bruce springsteen

Least to Most: Bruce – The Ghost of Tom Joad

/ Tony / 15 Comments

“Shelter line stretchin’ ‘round the corner
Welcome to the new world order
Families sleepin’ in their cars in the southwest
No home, no job, no peace, no rest”

I’m starting to think that the poor reception that greeted Human Touch and Lucky Town kinda knocked Bruce’s confidence a little heavier than he’d let on. Going by the fact that, at the time, he was still actively fighting depression and going through a lot of personal changes, it’s not that big a surprise. One could imagine that, were he feeling more resilient mentally he may have said “nuts” to the negative reviews, gone back to the woodshed and kicked it up a notch. Instead, during the period between the end of what’s now called ‘The Other Band’ and the start of the E Street Reunion tours precious little of what Springsteen wrote saw the light of day (pun intended).

the_ghost_of_tom_joadNow to me – and I hope others – this is a real burr because what recorded material from 1994 onwards has reached the eager ears of listeners is gold and does show that the man was more than capable of saying “nuts” and going back to work. There’s an entire album’s worth (close to two*) of material that was shelved and will likely never be released. There’s been some hints as to what it contains – like the E Street reworking of ‘Waiting on the End of the World‘ – but it’s likely to remain unheard save a (much prayed for) Tracks 2**emerging and all you need to is cast a look at the material Bruce did release from that era, all with a certain understated charm, to know why we’re missing out: ‘Streets of Philadelphia’, ‘Secret Garden’, ‘Blood Brothers’ (the latter two written during a run of inspiration ahead of and during the E Street reunion for Greatest Hits), ‘Missing‘, ‘Lift Me Up‘, ‘Dead Man Walking’, even ‘Without You‘ has a joyful charm, ‘Nothing Man’ originated during this period… and then there’s this thing he wrote called ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’.

‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’ was written around the time of Greatest Hits and Bruce even took the band through a few takes but, much like elusive ‘Electric Nebraska Sessions’, it wasn’t right. So, instead of the presumed course after that compilation’s reunion, Bruce took a sharp left: he assembled a group of songs about the American South West and, for the most part, embellished them with little more than his voice and some delicate guitar patterns weaving through the odd keyboard drone (something that started with ‘One Step Up’ and featured heavily in his 90s output to good effect).

And what a group of songs they are***. More restrained and narrow focused than his earlier solo (masterpiece) Nebraska, these songs actively incorporated silence and hushed phrasing (so much so that the tour that followed was often referred to as the ‘Shut the Fuck Up’ tour) to create memorable and affecting stories that lingered. Listening back to this one I’d forgotten just how powerful some of these are, take the tale in ‘Sinaloa Cowboys’ as an example:

Here the stories are perfectly succinct and the delicate touches of instrumentation mean that in their simplicity they achieve what the over-worked attempts of Devils & Dust failed to: stories with bite with music as a subtle backdrop rather than focus.

There are four songs on The Ghost of Tom Joad, title track included, for which Bruce assembled a small backing band – including Gary Tallent and Danny Federici – to add a little colour to the sonic palette and these serve as beautiful counterpoint to the otherwise stark, bitter-sweet beauty of songs like ‘The Line’. ‘Straight Time’ and ‘Dry Lightning’ may not linger as much as, say, the powerfully stark ‘Highway 29’ which could slot right at home on Nebraska, but the title track and ‘Youngstown’ are both essential Bruce songs.

‘Youngstown’ has become such a torch-burning, electrically recast centre-point of E Street band shows since the Reunion tour that it’s easy to forget just how strong the original is:

The other reason Ghost of Tom Joad is an essential part of Springsteen’s catalogue is that it finds him rediscovering his voice. Not the hushed tones of the vocals but the no-linger inward focus. This was Bruce looking for inspiration outside of the men vs women themes he’d used for the previous three (released, that is) albums, but looking at the struggles of others – as he says; ““the songs on it added up to a reaffirmation of the best of what I do. The record was something new, but was also a reference point to the things I tried to stand for and still wanted to be about as a songwriter.””

Received to slighter commercial success but pretty strong reviews with Rolling Stone reckoning it “among the bravest work that anyone has given us this decade”  (and a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album), it perhaps receives a harsher view in retrospect from some corners than it deserves. Some criticisms fired at this album focus around the hushed, minimal delivery or the lack of fire and brimstone given to the recorded versions of songs like ‘Ghost of Tom Joad’ and ‘Youngstown’ compared to their now live rendering but, if you ask me, they’re missing the point. The songs on this album (something of a concept album in that respect) all focus on the- as  his own website puts it – ” poverty, immigration and the brittle troubles of Americans and Mexicans in the Southwest.” The desert can be a cold, bleak place with vast empty spaces. The Ghost of the Tom Joad, sonically, is the sound of these oft-broken characters staring into that space after a day in the cruel, blinding light of its heat with acceptance / surrender of the inevitable. It’s not a time for boot, stomping rock and, in the brittle, fragility of its delivery of these stories Ghost of Tom Joad remains an understated and captivating masterpiece.

Highlights: ‘Ghost of Tom Joad’, ‘Youngstown’, ‘Highway 29’, ‘Sinaloa Cowboys’, ‘The Line’, ‘Galveston Bay’.

Not so highlights: The exclusion of ‘Brothers Under The Bridge’ which could’ve elevated this album to virtually unimpeachable. But then everybody needs a ‘Blind Wille McTell’.

*Depending on how much different side-men know: Bruce has spoken about an album of more relationship songs in the minimal ‘Streets of Philadelphia’ style, Shane Fontayne has given interviews that hint at yet another. Could just be crossed wires, could be another well of unheard material. He was certainly clocking up recording sessions during this period.

