Bruce Springsteen's Longest Season

A love story for the whole family

Bruce Springsteen's Longest Season

by

Robert Duncan

The big news the week of October 20,1975 was a rock star and a kid who ran into President Ford’s limo in Hartford.

Quick. What were their names? “Everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes,” Andy Warhol once said. I don’t think James Falamites would argue with that.

Through a misjudgment on the part of Hartford police and the Secret Service, Falamites was cleared to pass through a Hartford intersection and when he struck the President’s parsing limo, he gained his fifteen minutes of fame. Newspapers, magazines and news shows across the country ran this teenager’s story and later in the month, he was introduced on Howard Cosell’s ill-fated Saturday Night Live show (not to be confused with NBC’s Saturday Night).

I don’t think the rock star would argue, either. The week of October 20, 1975 he was out on a moderately successful tour of the Midwest when, in a quirk almost unprecedented in periodical publishing, he appeared as the cover' subject on the nation’s two biggest weekly news magazines, Time and Newsweek, simultaneously. It was a, similar misjudgment to that of the Hartford police and the Secret Service. The news weeklies were tossing around words like “superstar” and “hit single” and “regeneration of rock” in relation to this virtual unknown. Naturally, the rock press had preceded them with| even more lavish praise. When the inko settled, however, it may have also been just Bruce Springsteen’s fifteen minutes.

In the 18 months since the press’ premature ejaculation, Springsteen’s career has> followed a strangely familiar script. Actually, there are two or three plots progressing here.

Most visible of the plots, and maybe most familiar to the show biz fans, has been his legal battle with what some may term his “rapacious” manager. The gist of it is, orsb the reports go: he is not making very much money (relatively speaking) and his manager is. While at the same time, his manager is trying to tell him exactly what to do—up to forbidding him to enter a studio with friend/producer Jon Landau to record. Of course, this means that the follow-up to the much-vaunted Born To Run is way overdue, and Columbia Records (who is also involved in litigation) is extremely anxipus. Worse, the public presumably is forgetting—cover stories of a year and a half ago or no, just like they did with what’s-his-name who srriashed up Ford’s limo.

The second of the plots here is that Springsteen is, even at this moment, out touring the country—specifically, the Midwest again—just as he has been on and off since all the hoopla hit the fan. In other words, he is leading the typical life of any upper mediumly successful rock ‘n’ roller.

-The fact that this may have been one of the greatest rock ’n’ roll shows of all time is the purest tribute one could pay...he did it for love.

But the punchline, what all rock soap opera fans are dying to l^now is: WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO BtfUCE SPRINGSTEEN? Is a quarter of an hour in the spotlight long enough—or perhaps too long—for the kid from Asbury Park?

1 can only argue as an unrepentant fan of Springsteen and tell what I’ve seen and heard over the past 18 months.

To backtrack: I interviewed Springsteen in Detroit where I was working for CREEM back in October of ’75. The Time/Newsweek covers had not yet happened. I had seen him only the week before in Ann Arbor and thought, while he talked too much on stage, shuffled about a lot like some sort of Jersey citybilly, the show was ultiv mately too slick. I’d expected true grit from the hype, and had never stopped to think that Born To Run was about as far from true ■> grit as a symphony orchestra. I also never thought about the fact that the last thing an honest-togoodness true grit person wanted to appear as on stage was an honest-togoodness true grit person. When you come from a background as mundane as Springsteen does, you don’t celebrate it—you celebrate release from it. You go for the larger than life. He wasn’t going to be the bus driver’s son, he would be James Dean or Marlon Brando. While Springsteen often wore t-shirt and leather jacket, they were Brando’s and Dean’s wardrobe, strictly a Hollywood version of true grit.

