Can you guess which one?
Appropriately, the clip suggests that this tune comes from 1968. That is of course wrong, it was from 1966, although the confusion may come from the fact that this song magically resurfaced to hit the charts again, I thought in 1969. Maybe it was 1968.....
Happy Friday! (I think it's Friday.... let me check...)
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?
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?
Recent Comments