** At the time of Tracks 75% of Bruce’s material was unreleased. Even the number of songs settled on for Tracks was then culled from 100 to 66. What was on those extra two discs? Surely more than went on to make up The Promise and The Ties That Bind?

***Here, again, though he wrote some 22 songs. There’s tales of two albums’ worth of songs – one with the band backing – being recorded. Some would pop up on tour, some never to be sung again. FFS.

Least to Most: Bruce – We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions

/ Tony / 7 Comments

“Now Teddy me boy,” the old widow cried
“Your two fine legs was your mama’s pride
Them stumps of a tree won’t do at all
Why didn’t you run from the big cannon ball?”

“Now against all war, I do profrain
Between Don Juan and the King of Spain
And, by herrons, I’ll make ’em rue the time
When they swept the legs from a child of mine.”

It’s worth pointing out that, from this point on, we’re really into the quality stuff. 8/10 and upwards so there’s no real “this album is a bit cack because” elements, more of a general exploration / personal ranking attempt.

seeger_sessionsWith eighteen studio albums (he counts High Hopes), half a dozen compilation albums, a few box-sets and a couple of live records, it’s We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions that’s the real outlier in Bruce Springsteen’s catalogue. Nebraska, Ghost of Tom Joad and Devils & Dust may not have been sonically in line with, say, The River, but their subjects and song writing style certainly sit within the overall Springsteen narrative style. We Shall Overcome.. is an album made up entirely of covers* and contains his interpretations of thirteen tracks made popular by Pete Seeger.

This one goes back, initially, to that fallow period in Bruce Springsteen’s recorded output, between Ghost of Tom Joad and the resurgence of the E Street Band at the end of the decade. In 1997 Bruce got together with a group of musicians introduced to him by Soozie Tyrell and recorded ‘We Shall Overcome’ for the Where Have All the Flowers Gone: the Songs of Pete Seeger tribute album.

A few years later, his career revitalised and during a brief break between ‘rock’ albums, Bruce decided to revisit the idea and the band got together in his home, counted off and let her rip.

In a recent interview Bruce was asked about the possibility of a second Seeger Sessions album and he said that, while there’s nothing on the horizon yet, he doesn’t see why not, he’s “collected a small group of material” and that what he enjoyed about this one was he that didn’t have to write and “that it was such an enjoyable band I can’t imagine not doing it again”.**

So here we have thirteen songs that Bruce chose to cover and had an absolute blast playing with musicians introduced to him just days before and just letting rip. If you hang your Springsteen luggage at the door it’s a hugely enjoyable album from which the most apparent feature is just what a joyful experience recording it must have been.

The tracks are pretty diverse and date back many hundreds of years and Bruce brings his own arrangements to each.

Let’s face it; for all his detours into hushed acoustics, Bruce is primarily a rock singer and carries with his voice and phrasing a certain clout. Even with his first two albums of acoustic-based music (we’ll get to those a bit later in this series) you only need go back a few years in his musical journey and he was on stage with Steel Mill belting out southern-tinged harder-rocking numbers and honing the his abilities to rock any joint that would let him plug in. When it’s just him with a guitar you can expect a hush but if you put a band behind him it is (to pull a Steve Van Zandt line in where he has no place) “Boss time” – what he brings to these arrangements of folk standards is an extra thump, a beefing up ready for those stadium-ears almost. I find ‘Mrs McGrath’ particularly benefits from this. It not only makes these songs sound more contemporary but is likely the best way to make them accessible for his own fanbase who – were they recorded in a style much closer to their standards – may not give them as much time.

Personally – I love a lot of this record and it did mean I not only went out looking for more similar music but spent a lot of time with this in the car. Mission accomplished then, I guess.

I recall at the time of release that We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions was met with a lot of acclaim. It picked up a Grammy for Best Traditional Folk album and the tour that followed won similar applause (and was captured on the Live In Dublin album which featured a few of Bruce’s originals re-worked) though, reportedly, a little under-attended.  There was some negativity – the very ‘Springsteeninsation’ of these songs robbed them of some of their more traditional elements but then, if you want a traditional folk rendering would you really buy a Springsteen version? For my money, a lot of those traditional ones can come across a whole lot more bland and a whole lot less fun.

When it comes to why this one doesn’t go higher up in terms of rotation it’s probably down to the fact that, for all the fun and appeal of it, it’s not necessarily one to listen to all the way through each time – after a while the lack of diversity becomes a little much and I find myself wanting to listen to something else. An element which will also depend on which version of this album you got your hands on. I got this one on day of release so mine concludes with ‘Froggie Went A-Courtin”. Frustratingly, six months later the album was reissued as  We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions – American Land Edition. This version slapped an extra five tracks on including Springsteen’s own ‘American Land’ (later re-recorded for Wrecking Ball) and ‘How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live’ featuring some additional lyrics from Bruce. A little vexing as both are strong tunes but I wasn’t about to go out and buy the same album twice in one year and it felt a little cash-grab.

However, overall, nothing but like for We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions.

I have one small curiosity of a hang-up with it though and it’s a trifle of a thing but it’s the cover. Bruce has been backed by the E Street band on ten albums. Yet the cover is always Bruce alone. So you’d guess the rule is that the musicians that play on the songs don’t get to the cover. Except, it would seem, the group of musicians of the Sessions Band (who he’d only played with a couple of times) – they get the cover. Garry Tallent has played bass on 14 Springsteen  records since 1972 – he’s not on any cover. A chap called Jeremy Chatzky plays upright bass on We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions. He’s on the cover. Played bass on one album, on the cover. Garry Tallent bass on 14 albums, no cover. Even on the live albums credited to the E Street only Bruce was on the cover. I think only one album, a ‘quick we’ve got some big festival shows coming’ Greatest Hits comp saw the whole band on the front cover and even that was only for the European disc. My tongue is, of course, firmly in my cheek with most of this but I do wonder if this caused a slight eye twitch on the E Streeters….