Something like that. 1

Anyway, the point is, I went to see Springsteen a week later in Detroit proper to give him a second chance. He had shaken the cold by that time that made him sniff 'like a junkie throughout his set in Ann Arbor, and he and his powerhouse band gave a great rock ‘n’ roll show. Afterwards; I was supposed to meet him, and over the protestations of an over-protective publicist (you know who you are), Springsteen invited me along to dinner with him and Miami Steve and one or two other of the band members. We seemed to be getting along great: loosened up (I’d like to think) by two beers (Remember? He doesn’t drink or take drugs, Time told us)) Springsteen spun some terrific stories about the agony of recording' Born To Run, real tear-jerkers about not being able to finish the damn thing and every night going back to his girlfriend at the hotel and almost crying. Great stuff.

He wasn’t going to be the bus driver's son, he would be James Dean or Marlon Brando.

I fell in love.

When Springsteen jumps on the roof of his publicist’s car, 1 later report in my article about the romance (“Bruce Springsteen Is Not God And Doesn’t Want To Be”, CREEM, January ’76get it now!), I laugh. It’s the kind of wanton nonsense I expect from Rock ’n’ Roll Kings. And furthermore, I climbed aboard the Springsteen publicity bandwagon. (Next stop: backlash.)

About the same time as the interview, Born To Run made it to number one on the charts, even—despite what Time and Newsweek might have you believe about the title cut—without a hit single. Which is a big step towards fulfilling all the media’s proclamations of “superstar” (Newsweek). Though, as it has become readily apparent to me from talking to him, Springsteen could care less. He’d like to make money, sure, and be comfortable, hut this hype and this superstar * nonsense is too much. (In the spring of last year, before his first performance in London, he is caught tearing down some “Future of Rock ‘n’ Roll” posters in the lobby of the v hall.)

BruceTurns On the It Loose, Tells Fans Be Cool In School

NEW YORK—Rock ’iT roll professor Bob Spitz surveyed his half-empty lecture hall and snickered to the brave souls who’d trudged in despite N.Y.’s Wicked weather, “Anyone missin’ this class is gonna kick themselves.” Immediately tension stung the air as the rumors began to fly. Students enrolled in Spitz’s New School course, “The Making of Superstars,” noticed the alien presence oC record company honchos and a few journalists, all wearing growing grins. The course had brought in respected music makers, like John Hammond Sr., and unusuail, fascinating characters like Wah Wah Watson, but no one that would actually make your eyes pop out.

That’s when Bruce Springsteen ambled in, clad in the inevitable jeans and leather jacket, clean-shaven and shyly smiling, “Uh oh, I’m late for school.” A few barely controlled shrieks were quickly smothered. The next hour and a half was a true rock comedy, with star Bruce doing his best to be one of the bunch ~ and the class choking on itself to be cool, in the presence of the man who’d out-Fonzie’d ’em all. Spitz, who several years ago had been involved in managing Springsteen, pulled the coup of the season in getting what amounted to a 50-person interview agreed to by the elusive, legallyplagued performer.

Springsteen, whose _ street-styled language proved as authentic as his Asbury Park home, obviously enjoyed dealing with fans in a way that wouldn’t leave him physically shredded. He spoke about anything one might ask, with the one acknowledged exception being his managerial hassles. The frustration Bruce lives under not being able to record new songs was clear— but he would, he announced, do his best to make up the time by taking his tighter-than-ever E Street Band on the ro&d in early spring, perhaps with Marley and. the Waiters.

Asked about everything from bad gigs to Phil Spector’s influence on his writing, Springsteen took his time, and responded with lines so utterly Brucelike he might have been writing his next “Born to Run” on .the spot.

On “making it,”—“You don’t ever really make it ’til the day you die. You may realize part of a goal, but makin’ it is an illusion. For me, ridin’ in a limousine was fun only if I wasn’t supposed to happen. And I think that’s what scared me when I started being successful.”

On Ronnie Spector—“I wanted to marry this girf since I was 16. I’d love to write a song for her. You always dream that you’ll write the ultimate Ronnie Spector song.”

