Your Friday Bruce Fix

Bruce Springsteen, J.J. Jackson Interview, Rave On, Growin' Up, But It's Alright

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...)

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, 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, Cadillac Ranch, Sherry Darling, Hungry Heart, In The Midnight Hour

Bruce Springsteen's 1980/81 tour in support of 'The River' was renowned for its marathon shows that routinely ran about 3 1/2 hours, with maybe a 20 minute intermission in the middle.  He'd do a 90 minute first set and in that one set give you a better show than most acts would in their full show, and you'd know that in 20 minutes, Bruce and the band would come back out and party with you for another 2 hours. 

Bruce would literally play to the point of exhaustion, with the band right there with him.  The audience would also have nothing left in the tank.  I remember the show I saw on that tour, (about 3 weeks after today's clips were shot) from the front row on the floor at the Montreal Forum.  I walked out of there a spent man, at the ripe old age of 23.  I remember having one quiet beer somewhere on Crescent Street with my friends, and then we all just packed it in and went home.  We were done.

Years later, I read a story somewhere that touched on those years in Bruce's life.  As I recall, the gist of that story is that Bruce was going through some serious personal issues at that time, primarily related to having little sense of who he was off stage.  He hated his off stage life, having no significant purpose beyond his music.  So, being on stage was an escape for him from his personal life.  He would play until he had nothing left to give because he just didn't want to leave the stage, knowing how unhappy he could be wherever else he might go.

Today's clips are from rare 8mm film shot by an audience member from the floor, near the stage.  These are from the legendary New Year's Eve show on Long Island as 1980 turned into 1981.  This show reportedly ran through 38 songs in about 4 hours.

'Cadillac Ranch' typically opened the second set on that tour.

'Sherry Darling' usually followed, with the dancer pulled up on stage towards the end of the song.

He'd follow that with 'Hungry Heart', his first big single.  Did you know Bruce wrote 'Hungry Heart' for The Ramones?  Wisely, manager Jon Landau wouldn't let Bruce give that one away.  Good call, Jon.

This being New Year's Eve, to mark midnight, Bruce played Wilson Pickett's 'In The Midnight Hour', then cracked open some champagne and shared it with fans.  Note the cast of characters on stage for the celebration.

As great as Bruce and his E Street Band are these days, so tight, so professional, and still playing with all the joy of rock 'n roll, there was something very special about those shows on the River tour.  Perhaps it was that man with the guitar giving you every last drop of his best, like his life depended on it, and maybe it did.

Happy Friday!

Bruce Springsteen, I Wish I Were Blind, Better Days

I don't know what came over me, perhaps it's just that I'm feeling a bit under the weather this week battling a cold, but today I'm going to feature two songs from Bruce Springsteen's wilderness years away from the E Street Band.  I hope you E Street purists won't mind.  I struggle with this period of Bruce's career, but it is certainly worthy of an examination every now and then.

I'll lead off with an overlooked gem from Bruce's extensive catalogue.  'I Wish I Were Blind' was released on the 'Human Touch' album.  It's a hurtin' song, about a guy longing for his former lover who now has a new man.  I think it's a great song, off a much maligned album culled from 30 songs recorded over 19 months between September 1989 and March 1991.  Had he asked, I might have counseled Bruce to include songs like 'Sad Eyes' and 'Secret Garden' in place of some of the duds that made the final cut. 

I believe this clip comes from his appearance on MTV's 'Unplugged', for which Bruce performed plugged in, other than the opening song, which was an acoustic rendering of 'Red Headed Woman'.

After completing the 'Human Touch' recording sessions, perhaps sensing he hadn't quite assembled the right collection of songs, Bruce didn't release the album right away, and instead headed back into the studios in July of that year.  The sessions went well and he emerged in January 1992 with enough material for the 'Lucky Town' album.  He apparently completed recording 15 songs in these sessions.  'Happy' is the most notable song from these sessions that was left off 'Lucky Town'.

'Lucky Town' and 'Human Touch' were released simultaneously on March 31, 1992.  Most consider 'Lucky Town' to be the superior of the two, despite the fact that Bruce had recorded only half as many songs for that album.  Some feel that he should have edited the 45 songs from the two recording sessions down to what might have been one pretty solid album.  I refer to that might have been album as 'Better Town'. 

'Better Days' is a less overlooked song than 'I Wish I Were Blind'.  It seems to have been written by a guy who had gone through some rough times ("It's a sad man my friend that's livin' in his own skin but can't stand the company"), but had gotten to a better place, to better days.  "Tonight this fool's halfway to heaven and just a mile outta hell, and I feel like I'm comin' home."

Happy Friday! 

Bruce Springsteen, City At Night, Taxi Cab, The Way

I think that on one or two occasions (OK, maybe a lot more than that) I may have mentioned that I'd love Bruce Springsteen to release a re-mastered 'Darkness On The Edge Of Town' album, in a box set along with a full concert from the Darkness tour in 1978.  I was pleased to learn before Christmas that Bruce, who undoubtedly reads this blog regularly (even Bruce needs a Bruce Fix), decided to take my advice and we now know that said box set is imminent.