Highlights: Mrs McGrath, John Henry, Pay Me My Money Down, Eerie Canal, Eyes On The Prize

Not so highlights: most of these will be empty from here on in.

*Again; unless you have the reissued version in which case you get one original Springsteen song and some original lyrics.

**He also revealed that he wrote and submitted a song for the Harry Potter films which went unused.

Least to Most: Bruce – Working On A Dream

/ Tony / 19 Comments

I’m gonna take a bet that of this album’s fans, Steven Van Zandt (“I’m a pop-rock-band guy. That’s all I am”) is one of the biggest. He’s stated that he sees this – the last Bruce Springsteen and E-Street album to date – as the logical end of a trilogy that started with The Rising with “a projection more toward the pop-rock form” achieved more completely on Working On A Dream.

working_on_a_dreamI might be quoting more heavily on Mr Van Zandt than anyone else but that’s because Bruce is somewhat quiet about Working On A Dream in hindsight. Even in his own book it got just a fleeting mention. Perhaps he – like quite a few – consider it one without real staying power. Perhaps it was sheer timing that meant that Working On A Dream, the third-and-final album with Van Zandt & co would also be the least rewarding. Let’s face it; in the ten years preceeding its release Bruce had reunited the band and embarked on a huge tour, released The Rising, Magic, Devils & Dust, The Seegar Sessions, an anniversary edition of Born To Run, released The Essential compilation, toured the globe tirelessly and stepped into the political arena with the Vote For Change tour. A whirl of activity that by far eclipsed that of Bruce’s previous decade. It was probably time to take a break.

Instead, struck by inspiration and a writing spell that carried through from the final recording sessions for Magic, Bruce returned to the studio with Brendan O’Brien (one last time) and a core band of Max Weinberg, Roy Bittan and Garry Tallent (other members would be bought in to add their parts later) to catch, as he said, the “energy of the band fresh off the road from some of the most exciting shows we’ve ever done.”

One could argue that, with a Superbowl concert on the horizon the need for product was in mind and this one was perhaps a little under-cooked. One could argue that… could…

See, there are some songs here that I simply cannot connect to no matter how I try. The title track has never clicked. Yeah; it’s nice and pleasant but it just seems to lack spark or real weight and I think he’s tackled the theme better elsewhere (on Lucky Town especially). ‘Queen of the Supermarket’ simply should never have been and I had to wonder what a champion lyricist like Bruce was thinking with ‘Life Itself’ – “We met down in the valley where the wine of love and destruction flowed, there in that curve of darkness where the flowers of temptation grow”… do what, mate?

But. But. But. It’s not fair, though, to write it off or brush over it completely because this is Bruce Springsteen and (with the rare exception) you only tend to have to wait a second for a belter of a song to reveal itself and there is a lot to enjoy on Working On A Dream.

Take the opener; ‘Outlaw Pete’. I know it gets a bit of slack for being a bit overblown and borderline self-parody, but I still enjoy it (granted, I wouldn’t listen to it everyday) and I don’t think Bruce is exactly taking himself seriously with it. Yes it’s daft (“by six months old he’d done three months in jail”), yes it may well have borrowed from another song but it sets the scene – I really think that at this point it was a case that, rather than sweating over everything too much, the mood was “you know what? Fuck it, let’s give it a go”.  Not to mention that when played live (though I don’t think it’s been touched since) Steve – a much underused player on stage these days – got to play the lead.

Right on it’s heals – ‘My Lucky Day‘ is another fast, blistering tune that, again, sounds like a blast was had recording it. Its fast, rawer sound almost at odds with the layers of overdubs and lush, huge 60’s sound that drapes so much of the album. Step past the next couple of momentum stallers and you get to the great sonic backdrop of ‘What Love Can Do’ and the swampy, blues-stomp of ‘Good Eye‘ a nice enough (though nothing that special) couple of tunes that sandwich ‘This Life’ – a more obvious Beach Boys’ aping sound you’d be hard pushed to find:

‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ jangles along quickly and without much to hang on to, as does ‘Surprise Surprise’. ‘Kingdom of Days’ is a genuinely warm one about love and ageing. The album’s most affecting track though is saved for last (if we exclude – still very good – ‘The Wrestler’ tacked on as a bonus).

‘The Last Carnival’ is seen by many as a follow up to ‘Wild Billy’s Circus Story’ from The Wild The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle. It is, more importantly, for Danny Federici who passed away in April 2008, the first member of the E Street Band to do so having played with Bruce for forty years. Danny had appeared with the band briefly over the previous Magic tour and did so last less than a month before his death. Bruce asked him what song he wanted to play – it was, of course, ‘Sandy’. In his book it’s clear that while Danny Federici was the only member of the band to drive him to violent rage, Bruce had a genuine love for the organ player and his death certainly rocked him, as he said in the eulogy: “After a lifetime of watching a man perform his miracle for you, night after night, it feels an awful lot like love.”

‘The Last Carnival’ is a beautiful send off. An immensely affecting farewell to a fallen brother. After opening to Jason Federici’s accordion, Bruce sings at the bottom of his range in a barely-suppressed choke and hush against minimal accompaniment “Where have you gone my handsome Billy?” before layered voices swell to a choir. It’s a moving send-off and ending to the last album featuring the full E Street Band*.

A couple of clunkers aside, while there’s nothing wrong with the majority of Working On A Dream it perhaps lacks the sharpness and punch of its immediate predecessor. That being said, in amongst some of the most ambitious production of his career (Rolling Stone gave it the default 5 star review, though none of its songs made their 100 Best Springsteen Songs list, wetting their knickers over its lush sound), Bruce was still capable of crafting a fair few beauties so that the good by far outweighed the bad.