On Phil Spector—“When you see the end of the universe, that’s Phil Spector’s drums. Of course I did-what any self-respecting rock ‘nr roller does —you steal it.”

On day to day getting by in England —“They don’t make hamburgers in England. Eatin’ over there was a traumatic experience! There’s no Milky Ways, no Ritz crackers, not your staples, so I was really havin’ a bad time. The real hamburger you get in the diner. Hamburgers were not invented *to charge people $2.35.”

On work—“Writin’s funny, you get that first initial blast, but the rest, it’s like homework. I never finish anything, because I’d rather go out and fool around.”

And on that note, after deciding to hang around longer several times, Springsteen took his leave to head uptown and fool around with Southside Johnny as he recorded his second LP.

Toby Goldstein

But my conversion is further confirmed when, a month and a half after our talk in Detroit, I’m walking down New York’s fabled Eighth Street one evening and I’m accosted—in a friendly sort of way— by this collegiate-looking beard in a pin-striped shirt and pea coat who initially I take to be some longforgotten asshole from high school. Only when I catch the glint of a little gold post in his ear do I put together the sinuous sleaze and the face.

“Springstepn!” I shout, in surprise and embarrassment. And he keeps going on, friendly as ever, shuffling back and forth in the cold, one hand in his pocket, the other arm around Karen Darvin, his slender, shy, redheaded girlfriend. I presumed that he was pleased with me for one reason.

“So you read the article?” I say.

“No,” he responded quizzically,. “What? Where?” I tell him and we depart. He heads for the nearby newsstand. Did I say humble? Friendly? No pretentions whatsoever? I mean, this guy has been on the covers of Time and Newsweek. r

My love grows.

Back in Detroit, three or four months later, I’m elated to find that Springsteen will be playing Lansing, about an hour and a half away. But', as it turns out, I’m unable to go to the concert because I have to work that night. I send along a note with friends that reads: “Go back to Jersey”. The next day the phone message on my desk ^reads “B.S. called, wouldn’t leave his name1’, and included a Cleveland phone number. I called. I didnJt recognize the voice that answered,' maybe because I don’t believe that you call phone numbers and get rock stars instead of an endless stream of rock Nubians. Indeed, the “regeneration of rock” himself has answered his phone, and is trying to convince me to catch the show there the next night.

The next day Springsteen and I and Peter Laughner are cruising Cleveland in Laughner’s marginal automobile (B.S. has foregone the CBS rental car), with the oldies station on per Springsteen’s request. In the meantime, Bruce elaborates on that great and largely unexamined group of musicians in rock ‘n’ roll known as Frat Bands, who include, among others, Hot Nuts and the Kjngsmen (“Louie, Louie”), with special notice to the Swinging Medallions. Man, that was a band! (They did “Double Shot of My Baby’s Love”.)

The concert, as expected, creased the roof—1 mean, what do you expect from a Swinging Medallions fan—and Springsteen added a new unfinished ballad called “Frankie”. There’s a brief post-concert party—brief, because these guys do it all onstage—then Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are off in their bus, about which— well, the bus is one notch above the worst leaky Trailtoays you’ve ever been on, not something your average “Superstar” travels in (Johnny Rodriguez moves around in a five-bedroom, TV, stereo, bar, motel-on-wheels), more along the lines of a bus the Swinging Medallions might have used.

TURN TO PAGE 68.

SPRINGSTEEN

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 44.

In Wallingford, Connecticut, one of those adorable New England towns outside of New Haven, they have an institution called the Choate School. It’s a fine prep school that boasts among its alumni John Kennedy and Robert Frost, but basically, like all prep schools, it’s a 24-hour live-in day care center for the teenage children, of the wealthy. It’s May now, and I have just moved to New York from Detroit, when the phone rings one Friday, and a publicist friend at Columbia asks if I wanfto see Springsteen in Connecticut.

