BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AT WEMBLEY: BORN TO RUN

Sunday night I went to see The Boss at Wembley. It was about as nice a night as London allows, beautiful weather, easy access, and with 80 some odd thousand like-minded people (actually, many far more single-mindedly Bossy than I was) it was an excellent time. It helped I was with three of the Americarnage Gang of Four, Gnat Coombs and Hollywood Dan Louw (literally just in from the Stockholm marathon and proudly exposing his blisters to the crowd) and muchas gracias Senor Gnat for the tickets.

It was the third time I've seen Springsteen. The first was still the best, at Tanglewood in the Berkshires in August 1975, just before Born To Run broke, just before I moved to Montreal, and just before Annie's and my brief romance was over. I wrote about it last year (you can find that here) when I dug out an old poem to mark the 40th anniversary of Born To Run. It was the best not just because I thought I was madly in love, and we'd gone spur of the moment, and it was outdoors in the mountains; there was an intimacy among the 1,200 or so people there, who shared a knowledge of something great that most of the country didn't really know about. It's still special, and The Wild The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle may still be my favourite Springsteen album.

The second time I saw him was at Wembley in 1985, on July 3rd. I flew to America on the Fourth of July that year, and I suspect the Fourth would have been a bigger thing and better show, but it was still pretty good. Again, I felt it was far more intimate than a stadium show had the right to be, even though my company was nowhere near as compelling as Annie and Bryan, and the seats, high and to the side, meant you couldn't really see the stage, saw only one and a half screens, and heard everything echoing back as if on tape delay. I pretty much resolved then not to go to any more stadium shows, and for 30 years I didn't.

But this one was much better than 1985. The technology is, I suppose, better, and once you got used to the sound it was fine. We were on the field; lined up on our own 10 yard line with the stage in the opposite end zone, meaning you could see the little figures on stage, but you needed the three screens, like watching a TV in a showroom window from across the street.

What's different is the Boss, at 67, is more frenetic, and in better pumped-up shape (& perhaps a little bit scapel'd), than 30 years ago, and the band is, if anything tighter and more versatile. It's great to have Soozie Tyrell fiddling, though every time she got a closeup I thought of Beverly Sills! Violin has always added a lot of texture to the band; I recall Suki Lahav from the 1975 WMMR/Main Point concert which is one of my all-time favourite records, bootleg and all. And it was funny to see Nils and Steve each going for second place in a Keith Richards look alike contest! And I kept watching Max Weinberg, looking at lyrics on a IPad teleprompter as he pounds the skins, and thinking he doesn't need amplification. Interestingly, I read an interviw with Suki Lahav, who returned to Israel soon after leaving the band, and she said Max didn't like being behind Bruce while drumming, in the drummer's usual position, because he couldn't see/hear the words of the song, and he wanted to see what Bruce was singing because the words influenced the way he drums. So that was a problem  solved by technology.

They sounded great, they interacted with the audience with a spontaneous quality, and they played through a huge catalogue of songs, all of which have a Springsteen similarity but which cover a lot of different textures. And changing contexts: 'Tougher Than The Rest' was played as a tribute to Muhammad Ali, and you can't do much better than that, great one to greatest.

Which is the interesting thing, because this crowd was not just people like me out to see a figure from their past. It was not like watching Duran Duran because you loved them when you were a teen and now you're old and they're old and you're both going through the paces. This crowd was made up of people from their teens to, I dunno, older than me, and they all had their favourites from different eras, and many of them could not have come to the Boss long before the previous decade. When I was 20, there weren't many recording stars from 40 years before we were listening to--people who were hot in 1931. But it's different, and has been since the Sixties, maybe even since the Fifties. Again, technology is part of that, but there is a sort of Golden Age of rock which seems to attract and open new ears in every new generation.

As well as turn the original old generation into kids again. Check out the S.E.G. on Iron Mike in the photo on the right.  Do I look Born In The USA or what?

Of course, we have aged. I started to leave after the first encore ('Jungleland') because I had to get a train home, and it was Sunday in Britain, and the last train leaves earlier, and there was a replacement bus service one of whose drivers had nearly taken his bus into a low railway bridge was I was coming back from the BBC that morning. So I played safe and managed to get home before midnight and walk the dog. But the sax solo in 'Jungleland' started to take me back, maybe because I was out of the crowd, and there is a sense where I find the collective experience overkill, and Jake Clemons wasn't playing his uncle's stuff note for note, but the sense of continuity being the thing that mitigates against time passing struck me strongly.

