Happy Anniversary, Bruce!

Springsteen's debut, 50 years ago....

Fifty years ago today (how time flies), Columbia Records released Bruce Springsteen’s first lp, Greetings from Asbury Park. I still have the test pressing with its plain white label. Last month I posted here about meeting Bruce at his first major P.R. gig —at Sing Sing Prison—on Dec. 7, 1972, a month before the album dropped. All of the NYC-based media were invited and only Peter Knobler and myself from Crawdaddy showed up. Then we published the first major piece on the unknown Jerseyite, about 7000 words worth. Bruce described the upcoming album for us this way:

 “We get into those great funky riffs, that Gary U.S. Bonds stuff that is lost forever to the annals of time. You can get into that groove, get it there, and sing weird words to it too!”  Still he found the process difficult, as “you have a whole universe to think about but you need something that rhymes with ‘night’!”

A couple months later I trekked with “Brucie” to my hometown. You can read about that trip here. And even more of my early runnings on backstreets with him here.

There’s a 50th anniversary symposium at Monmouth University in Jersey (which already houses The Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music) this Saturday and I was invited to join Peter in talking about “discovering” Bruce. As it happens, we caught Bruce in concert at the university in early 1973, but I’m leaving this 2023 gig to Peter.

In the summer of 1974, with Peter, Bruce and Davy backstage at the infamous “Anne Murray” concert in Central Park (when half the crowd walked out after his opening set):

Meanwhile, below, here are two rockers that Springsteen introduced to us, after bringing up the band, at his show at Kenny’s Castaways in Manhattan the night of that Sing Sing appearance. These two fun ones did not end up on that first album so if you have not heard them before—here you go. Plus a tune that did make Greetings, “Spirit in the Night.” We also got to hear another new set closer, “Rosalita,” at Kenny’s, but that did make the second album a year later…

Enjoy, and then please subscribe, it’s still free.

1973, at a Columbia Records convention meant to boost him (it took awhile), let’s hear “Thundercrack.”

2013, same song

1973, the “Bishop Danced”:

In 2012 the first time he played it live since 1973

“Spirit in the Night” at the same 1973 Columbia convention….