Highlights: My Lucky Day, Kingdom of Days, The Last Carnival

Lowlights: Queen of the Supermarket

*Certainly their last full album. Songs that didn’t make the cut on this or its immediate predecessors and featured E Street (and Danny Federici) included High Hopes highlights ‘Down In The Hall’ and ‘The Wall’.

Least to Most: Bruce – Devils & Dust

/ Tony / 5 Comments

“Now down below and pullin’ on my shirt
I got some kids of my own
Well if I had one wish in this god forsaken world, kids
It’d be that your mistakes would be your own” Long Time Comin’

bruce_springsteen_-_devils__dustLet’s kick this one off with a small clarification – Devils & Dust (as with each that follows in this series) is a fine album. As strong a collection of songs as many could muster. From here on in (now that High Hopes is behind us) we’re really just talking personal preferences.

The outlier in Bruce’s ‘acoustic trio’, the songs on Devils & Dust aren’t  as sparsely accompanied as they are on Ghost Of Tom Joad or Nebraska, nor are they as single-minded in their focus. Recorded after touring behind The Rising, this set was produced by Brendan O’Brien and mixes themes from politics to personal.

Many of the songs here go back to the Ghost Of Tom Joad tour – some even earlier -but the opening title track was new and is as fine a song as Bruce has ever written, a strong commentary on the Iraq war: “It is basically a song about a soldier’s point of view, but it kind of opens up to a lot of other interpretations.” The album and song were nominated for a few Grammy Awards (it won Best Solo Rock Vocal) and, performing the song during the broadcast he added a cry  of “Bring ’em home” at the end before immediately turning and leaving the stage (missing his partial standing-ovation). It’s a great song.

There’s plenty of great tunes on Devils & Dust, even the older tunes revisited for the format work well and still stand (the mark of a good Springsteen song if you ask me) their ground. ‘All The Way Home‘ is particularly strong – written for and originally released by Southside Johnny in 1991 (on an album titled Better Days of all things) and is not even slightly acoustic, Bruce really steps into the lyric “I know what it’s like to have failed, baby with the whole world lookin’ on”.

One of my personal favourites on this one is ‘Long Time Comin” – a catchy, sins-of-the-father, redemption song that only suffers by it’s placing between ‘Reno’ and ‘Black Cowboys’:

Devils & Dust was the first Springsteen album to feature a Parental Advisory sticker and it wasn’t just for the ‘fuck it up this time’ in the ‘Long Time Comin’ either. It was most likely down to the album’s biggest talking point; ‘Reno’. To me, though, I find the song, like a couple of the others on here, just a bit ‘meh’. It seems like the minimal two-chord repetition and overly-heavy lyrics are too oppressive/dour and, in this instance, seem to be an awful lot of a build-up to hear Bruce sing about a man’s visit to a prostitute; “”Two hundred dollars straight in, two-fifty up the ass,” she smiled and said.”  There’s nothing wrong with daring, there’s nothing wrong with those lyrics but it seems, to me at least, that the song isn’t really much to write home about in the first place and if it weren’t for those lines nobody would’ve really written about it all.

While there’s nothing wrong with a good ‘story’ song (‘Galveston Bay’ on Ghost of Tom Joad for example), there’s a few instances on Devils & Dust, like ‘The Hitter’ or ‘Jesus Was An Only Son’ where these near short-stories are too much for their minimal backdrops to retain attention. Take a look at the lyrics and you’ll see that some of these are blocks of paragraphs rather than verses and some (‘The Hitter’) are nine plus verses without a chorus. Don’t get me wrong; the lyrics aren’t bad at all (‘The Hitter’ is especially brutal) but it weighs the album down a touch more than the music and production can lift.

To me it’s not a good thing if a song can’t speak for itself. The inlay for Devils & Dust is filled with explanatory notes around many of these wordier tunes and, from what I’ve read, Bruce spent many a minute on stage during the solo tour for this one explaining the meaning / story behind a lot of the tracks – as can also be seen on the ‘Storytellers’ episode (and while that’s kinda the point it got a little frustrating as he’d almost pause during song to explain verse-by-verse).

That being said I reiterate that it’s a good album (again I’m sure there’s many who may say it’s their favourite) and contains some great tunes so I’ll drop the much-overlooked ‘Maria’s Bed’ here:

Highlights: Devils & Dust, All The Way Home, Long Time Comin’, Maria’s Bed, All I’m Thinkin About, Leah.

Lowlights: Reno, Black Cowboys, Jesus Was An Only Son.

 

Least To Most: Bruce – Lucky Town

/ Tony / 4 Comments

“Well my soul checked out missing as I sat listening
To the hours and minutes tickin’ away
Yeah, just sittin’ around waitin’ for my life to begin
While it was all just slippin’ away. ” – Better Days

It’s an odd thing but the workaholic, perfectionist streak that was behind those arduous sessions for, say, Born To Run and the near-bankrupting sessions for The River that lead to those albums’ brilliance, can often lead to adding so much polish to something that you’re blinded to the turd underneath the shine. Just look at Human Touch. Far too much time and take-after-take on tracks that were second-rate for Bruce (don’t get me wrong, other artists have made long careers off of worse but Mr Springsteen set the bar higher for all including himself).

lucky_townAt the end of the sessions for Human Touch, Bruce felt he needed one more song. He wrote ‘Living Proof’ and hit a streak which bought another ten songs in rapid succession. All of them (with the exception of ‘Happy’) were released as Lucky Town.

