Springsteen Pt. 4 - Darkness & The River
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Category: Dr. J's Blog
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Published: Friday, 19 October 2018 12:37
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Written by Gary Johnson
While the depositions, motions, and hearings over his contract with Mike Appel dragged on for well over a year, Bruce Springsteen continued to write new songs. After seeing Elvis Presley perform at the Spectrum in Philadelphia in the spring of 1977, he wrote "Fire" for his first rock and roll idol. Sadly, Elvis died that summer before Springsteen could send him the demo. Instead, the song was given to neo-rockabilly singer Robert Gordon after Springsteen saw him perform at a gig with Link Wray.
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Springsteen Pt. 3 - Born To Run
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Category: Dr. J's Blog
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Published: Monday, 15 October 2018 11:24
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Written by Gary Johnson
Although sales of “The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle” album remained slow, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band continued to perform live to great reviews. Music critic Jon Landau wrote a highly influential review after seeing a performance at the Harvard Square Theater in Boston, and it included this soon-to-be-famous quote: “I saw rock and roll’s future, and its name is Bruce Springsteen. On a night when I needed to feel young, he made me feel like I was hearing music for the first time”.
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Springsteen Pt. 2 - Greetings From Asbury Park
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Category: Dr. J's Blog
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Published: Saturday, 06 October 2018 11:14
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Written by Gary Johnson
Bruce Springsteen's road to recording his first album had many twists and turns. He had met Virgil "Tinker" West, owner of the Eastern Challenger Surfboard Company at The Upstage. Tinker started managing Child, and after moving out of the old family home in Freehold, Bruce began living at the surfboard factory in Asbury Park and using it as a rehearsal space for the band. Child was basically a bar band that played some original music along with covers.
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Springsteen Pt. 1 - Freehold Days
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Category: Dr. J's Blog
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Published: Saturday, 06 October 2018 10:39
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Written by Gary Johnson
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen was born on Sept. 23, 1949. He was the first of three children (he had two younger sisters) to be born to Douglas and Adele Springsteen. Although he came into the world in a hospital in Long Branch, New Jersey, Springsteen grew up in Freehold, a small town of under 10,000 residents located in Monmouth County, about 15 miles west of the New Jersey shore and the coastal town of Asbury Park.
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"The Hard Stuff" - Wayne Kramer
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Category: Dr. J's Blog
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Published: Wednesday, 25 July 2018 06:38
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Written by Gary Johnson
The classic cover photo of Wayne Kramer blasting out a guitar solo as a member of the MC5 might give one the impression that his new memoir, The Hard Stuff, is an in-depth account of the legendary Detroit band. Although the MC5 understandably looms large, Kramer’s book is much more than just the story of the rise and fall of Michigan’s most notorious band.
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Big Man's Bash 2018
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Category: Dr. J's Blog
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Published: Monday, 08 January 2018 15:24
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Written by Gary Johnson
Clarence Clemons may be gone, but he is certainly not forgotten. The Big Man, who passed away on June 18, 2011, at the age of 69, was the most significant member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. This was made abundantly clear in Springsteen’s book, Born To Run, where an entire chapter was devoted to Clemons. Their friendship is also celebrated during each performance of Springsteen on Broadway when a nightly cheer for Clemons rocks the rafters at the Walter Kerr Theatre as Springsteen talks about his late bandmate and performs an acoustic version of “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out”, the song that immortalized the Big Man’s importance to the E Street Band.
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