My award-winning film “The Atomic Bowl” started streaming on PBS.org and PBS apps last month and via Vimeo (you can easily watch it via links here), plus it is airing over many PBS stations. You can still subscribe to this newsletter for FREE. And there is now a companion e-book for “The Atomic Bowl” with the same title, read more here or order. Thank you.
Don’t worry, a few cartoons down below, but today a special tribute to Bruce Springsteen for the 50th anniversary of the release of his life-changing
”Born to Run” album, coming up in a few days. Four outtakes/early versions from the sessions for that album below, and Part II tomorrow.
I could write a lot about this, but little time, so just a nutshell: After our highly influential Crawdaddy articles on Bruce, we became friends in that period of late-1972 to 1976. The sessions for “Born to Run,” his third album, were launched started up here at 914 Studios—just over the hill from where I now live in Nyack. Back then, however, I lived in Greenwich Village. I made it up there for a few of the marathon sessions, with Crawdaddy editor Peter Knobler behind the wheel. As Bruce struggled to finish even the title song, he brought Jon Landau on board as co-producer and Jon moved the work to the Record Plant in NYC and insisted on more of pure rock ‘n roll sound.
I remember getting the white label test pressing for the album, perhaps half a century ago today, and was immediately knocked out, although already familiar with some of the songs, including “Jungleland” (and the sequence of cuts would change). We had already sent to the printer what would be Bruce’s first-ever magazine cover, before Time and Newsweek got there.
Anyway, here are a few versions you may have never heard. My old buddy and fellow Brucie fan David Corn wrote his own reflections this week at Mother Jones. And check out this link to a new exhibit of dozens of photos from the famous album cover sessions taken by old friend Eric Meola (one of his shots at top). Eric has written widely about the photo sessions.
I guess I will note that, for my part in Crawdaddy’s early and often and crucial support for early Bruce, I do have a gold record for “Born to Run” on the wall downstairs.
Okay, here is an early demo of “Born to Run” from the 914 studio—possibly I might have even been in the control room when it was recorded.
One of his final recordings was for an important mood outlier, “The Heist,” which ended up as a late addition to the album under a different name, “Meeting Across the River.”
This is the fairly weak song that it replaced, “Linda Let Me Be the One.”
And, of course, an acoustic version of “Thunder Road.”
From Tunes to Toons
Barry Blitt:
“Do you know why the National Guard pulled you over?”
My own fate:
Happy anniversary to the Boss!
Dearly remember the release of the Born to Run album
Love The Boss
On 9/11, whenever I used the car, I would play Born in the USA Loud with the windows open
The Boss Rules and I play the tape of The Rising Live in Barcelona on Youtube all the time
Rather invigorating