When I first bought these two albums I did so at the same time – I believe it was after having bought a ‘double’ which contained both Nebraska and Darkness so they were always gonna struggle to compare – and, initially, it was (as with many others I’ve read) Human Touch that I preferred. Yet on repeated listens and with the passing of time it’s Lucky Town  that I go back to more. I find it’s quiet and more-adult contemplations get better with time and experience.

There’s something so much lighter about it yet it’s so much more focused and the song-writing stronger and more convincingly true than on Human Touch. While I’ll skip ‘Leap of Faith’ and’Big Muddy’ the remainder aren’t too bad at all and some I’d even call great.

‘Better Days’ is a strong kick-off and one that captures the happiness and contentment in his new life and how he struggled to reconcile such feelings with his former life -“It’s a sad funny ending to find yourself pretending, a rich man in a poor man’s shirt…. a life of leisure and a pirate’s treasure don’t make much for tragedy” – and the dichotomy of how to write about it rather than his previous muses that Bruce spent the majority of Human Touch and a later, never to be released, album fumbling around.

The song that sparked the whole album off, ‘Living Proof’, is one that I came to appreciate more as I added more years to my own clock, especially with fatherhood. While the slightly too slick and heavy session musicians almost marr it, the production isn’t as overwhelming as on this albums’ sister and it’s hard to deny the genuine salvation Bruce had found in this himself, the same goes for ‘My Beautiful Reward‘. *

Perhaps the album’s most lasting export, though, is ‘If I Should Fall Behind’ which very quickly outgrew it’s relatively minor representation here and became a centrepiece of many a live show and no doubt features in a lot of fan favourite lists. A beautiful, hushed hymn to his wife as they began their new life together which manages to do that magical thing a good Bruce Springsteen song can do – take something personal to him and make it universal to all and, if you check the notes, it’s one of those in which he played everything (save the drums) himself ensuring a) it comes across as intended and b) isn’t marred by flat playing:

‘Souls of the Departed’ is a strong song, touching back to the themes of ‘Born In The USA’ – only this time spurred by the Gulf War and the LA Riots; “This is a prayer for the souls of the departed, those who’ve gone and left their babies brokenhearted, young lives over before they got started” only with added personal clout this time round as all Bruce, while tucking his son into bed, “can think of is what if it would’ve been him instead.” It’s a bitter, cynical and biting song. Oddly enough Bruce managed to spend the 80’s avoiding having his work inflected too much by popular sound trends and the big sound on ‘Born In The USA’ pushes the song forward and lifts it. On ‘Souls..’ the sound is big but it was almost dated by the time it was released. It’s one of those from this era that I’d so very love to hear with the clout of Max Weinberg and a searing lick from Nils. Oh well. Still, I think more tunes from Lucky Town have been played live in recent years than from its sister album.

In his book Bruce does mention how he auditioned a lot of session players for his new band. How he struggled to find – given how many musicians there must be per square metre in that place I do wonder how hard he looked – a drummer with sufficient skill and clout… But he was determined to try routes new so calling The band wasn’t on the cards. It’s perhaps telling how he now feels about the band he assembled and its reception given how scant a summary he gives; there’s no enthusiastic wrap-up of concerts given or even much commentary of how it was received.

To be honest, it’s probably that which stops this album going higher up the list. Some of the songs on here stand head and shoulders above later and earlier duds but it’s the overall sound and lack of richness that comes with most Springsteen albums that handicaps Lucky Town and the songs on it. The players may have been top notch (for all my comments Gary Mallaber is a fine drummer) but the chemistry and spark just feels that little bit hollower and the production has dated poorly.

I think that, with the release of Human Touch and Lucky Town, two very-slick, glossy albums with a production that almost buffed the (ironically) human touch from Bruce’s songs, a lot of fans that had been held enraptured since the early seventies stopped listening and many didn’t really pay much attention again.

It’s a shame, for on Lucky Town there are some real gems. As any artist who releases a double album (or two single ones on the same day) will no doubt face the commentary that the project would’ve worked better whittled down to a single disc. It’s certainly true here. Oddly I think Bruce’s entire decade would probably have been kicked off and gone differently, and regarded as such in hindsight, had he binned pretty much all of Human Touch, dropped the title track onto Lucky Town, swapped ‘Leap of Faith’ for ‘With Every Wish’….. I think every fan has probably done this but, perhaps, mine would go something like this:

Least to Most: Bruce – High Hopes

/ Tony / 8 Comments

“I’m not sure what he had in mind from the beginning, but this is what we ended up with.” Ron Aniello on High Hopes.

high-hopes-album-bruce-springsteen-1389043820In my original review of the album I said “Bruce has gotten a little lost lately in a seemingly ill-fated determination to sound fresh and vital” and that the quality control, usually tighter than a duck’s arse, had gone AWOL here. I stand by those thoughts.

It’s hard to consider this as a ‘studio album’ and producer Ron Aniello’s “this is what we ended up with” is a good summary – if you take a group of songs not deemed right / worthy of inclusion on other albums, slap a few covers together and dub Tom Morello’s now-dull guitar over the top, this is what you end up with.

And it’s a shame. It’s a real shame because unlike, say, Human Touch, there are some great tunes on here that could be presented and served so much better had they not been included on what feels like a cash-grab.

‘Down In The Hole’ has shades of ‘Paradise’ from The Rising and is steeped in that song’s delicate touch and minimal beauty and is something of a family-affair with backing vocals from Patti Scialfa and their children. It’s a beautiful thing.

‘The Wall’ is one of the finest songs in Bruce’s catalogue but by dumping it on this ‘odds and ends’ album it’s not going to get the attention it should. An ode to a fallen serviceman, inspired by the loss of early mentor Walter Cichon (detailed in the Born To Run book) who volunteered for the Army only to go missing in action in Vietnam in March 1968. It had been a long time since Bruce visited Vietnam in song and this is as fitting and touching as any of those songs he’d done so with previously.