“Where?” I inquired.

“Choate,” comes the unusual answer. Which takes me somewhat aback. The adorably v quaint New Englandy Choate is just not my idea of a booking for Asbury Park’s first cover boy. As it turns out, there are extraordinary motives at work.

John Hammond has asked Bruce to do the show^

John Hammond is retiring from Columbia after some thirty years as an A&R man (aka talent scout). John Hammond is the man who got recording contracts for Billie Holliday, Benny Goodman, Aretha Franklin, and Bob Dylan. In other words, this paper is too light to hold the reputation of Hammond and the respect accorded him in the music business. To top it all off, John Hammond is an incredibly amiable, polite person. And to top all that off, John Hammond also signed Bruce Springsteen to Columbia. (He told Newsweek for the cover story: “The kid absolutely knocked me out. I only hear somebody good every ten years, and not only is Bruce the best, he was a lot better than Dylan when I first heard him.”) In other words, were Bruce Springsteen the coldest-hearted bastard on the face' of the earth, if John Hammond asked him for a favor for his (Hammond’s) old school, he would do it, no questions asked.

In the past eighteen months I’ve seen Springsteen perform about eighteen times, in all imaginable circumstances. I’ve seen him perform in New York, Detroit and Cleveland in halls for the money. I saw him do a few numbers at the Crawdaddy tenth anniversary party, and absolutely rivet the crowd. But I have never seen him, before or since, play like he did at Choate. And it certainly wasn’t the audience—they loved him but expressed their love primarily by sitting in their seats, clapping their hands and wiping ketchup off their ties^ Granted the Asbury gig with Southside was for love and fun, but it was Johnny’s show, so Bruce laid off. The Choate show was strictly for love. When, after two and a half hours a totally exhausted, sweat-drenched Springsteen crashed into “Rosalita”, it was clear that he wasn’t getting paid. “This one’s for John Hammond,” he said. That’s all. The fact that this may have been one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll shows of all time ever is the purest tribute one could pay to Springsteen. He did it for love.

STOP.

The attitude was I can do rock ‘n’ roll like a motherfucker and this is how I do it. Th&nk-you-John Hammond-forknowing-that. He never let up. At tne end, if you knew him, you’d realize that here was a man capable of a chilling generosity to an audience and an art form. The man is fucking rock ‘n’ roll.

Which is why he’s not the rock ‘n’ roll savior. Because more than anything these days, rock ‘n’ roll is run like a sausage factory. Give us the threeminute sausage and smile, you bastards. While no one mourns the stinking hippies, and their 45-minute jumbled jams or the psychedelic posters, the three-minute sausage is not what it’s about either. It’s about diabolical abandonment and humor. It’s about wanting to rip your shoes in half, it’s so good. Listen to “Born To Run”. It’s about that. It’s about crazy. It’s about not writing stories about guys like Bruce Springsteen. Which is why the motherfucker took me so long.

I’ll tell you what I think about Bruce. He’s a road musician now, like ,he should be. Like he essentially wants to be. He’s a working stiff in rock ‘n’ roll. Nothing highfalutin. No analysis. No cover stories. No tell-me-what-youmeant.

I’ll tell you what will happen to him. No matter the outcome of all this bullshit litigation, he will continue on the road. He will continue to write songs and he will be pretty fucking healthy and happy—because he doesn’t take drugs or crap, he takes rock ‘n’ roll. And someday all the legal crap wjjll be over (if it isn’t by the time you read this). And someday he’ll make the best rock ‘n’ roll album of all time. It may not be the next one or the one after, but someday. He can wait. I can wait. We have no choice. This man is the first rock ‘n’ roll musician I’ve ever met or read about or heard about or anything that could be a rock ‘n’ roll musician the rest of his life and still come up with something great when he’s 70. This guy is a student (OK, OK, I know), but most of all he’s a lover. With a giant rock ‘n’ roll dick.