The next thing I would like Bruce to do is to release more lost gems from the Darkness recording sessions.  He squeezed a few onto the 'Tracks' box set that he released in 1998, but there are so many more.  One option for Bruce is to release a 'Tracks II".  Another option might be to slip a third disc of studio outtakes, and maybe a couple of live audio tracks, into the upcoming 'Darkness' box set.  Bruce, I appreciate that you took my advice on releasing the 'Darkness' box set, so I'll be good about this and let you choose which of the above two options I've outlined for you, but you must choose one of them.

Today's fix features two outtakes from the 'Darkness' recording sessions.  The first I've long known as 'City At Night', although it is alternately known as 'Taxi Cab'.  (We'll find out which it is now that Bruce knows what he has to do.)  I find 'City At Night' very cinematic and can visualize it set to scenes of Robert De Niro driving around in his cab in Martin Scorsese's 'Taxi Driver'. 

Since we know that De Niro stole his famous "You talkin' to me?" line from Bruce (see the June 5, 2009 fix), I wonder if Bruce was somehow inspired by the movie to write this song.  The timeline is right.  Bob saw Bruce in 1975, 'Taxi Driver' came out in 1976, Bruce recorded 'City At Night' in 1977.  It all adds up.

'The Way' is a nice, romantic ballad that clearly didn't belong, either musically or lyrically, on the Darkness album.  Another example is 'Hearts of Stone' which I featured in the October 23, 2009 fix.  These are just some of the many great songs that didn't make the cut, but are worthy of being properly mixed and mastered so we can enjoy them the way they deserve to be heard.

Happy Friday! 

Bruce Springsteen, Terry's Song

Yesterday afternoon, I was contemplating two distinctly different ideas for this week's fix.  Then I received an email that knocked me onto by butt for a few hours.  Today, I don't feel much better, but I do know what to do with this week's fix. 

My friend Kevin died in a terrible car accident Wednesday afternoon.  We worked together for a few years in the early 90s and kept in regular contact over the years, right up until last week's phone call.  He was in good spirits, as he generally was.  He loved life, life loved him back and he leaves a staggering number of people with a lot of fond memories.  A lot of my memories involve golf, beer, chicken wings and many laughs.

I've met a lot of people in my life, but there was only one Kevin.  So, this week's fix features Bruce Springsteen's tribute to his friend and personal assistant Terry Magovern who passed away on July 30, 2007.  On August 1st, Bruce wrote this song and performed it at Terry's memorial service the next day.

It seems Terry and Kevin may have been very much alike, at least in their uniqueness and in the force of their personalities.  I'm struggling to find words, so I'll let Bruce's lyrics carry the rest of this fix. 

We'll all miss you, bud.  When they built you, brother, they broke the mold.

Well they built the Titanic to be one of a kind
But many ships have ruled the seas
They built the Eiffel Tower to stand alone
But they could build another if they please
Taj Mahal, the Pyramids of Egypt
Are unique I suppose
But when they built you, brother
They broke the mold

Now the world is filled with many wonders
Under the passing sun
Sometimes something comes along
And you know it's for sure the only one
Mona Lisa, the David, the Sistine Chapel
Jesus, Mary and Joe
And when they built you, brother
They broke the mold

When they built you , brother
They turned us into gold
And when they built you, brother
They broke the mold

They say you can't take it with you
But I think that they're wrong
Cause all I know I woke up this morning
And something big was gone
Gone into that dark ether
Where you're still young and hard and cold
Just like when they built you, brother
They broke the mold

Now your death is upon us
And we'll return your ashes to the earth
And I know you'll take comfort in knowing
You been roundly blessed and cursed
But love is a power greater than death
Just like the songs and stories told
And when she built you, brother
She broke the mold

That attitude's a power stronger than death
Alive and burning when you're stone cold
And when they built you, brother

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, Land of Hope and Dreams, Happy New Year

On a morning that begins the new year, a song that looks forward with hope feels like the right fit.  I believe that with the new year comes new opportunities.  As we transition into the new year, it is a time to look forward to realizing our goals and fulfilling our dreams. 

I first heard 'Land of Hope and Dreams' on the reunion tour in 1999.  I still remember my reaction.  I was astounded that Bruce could close a show with a song no one had ever heard, and still blow everyone away.  While I couldn't quite make out all the lyrics, I grasped their optimism and inclusiveness, and the music was entirely uplifting.  When I think about my long list of favorite Bruce tunes, this is one that doesn't always come to mind, yet when it does, I always end up thinking it's one of his best.

So, here are two renditions of what I feel is one of Bruce's most overlooked and underrated songs.  The first is an acoustic version that comes from the Flood Aid concert in Pittsburg on December 2, 2004.

The second version comes from the reunion tour on its stop in Washington, DC on September 3, 1999. This was actually the second to last song of the night, with 'Ramrod' closing the proceedings on this night.

Happy Friday and a very Happy New Year to all!