‘Frankie Fell In Love’ sounds like one of the best Bruce and Steve songs that barely features Steve at all – Mr Van Zandt was largely absent from sessions and the tour due to filming commitments on Lilyhammer. It’s joyful, whooping along with pure enthusiasm and a really catchy-as-flu melody. It brings to mind a modern recasting of the dynamism the duo had on earlier tunes like ‘Two Hearts’.

‘Harry’s Place’ – correct me if I’m wrong – dates back to sessions for The Rising and is a brooding gangster-populated number with a fantastic opening line “Downtown hipsters drinkin’ up the drug line”.

However. Bruce declared at the time that, for High Hopes, “Tom and his guitar became my muse, pushing the rest of this project to another level.  Thanks for the inspiration Tom.” Yeah… thanks Tom.  It’s the cuts onto which Morello is plastered that weaken the whole joint. Credit to him for living out every six-string plucking fan’s dream (the one where Bruce is suddenly short a guitarist and your phone rings), but the fit just isn’t right.  The awful re-recording of ‘American Skin’ is unpardonable.

The covers are lacklustre and suffer for Morello’s incessant ‘jamming’ over them. Bruce and The E-Street had already tackled ‘High Hopes’ and their decent-enough take was used as a b-side. The take included here is simply poor. Nor can I hear ‘Just Like Fire Would’ without hearing “Just like firewood, I burn up”.

Hard to view as a studio album proper, High Hopes is a real mixed bag; some great tunes lost amidst the flotsum and reheats.

Highlights: ‘The Wall’, ‘Down In The Hole’ ‘Frankie Fell In Love’

Lowlights: The Ghost of Tom Joad, American Skin (41 Shots) two originals damned by their “reimagining”.

Least To Most: Bruce – Human Touch

/ Tony / 10 Comments

Now I can imagine that for each of the albums that precede my ‘Most’ favourite in this series there’s plenty of people that will say “actually that’s my favourite..” to pretty much all of them. With the easy and obvious exception that is Springsteen’s early-nineties output. Given the scarcity with which the tracks are touched live I don’t think even Bruce cares much for them in retrospect.

Released  on the same day in March 1992, neither Lucky Town or Human Touch have fared well with fans or critics. Perhaps it was the lack of E-Street support, perhaps it was the changing musical culture at the time but either way, I doubt that even the most die-hard will argue for their place in a Top Ten.

bruce_springsteen_-_human_touch_-_coverart_-_iOf the two I find Human Touch the overall weakest link in Bruce’s mighty discography. These were songs that Bruce had been tooling around with for some time and had, in doing so, over-cooked. If you listen  to The Christic Shows recorded in LA in 1990, many of the songs that would appear here can be heard in their early embryonic stages. They sound better. At the time it would’ve left fans eager to hear the finished result, excited by the change in direction with what sounded like some real personal stuff (though the sexually-charged ‘Red Headed Woman’ didn’t make the cut). Unfortunately when it came time to capture theses songs for release, the result was what’s now considered the nadir of Bruce’s output.

It’s not that there aren’t good songs on Human Touch it’s just that there aren’t enough of them and those that have the bones of a great song are lost under some truly awful production and sound, like ‘Soul Driver’, for example. When I do slip the cd into the car, it’s more likely that I skip through more than half of the album.

The story goes that Bruce – newly transplanted to LA – had a collection of songs that he was working on but couldn’t quite find the turning point that would bring them into a cohesive album. He wanted to continue the theme and practice of not employing the E-Street Band he’d started with Tunnel of Love and try a new approach. Then he met up with a similarly newly-moved Roy Bittan who showed him his new recording set up and synths before playing his former-Boss a few tunes he’d worked on. Inspired, Bruce went home, added a few parts and lyrics to those tracks and  a long period trying to find the ‘sound’ and working with session players followed before the album was complete*.

Of those Bittan co-writes that made Human Touch ”Roll of the Dice‘ is Springsteen-by-numbers but without the heart and force of the E-Street band to lift it beyond over-glossed territory. On the other hand, ‘Real World’ is perhaps the most fully-realised of his ‘men and women’ concept that many had hoped for. There’s just not enough of it and the players and production still mar what should have been a classic.

While the production (the one and only time Roy Bittan received a credit for such) is very much of it’s time and the slick sound has never suited Bruce. It would be the last ‘rock’ album he’d release before he released that he wasn’t the right person to produce his music any more. The album does have some strong contenders, not least it’s classic title track, that stand up well to repeated listens. ‘With Every Wish’ is a great tune as is ‘I Wish I Were Blind‘. They’re more relaxed, less drenched in studio-session  sound and are genuine, occasionally even tender tunes that, along with ‘Human Touch’ and ‘Real World’ are the most realised on the album. Indeed, some of his best lyrics can be found within the title track: “you can’t shut off the risk and the pain, without losing the love that remains”.

Unfortunately the remainder – to my ears – sound more like what a songwriter trying to write like Bruce Springsteen would create. They seem hollow-boned and attempts to cover the gaps with gloss and force (which may have worked with the E-Street) via top notch session players just fall flat. At the time it wasn’t so condemned but now, further on up the road, it’s blighted by dated guitar tones and synthesisers and drum beats that simply don’t measure up to Max.

Thankfully, Human Touch may have been the first release of the nineties from Mr Springsteen but from here it was only upwards in terms of quality and its sister release was a whole other story.

In the spirit of ‘what might have been’ – some of the tracks deemed not suitable for Human Touch would later appear on Tracks and, shorn of the production elements that blight it, sound (just a touch mind) a little better than those duffs rounding out the numbers here. I’d gladly swap ‘When the Lights Go Out’ for ’57 Channels’ and I still enjoy ‘Seven Angels’.

