Bruce Springsteen

The guitar hero singer-songwriter known as "the Boss", has had a long multi-album career, recently wrote his autobiography, and is now wowing audiences in a Broadway show. Here are a few of his many hits:

Born To Run

Hungry Heart

Born In The U.S.A.

57 Channels (and Nothin' On)

The Streets of Philadelphia

Heyday TV: Bruce Springsteen - Videobiography
Less of the usual suspects, and some nice vintage footage of Bruce talking about his own works. This show considered his albums through to his Pete Seeger tribute one. A common fault in these sorts of shows is to give the same respect to later works as earlier ones, but this did it fine. It was interesting that his Philadelphia theme put him back on track after the mixed bag of the Lucky Town/Human Touch projects.

Bruce Springsteen: The Ties That Bind
A decent hour on the Making Of his 1980 classic album "The River", how long it took to put together and get right, how it went from being a single to a double, how having a hit single ("Hungry Heart") was a welcome bonus, and how it got across on record what a great touring act he and his band were. A nice guy, and still rocking on.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band - 5/11/80
From Arizona State University, Tempe on November 5th. Plugging the River Tour, and shown in accord with the documentary on it, it looked like a jolly enough show, from The River through to Jungleland.

Bruce Springsteen: In His Own Words
To accompany his recently-released autobiography, another career retrospective, mainly from new & old interviews with Bruce, and accompanying archive from early shows and more recent ones. He talks movingly about his father's mental illness, and his awareness that he might succumb himself one day. His lengthy shows, his childhood, his wife, his band, his home in Freehold, New Jersey... all topics that he has thoughtful things to say about.

Born To Run
His autobiography took him several years apparently, but it's a mainly well-crafted and heart-felt success, notable for its occasional addiction to hyphenated word lists, and for its total omission of his 1992 LPs Lucky Town and Human Touch. He also mentions the Black & White Night tribute gig with Roy Orbison once, in passing, when I understood him to have been the prime mover behind it happening. Oh well, apart from those lapses, it's a good result.

Needle Time: Steven van Zandt
The great sideman was switched on by seeing the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, but also by the Rolling Stones when they came to the USA. He respects them for still doing cover versions, even several years into their careers. He feels young bands need to learn their craft through cover versions before they progress to song-writing. The New Jersey scene was about rock-meeting-soul, and Bruce Springsteen brought him into the fold because they shared an unthinking commitment to the music. He helped Bruce make his long evolution in stage-craft, and also refined the riff of Born To Run, though he denied doing anything more than clarifying what was already there. He put out his first new album in 12 years this year, is motivated by politics, but feels there are worse problems than Donald Trump. He's happy to be considered a bar-band legend.

On The Road
An entertaining hour on Bruce Springsteen from 2012, covering his highs and lows, that infamous "the future of rock n roll" quote, his political efforts, work with the E Street Band, winning Grammys, an Oscar and a Golden Globe, and being in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Fun stuff.

He's sort of having the biopic treatment, as new film Blinded By The Light, uses a lot of his music, in its account of Sarfraz Manzoor's story of growing up in the 80s in Luton & beyond.

He's 70 today! 

E Street Shuffle - The Glory Days of Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, by Clinton Heylin
This 2012 tome purports to be the first serious look at the "Boss" through his interactions with his famous backing band. The story chiefly runs from 1971 to around 1988. What emerges is a picture of an obsessive who creates more material than he releases, some of which he re-works, some he improves, some he doesn't. He does at least seem to have learned from some of his past mistakes.

The Glastonbury Experience: Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band @ 2009
Even the Boss has been to Worthy Farm, and this was another "never before seen" extract, comprising Because The Night, No Surrender and Dancing In The Dark, so was worth checking out.