Then people started coming up to me and shaking my hand, or congratulating me, and I thought they might be NFL fans, but they were saying things like 'Feel The Bern' and I realised it was because of my  T-shirt (not my Terryville, Connecticut Lions Fair hat). Thanks folks.

I walked alongside the stadium as they played 'Born To Run', and again the sax solo launched me into reverie, and I stopped and listened. I went back 40 years and 2,600 miles and one old love and one best friend and I don't know how many scratched LPs and awkward record players and Lord knows what else. They started playing Dancing In The Dark and I walked away listening to that, which pushed me back to the 80s again. I missed some more encores, including Tenth Avenue Freeze Out, which I would have pleased Gnat by singing along to. When the changes came uptown, indeed.

MAGNOLIA, YOU SWEET THING (a poem): SPRINGSTEEN, ANNIE & ME

Forty years ago today, Born To Run was released, and Bruce Springsteen would soon be on the cover of Time magazine. It was just before that album came out, some time in July 1975, that my high school friend Bryan 'Snake' Sperry and I took a trip up to Tanglewood, in the Berkshires, to hear Springsteen, outdoors, among a crowd of maybe 1,200 people. My college roommate Steve Berman, who grew up near Asbury Park, had introduced me to Springsteen's music when I taught at Georgetown Visitation Convent School and stayed with him while he was in law school at Catholic U.

Along with us on the trip was the Annie of this poem, Annie Donnelly, whom I'd met while I was teaching summer school at Wesleyan. I'd just met Tom Disch, who was also teaching there, on the bus up to Middletown (I've written about that here), and I sat in on his class, which Annie was taking. As it happened she was at Trinity, where Bryan had studied, and they knew each other a bit, I think. Anyway, for me it was coup de foudre, and I recall talking her into seeing the Boss. I also recall she not only came along, but drove, at breakneck pace, in her Beetle. I've had a fondness for Route 44 ever since I was hanging part way out the passenger's window, holding the side view mirror on. 

I've just moved house again, and I found this old photo: Annie & Bryan and Tanglewood in the summer of '75. I can see my enraptured state reflected in the way Annie looks. Of course it didn't last. And a few weeks later I moved to Montreal, to do a masters at McGill. I finished the poem in September, and it was published in 1976, titled 'The Morning After,' in a nice magazine called En Passant, which if I remember right was published in Delaware.

I collected it in Chump Change, which was the final Northern Lights chapbook, in 1991. Oddly, although it was the Springsteen anniversary that prompted my reprinting the poem here; the new title came to me a couple of weeks ago (it's from JJ Cale's song, obviously). I suspect I was remembering, without realising it, another 40th anniversary

MAGNOLIA, YOU SWEET THING

Old women force smiles & ask if it is hot enough for me.

Magnolia is still in heat; she attracts a crowd

Of suitors. It makes her nervous, having to deal with

Their anxieties. Eight in the morning & already

The dew has burned away. It will be as bad as yesterday

When I went crazy with the heat, or something.

The rest of the city is still asleep, sweating, except

For those watchers, and the panting dogs.

Annie sleeps, still.

I chase away

The puppie's would-be lovers; she doesn't seem

To miss them at all. She fetches sticks until symbolism

Begins to bore her. Chews one to splinters.

As we walk home

My feet start to stick to the pavement. Maggie waves

Her tongue in surrender. Mine feels tired too.

It is getting hotter. On the landing I look at

The neighbour's paper: three humans killed in Hartford

Last night. Not counting us. Someone will be murdered

Today; they will make tomorrow's paper. I will not

Be here to read about them.

Magnolia gets cold

Milk in her bowl. Annie wakes, leaves the bed,

Kisses me the way she clears the kitchen table

For her breakfast. If I were saner I would still be

Sleeping. The heat gets worse. It cannot last.