Highlights: Human Touch, Real World, With Every Wish, I Wish I Were Blind

Lowlights: Soul Driver, Man’s Job, 57 Channels and Nothin’ On, All Or Nothin’ At All

 

 

*Almost – he felt he needed one more song, wrote ‘Living Proof’ and instead dashed off enough tracks to make Lucky Town in just a few days.

Least To Most: Bruce (Intro)

/ Tony / 2 Comments

I don’t think I’ve really delved into a long ‘series’ of posts on here before. However, after reading Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run I was thrown into revisiting his albums, almost one-by-one as the book progressed and decided to try to share my thoughts on each – in a series.

It’s an undertaking as this is likely to include some twenty posts so thought I’d first offer up an intro so I can, with the next instalment, get straight to the chase. Now, any musician with a such a long career and discography and varied output is bound to have a number of “worst to best” type lists on them doing the rounds on various websites and Bruce is no exception.

This isn’t intended to be one of those. I’m not a music critic, this isn’t a site of critique more of personal thoughts and opinions. As such I’m going to be running through, in order (though not necessarily uninterrupted), my Least to Most Favourite Bruce Springsteen albums. It’s just that, personal favourites – I don’t lay claim to my judgement of one album’s quality to being universal or true. It’s supposed to be fun after all.

It’s also worth noting that as a Springsteen fan, while it might be among the ‘least’ end of the spectrum, any such album is still likely to be played a fair bit by me and held in overall good standing.

So, let’s get on with the list….

 

Found and Shared: Point Blank & Reunion Tour in LA

/ Tony / 2 Comments

In my Born to Run post I mention how, when it came to the rebirth of the E-Street Band, Bruce Springsteen was hesitant almost until curtains up.

He needn’t have been. Obviously. That tour was a scorcher and set the stage (excuse the pun) for a resoundingly successful second-era for him and his band. It was captured and released on the Live In NYC album but I always felt that CD was a little on the short side.

I also mentioned that in preparing for the tour, Springsteen was building set lists that pulled heavily from previously unreleased material on the then-new Tracks and how I’d have loved to hear some of those deeper cuts. Well… while reading some early reviews of that show today I found increasing mentions of songs that were played during that tour but not captured. Given how much the reinforced E-Street Band (four guitars strong at that point and Max Weinberg hitting harder than before) added to songs like ‘Youngstown’ and ‘Lost In The Flood‘ I was delighted to find that that tour’s recasting of ‘The River’ was often followed by a re-reading of one of my favourites from that album; ‘Point Blank’.

Having found audio of it, I’ll share it here:

However….

The real gem of my search is this… the full concert from the Staples Center, Los Angeles, CA from October 1999 with a set list that varies pretty wildly from the tour’s official release and includes some fantastic cuts including my own favourite Tracks highlights  ‘Take Em As They Come’ and ‘The Promise’ and also features the first play ‘Incident on 57th Street’ in close to 20 years!

While it’s not as polished or refined as it would become as the tour progressed and the arrangements tightened, it’s all the better for it’s rough and ready nature and WELL worth a listen:

Born To Run | Chapter And Verse

/ Tony / 4 Comments

I tell you, moving house knocks it out of you. Still, sometime between my birthday a couple of weeks back and popping it back up on a new shelf, I found the time to tear through Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography Born To Run (it was never going to be called anything else, was it?).

It is an absolute blast to read. Written completely solo and without the assistance of a ghost-writer, the voice is clearly that of Bruce – at times cuttingly honest, at others poetic and then written as though delivering a sermon from the stage on the LIFE SAVING POWERS OF ROCK AND ROLL!!! (yes, the caps-lock button is Bruce’s friend). Contained within its five hundred or so pages is the story of how a young man from a poor, working class family in the town of Freehold, New Jersey, fell in love with music, got a guitar, learned how to make it talk, refined his craft and cracked the code. It’s fascinating and joyous stuff.

This being a memoir / auto-biography, the story is going to be somewhat one-sided. This is Bruce’s version. So while in Born To Run, Bruce describes the recording of Tunnel Of Love, for example, by writing that Bob Clearmountin ‘tidied up’ his playing so it sounded as if he knew what he was doing, it’s Peter Ames Carlin’s 2012 Bruce that fills the picture out by pointing out that Bruce and Bob actually used samplers, drum machines and synths to create a lot of the music and then bought in members of the band to “beat the machine” – if they did the part was recorded, if not… well not every member of the E-Street featured and not every member of the band were impressed by the process but then Bruce is the Boss, a fact he gently underlines on a number of occasions in the pages of his own book; “I’d declared democracy and band names dead after Steel Mill. I was leading the band, playing, singing and writing everything we did. If I was going to carry the workload and responsibility, I might as well assume the power”.

estreetband4

The part of the book that deals with the period before the release of Born In The USA is both the largest and juiciest. There’s a wealth of information about the source of Bruce’s art, his influences and his decisions. These were lean times – it wasn’t until after The River tour that Bruce had anything resembling financial success thanks to lawsuits and recording costs inflated due to his infamous perfectionism – and there’s a huge amount of detail as to what drove him to take certain choices with his music. While there’s no real breakdown of what inspired each and every song (that already exists in Songs) there’s a great amount of revelations to be found.

born-to-run-9781501141515_hrBruce is surprisingly candid when it comes to more personal elements too. I was a little surprised by some of his descriptions of his fellow E-Streeter’s – especially the late Danny Federici – but then his undeniable love for these band-members is also evident as his heartbreak at their passing.

