/\fOum fCeview
- Excellent; One Patlicti
"Live/1975-85"
Bruce Springsteen
& the E Street Band
Columbia Records
★★★★★
Ten years ago, rock
critic Jon Landau wrote:
“I have seen rock ’n’ roll
future and its name is
Bruce Springsteen. ” If
that statement needs
proof, “Live/1975-85”
should suffice.
Aside from being the
best American songwritter
since Bob Dylan,
Springsteen is one of the
best American perform
ers. A Springsteen con
cert, which usually lasts
over four hours, is a drain
ing experience. Few artists
can keep that much en
ergy going for that long.
Springsteen’s latest re
lease, “Live/1975-85,” is
a five-album set that col
lects performances from a
10-year period — perfor
mances in various places
from small clubs to giant
auditoriums across the na
tion. It takes almost as
long as a Springsteen con
cert to listen to the entire
set.
There are songs from
Springsteen’s seven stu
dio albums, songs that
have never appeared on a
Springsteen album, songs
Springsteen wrote for
other people and a few
cover versions of other
people’s songs.
The set kicks off with
an early version of
“Thunder Road,” the first
track on the “Bom to
Run” album. This version,
recorded in 1975, fea
tures only piano, harmon
ica, glockenspiel and
Springsteen’s incredible
voice. “Bom to Run”
(1975), Springsteen’s
third album, was the al
bum that threw him to the
top of the American music
scene. The other songs
from that album, “Backs
treets,” “Tenth Avenue
Freeze-Out” and “Bom to
Run,” also are fantastic.
Fortunately,
“Live/1975-85” includes
live versions of some of
the best songs from
Springsteen’s first two al
bums. The live versions of
“Spirit in the Night,”
“Growin’ Up” and “It’s
Hard to Be a Saint in the
City,” from Springsteen’s
debut album, “Greetings
from Asbury Park, N.J.”
(1973), are much better
than the studio versions.
The songs from
Springsteen’s second al
bum, “The Wild, the In
nocent and the E Street
Shuffle” (1973) “4th of
July, Asbury Park
(Sandy)” and the marvel
ous “Rosalita (Come Out
Tonight),” also take on a
new life.
Two of the best songs
are “Candy’s Room” and
“Racing in the Streets,”
originally from the “Dark
ness on the Edge of
Town” (1978) album.
“Racing in the Streets,” a
ballad about a grown man
who hasn’t given up his
high school pasttime of
drag racing, is slow and
soulful. “Adam Raised a
Cain,” “Badlands,” “The
Promised Land” and the
title track from “Darkness
on the Edge of Town” are
included.
Springsteen introduces
a killer version of “The
River,” the title track from
his 1980 album, with a
touching story about his
father and the draft. Other
songs from “The River”
include “Hungry Heart,”
“Two Hearts,” “You Can
Look (But You Better Not
Touch),” “Independence
Day” and the hard-rock
ing “Cadillac Ranch. ”
In 1982, Springsteen
released “Nebraska,” a
solo album with music or
chestrated with nothing
more than acoustic guitar,
harmonica and voice. On
“ L i v e /1 9 7 5 - 8 5 , ”
Springsteen performs the
songs from “Nebraska,”
“Johnny 99,” “Reason to
Believe” and the title
track, the same way he
did on the album. These
live tracks, which were re
corded during the “Born
in the U.S.A.” tour, show
that Springsteen had a lot
of guts to perform these
non-commercial songs for
an audience that knew
him only from his latest al
bum.
“Bom in the U.S.A.”
(1984) is Springsteen’s
most successful album to
date. Older audiences
caught onto the Boss
years before, but the
younger, mainstream
crowd made “Bom in the
U.S.A.” one of the top
selling albums of the ’80s.
The live versions of “Dar
lington County,” “Work
ing on the Highway,”
“Cover Me,” “I’m on Fi
re,” “Bobby Jean,” “My
Hometown” and “Bom in
the U.S.A.” are interes
tingly different. The
acoustic version of “No
Surrender” however, is a
religious experience.
Springsteen fans will be
thrilled to find songs that
weren’t available until
now. “Seeds,” a song
written about the jobless
citizens of Houston, and
“Paradise by the ‘C’”
make it to disk for the first
time. “Fire,” a song writ
ten for Robert Gordon
and later made into a hit
by the Pointer Sisters, and
“Because the Night,” a
song Springsteen wrote
with Patti Smith, sound
great as performed by the
Boss and the Band.
The songs that
Springsteen takes from
other artists and makes his
own are fascinating. The
versions of Booker T and
the M.G.s’ “Raise Your
Hand,” Woody Guthrie’s
“This Land is Your
Land,” the Temptations’
“War” and Tom Waits’
“Jersey Girl” allow
Springsteen to pay hom
age to some of his influ
ences.
The price for
“Live/1975-85” may be a
bit steep, but these five al
bums of good, hard rock
’n’ roll are almost price
less.
by Karl Pallmeyer
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