20 FEET FROM STARDOM: THE CHILL UP THE SPINE IS NEVER GONE

The human voice has the power to make your spine tingle, and mine tingled a couple of times watching 20 Feet From Stardom. It wasn't just the singing itself, though that was fantastic, but also the switch flipped by memory, as the emotional impact of some of the wonderful, miraculous songs of my youth brought back with them the sense of freedom and promise they offered. As Darlene Love sang Da Doo Ron Ron, the magic of her voice transported me, and the impact was all the more moving when you realise their music was affecting, and does affect, those incredible back-up singers in the same way.

The feeling was very much the same as when I saw Standing In The Shadows Of Motown (link here to what I wrote in 2009) a very similar story of the overlooked musicians behind so many hits. That movie was fueled by the same transformative nostalgia, and by the sort of deliverance that seeing these talents recognised formally, on the larger stage, brought. But the impact of voice transcends even the Funk Brothers; Joan Osborne, talented as she is, could not match Martha Reeves' vocals in that film; and few could match the talents of Love, Merry Clayton, or Lisa Fischer in this one.

Fischer, for me, was the revelation. Most of us know Darlene Love, knew that she sang the Crystals' hits without credit, knew the details. Many of us were aware of Merry Clayton's vocals on Gimme Shelter, but it was Claudia Lennear from the Ikettes, who then toured with the Stones. I suspect there is a sense that, first, her vocals were diminished in the public eye by her looks, by her obvious attraction to Mick Jagger. Indeed, it's hard not to grin along as you see the dissolute Mick grin as he recalls those days. Until you listen again, and hear, isolated, Merry singing 'rape, murder...it's just a shot away', and you remember Altamont, and the way things changed, and how untouched their Satanic majesties seemed to be.

And I sense that the amazing things Lisa Fischer has done on tour with the Stones for the past twenty years of their Satanic dotage may be overlooked as well, because the place of the woman back-up singer in that band is the epitome of the problem of anonymity, not the solution to it, and because many of us pay little attention to the endless revival tours. Lennear is fascinating because she is now a teacher (the only one of the singers interviewed who is not still in the business) and seems unique in her lack of desire for a solo career. Because otherwise, that inability to make the jump to stardom, the jump across that twenty feet to the solo mike, is the theme of the film.

Looks are part of the equation, of course (Lennear actually blushes when, after discounting her beauty, she is reminded that, at her peak, she posed for Playboy), and Tata Vega is blunt in pointing out her own 'shortcomings'. Footage of Tina Turner and the Ikettes (with Ike in his Beatle wig pimp-playing behind) reminded me of watching them perform Proud Mary on TV, and looking up to see my father in the doorway, his head bobbing in rhythm with the Ikettes steam-wheel bouncing. 'They sing good,' was his verdict.

But it goes beyond that. Love, who had the looks, had her career stalled perversely by Phil Spector, both at the start, when he kept her anonymous (though why the Blossoms, who stunned us on Shindig every week, never made it bigger is a huge wonder) and later, when he bought her contract back from Gamble & Huff and buried her a second time for reasons that are never even hinted at. There has to be some story beyond Spector's own weirdness behind it all. Love gave up music, cleaned houses, until the sheer pain of the emptiness that came from not using her God-given gifts brought her back.

Bruce Springsteen, whose interviews are passionate and thoughtful, makes a key point. Solo singers, he explains, need a lot of help to get things right: producers, A&R people to choose material, arrangers, publicity. Think of the whole Mike Appel/Jon Landau affect on his career. Everything needs to be in sync and the singer has to be willing to make the efforts and sacrifices required.

The obvious corollary to this isn't explored by the film but it's a simple point: the backup singers of that era, who came up through soul and R&B music, and then were brought into rock primarily by British acts who wanted that sound, were in a position to make solo breakthroughs precisely at the time when rock music moved to the singer-songwriter formula, or singer-player if you were someone like Bonnie Raitt. The film reinforces this dilemma, unconsciously, when Merry Clayton sings 'Southern Man', giving Neil Young's angry song a hugely intensified power and force. But I found myself thinking,as thrilling as it is, it might be a hard sell to the wider audience, and it's difficult to be able to reinterpret whole albums full of material so impressively.

Along the way the point is made that today's talent contest 'reality' TV shows encourage singers who can belt out the notes but don't have the feel, yet they are transformed into stars. This, I assume, is why Judith Hill appears—the only member of a 'younger' generation. Hill had already sung with Michael Jackson and launched a solo career when she took part in a 'reality' show called The Voice. We see Hill at the piano, working on her own songs, but I couldn't help but wonder if she was there simply to draw in a younger audience that watches their singers in Simon Cowell World.

Not that it makes a difference. In the end the music, as it should, triumphs, and along with it the undiminished spirit of these singers. Watching the Waters sitting around a table, and Oren's unbridled enthusiasm as he speaks, just like when they sing, simply compels you to match his smile. For those of us of a certain age, the breakthrough of music in the 1960s was not just a cultural rebellion, it was an expression of freedom and change. The idea that such freedom could often run aground on the rocks of cultural (and business) reality, is sad. The beauty of this music appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show was the way it tore the programme itself apart. And now we are back in a world of Ted Mack's Amateur Hour, only now it feeds directly into the musical mainstream. Which is why watching Darlene Love and Merry Clayton and Lisa Fischer sent chills up my spine. And hearing them sing reminds me of what being human is all about. Da Doo Ron Ron.

CLARENCE CLEMONS, IN MEMORIAM

People forget how frenetic Bruce Springsteen was in the early days of the E Street Band, which is why the Big Man, Clarence Clemons was so essential; on stage he provided an anchor for Springsteen's antics as he dashed and jumped across the stage, only to make it back (most of the time) just in time to hit the mike, and Clemons, at just the right time. He provided another sort of anchor, too, because Bruce wrote serious songs and often it was Clarence who reminded him, the songs themselves, and us that this was rock and roll.

Musically, Clemons did for Springsteen what King Curtis did in Memphis, or Junior Walker in Motown, providing that anchor, but also the raw squawking reminder that there is more to life than teenager-satisfying guitar solos and hip-hop bottom.

But possibly the most important thing was Clemons looked just right to unify a ragtag bunch of white kids from the Jersey shore. Although people forget that the E Street Band originally included another black musician, the talented pianist David Sancious. Sancious was in some ways even more of a professor than The Professor, Roy Bittan. They both provided elegance, trills weaving in and out underneath the big sax (and sometimes organ) that shared the lead with guitar. Think of the Band's Garth Hudson and Richard Manuel doing the same, and think too of how Springsteen used Danny Federici playing glockenspiel, even in 'Born To Run'. Sancious moved on to more serious (and less star-making) musical pursuits, while Clemons, who never seemed to move on to bigger things (unless you count Lady Gaga, which I can't) always seemed to fit best as Springsteen's sideman, Bill Cosby to his Robert Culp. It's an American stereotype that goes back to Chingnachook and Deerslayer. The relationship is made iconic on the cover of Born To Run (recently voted one of the top 10 ever by Rolling Stone readers) with Springsteen seeming taking a break and resting as he leans on the Big Man, who's playing up a storm, apparently giving him the crucial something he needs.

I first saw the E Streeters in the summer of 1975 at Tanglewood, before Born To Run broke. I'd been directed there way by my friend Berms, who came from Toms River and insisted Greetings From Asbury Park was the greatest record he'd ever heard. It wasn't, but The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle soon jumped into my consideration, and while I lived with Berms in Washington he scared away a woman named Adriana I was dating by calling her Rosalita. Many years later I picked up a bootleg of Springsteen's 'farewell' concert, broadcast on WMMR in Philly from the Main Point, and it is one of my all-time favourite bootlegs. It's from just before that Tanglewood concert, and it's full of energy and promise and never sounds stale. Oddly, it's just become available legitimately, which may be the fate of all my favourite bootlegs—Neil Young's International Harvesters was another of my treasures and that one's just come out too.

The best of Clemons' E Street solos may be the one on Jungleland, but the one on Rosalita may be the one that expresses best his role in the E Street Band: it kicks, it drives, and it restates the theme, which is the theme of so much of Springsteen's music, of salvation through music. He's the second E Streeter to die, after Federici, and he was 69, a bit older than the rest of the band, but it still makes me feel old to think he's gone. I'm not sure how they could tour now without him, but I sure as shit would like to hear a tribute album, with other sax players taking his parts. RIP Big Man.