Many of the column inches covering this book in the press have been at pains to mention that Mr Springsteen is equally revealing when it comes to his struggles with depression. Having managed to suppress what he describes as a consequence of the same mental plagues suffered by his father through years of working and touring, Bruce’s own depression came jumping up into his face . He is very open with his fight with and its effect on both him and his loved ones. As a fellow sufferer of that Black Dog it’s inspiring to read. His relationship with his father as a young man – while hinted at in song – is revealed in a much deeper and, at times, darker light and there’s a real sense of emotion and release when, post diagnosis with Paranoid Schizophrenia, Bruce’s father becomes a softer man and the two find some form of closure.

Part of not embracing the full ‘rock star lifestyle’ means that there’s not a huge amount of rock star stories to be found here and you’d be forgiven for skimming a go-nowhere Frank Sinatra story or those chapters (yep) dedicated to horse riding and Bruce’s equestrian escapades. Indeed, post-USA the structure is more vignettes than linear bio and some of those don’t really feel all that vital but, then, Bruce spent the larger part of that time period between E-Street lives building and raising his family and seeking a sense of calm that had previously alluded him so I’d hardly argue that this is a fault.

But there is still plenty to enjoy in the latter section of the book including  some real eye-openers even post-USA. Bruce shines a little more light on the ‘missing’ album from the period between ‘Streets of Philadelphia’ and Greatest Hits – it was another ‘men and women, relationships’ themed album but steeped in that minimal, loops and beats sound he’d employed for SoP. During a drive with Roy Bittan, his trusty piano player mentioned that perhaps it was the lyrical content of this new music that audiences were having trouble connecting to. Unable to find a unifying voice and sound for it, the album was shelved “and there she sits” – ‘Secret Garden’, ‘Missing’ and ‘Nothing Man’ would see the light of day. Bruce may have shot The Professor down but it dawned soon enough – he’d lost his ‘voice’.  Post Greatest Hits he went to find it and that’s why Ghost of Tom Joad is more of an important album than that subtle masterpiece may have been considered: “the songs on it added up to a reaffirmation of the best of what I do. The record was something new, but was also a reference point to the things I tried to stand for and still wanted to be about as a songwriter.”

Particularly interesting and surprising – given how logical and inevitable it must have seemed to all outside  of Bruce’s head – is that up until the last minute, he still doubted whether reuniting the E-Street Band was the best move – not feeling the fire despite the band’s force, initially building a set list that drew heavily from Tracks and eschewed hits and classics (fuck but I’d love to hear that set!) It wasn’t until the fifty or so fans that had stood outside the rehearsals trying to hear the sounds drifting out were let in to watch that Bruce felt the spark.

Given the level of detail assigned to the writing and recording of earlier works, it’s a little surprising and perhaps disappointing that the post E-Street reformation era isn’t deemed sufficiently interesting to warrant the same treatment. The Rising onwards saw Bruce’s career and popularity reborn after a lacklustre nineties yet the six albums recorded since are breezed over – with the exception of Bruce noting how disappointed he was that Wrecking Ball did not garner the impact and attention he felt these songs warranted. From my point of view and deviating slightly that’s  down to the fact that his and Ron Anellio’s attempts to sound sonically relevant and ‘now’ detracted from the quality of the song writing. That being said it was surprising to read the candour with which Bruce realised that, after years of doing so, he simply wasn’t the right person to record or produce his music any more.

Despite the slightness of its third act – I guess if he’d been as thorough here the book would’ve been simply too long as well – Born To Run is, without question, one of the best musician’s autobiogs I’ve read. Hugely insightful, informative and written with a trueness of voice that equals Bruce’s finest music, it’s an essential read for any fan and a bloody important one for anyone with even a passing interest.

brucechapterandverseReleased to accompany the album is Chapter and Verse. Given that it took close to twenty-five years and eleven albums for Bruce to release his first Greatest Hits and in the twenty years that followed there were another three such compilations to the six studio albums… it’s hard to believe that another new compilation were needed to do so, it does kinda reek of cash-grab.

Of the eighteen tracks on Chapter and Verse, thirteen have already been released many in the same order on other compilations. That’s not to say the songs aren’t required listening – any album that contains ‘The River’, ‘My Father’s House’, ‘Born To Run’ and ‘The Rising’ is easily going to stand strong. In some respects the running order here is more beneficial than other instances – lifting ‘Long Time Comin” from it’s sandwiching on Devils And Dust‘s weaker tracks really allows it to shine. But, given that fans will already have either the existing compilations, the albums these tracks are culled from or both, it’s hard to argue a case for their recompiling.

So – the big USP of Chapter and Verse comes down to this; the first five songs have not been released previously and pre-date Bruce’s recording career with Columbia. But are they worth shelling out for?  In a couple of words, sorry but not really…. These songs are notable for the progression they represent (even the jump in style between the two cuts from Springsteen’s first band The Castiles) but, ultimately are only being heard because who one of their members went on to be. The Steel Mill song ‘He’s Guilty (The Judge Song)’ is a standard southern-blues stomper recorded in San Francisco as the band tried to use California to break out of Jersey-only stardom but highlights what Bruce himself realised; for every Allman Brothers Band there were a hundred Steel Mill’s and there’s little here to distinguish them above the pack.  The exception, though, is The Bruce Springsteen Band’s ‘The Ballad of Jesse James’ which, of the five ‘new’ tracks is the keeper.

For myself, and I’d wager a few others, I’d rather the previously-unreleased material shone some light on either the E-Street Band’s take on Nebraska (that the fabled Electric Nebraska exists in its entirety is confirmed in Born To Run) or Bruce’s shelved album from the nineties… so I’ll drop one such track here – ‘Waiting On The End of the World’, written for that album and taken a stab at with the E-Street Band at the time of Greatest Hits which, for my money, is still the best Springsteen comp.

If you are still looking for music to ‘accompany’ the reading of Born To Run, there’s a Spotify playlist that Bruce (or someone on his team, most likely) put together containing all songs referenced and important: