gritty Stax-styled guitar, and even
Springsteen’s first full-blown love song,
4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy).
Lyrically, all these new songs found
the chief protagonist looking out instead
of staring within. Best of all, there was for
the first time a real sense of fun to
be found in the record’s grooves,
as evidenced on the album’s most
effervescent moment, the raucous
Rosalita. Later featured on their
famous The Old Grey Whistle Test
television performance, Rosalita
was not only the highlight of
the Springsteen live show, it
was Bruce’s own new favourite;
the song that best captured the
bristling energy he and his new
band were able to summon forth
when the spirit really took them.
Springsteen discussed The Wild, the
Innocent & the E Street Shuffle with
Sounds Magazine in March 1974, just
as the album was released in Britain;
‘There was more of the band in there
and the songs were written more in the
way that I wanted to write. But I tend
to change the arrangements all the time
in order to present the material best...
for instance Sandy. I like the way it is onthe record but it was entirely different up
until the night I recorded it and then I
changed it. The mistake is when you start
thinking that you are your songs. To me
a song is a vision, a flash and what I seeis characters and situations. I mean I’ve
stood around carnivals at midnight when
they’re clearing up [as on Wild Billy’s
Circus Story] and I was scared, I met
some dangerous people. As for Spanish
Johnny’s situation [in Incident On 57th
Street]... I know people who have lived
that life.’
He described his new band as ‘a real
spacey bunch of guys’ and talked of his
wish to perform in Britain, yet doubted it
would be soon, in light of his hectic US
touring schedule: ‘It just goes on forever
here, on and on.’
Despite disappointing sales figures
for The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street
Shuffle, Springsteen’s reputation as a
live performer was growing with every
fiery performance. Buoyed by this new
celebrity status, Springsteen and the E
Street Band set out on what would be
their most ground breaking US tour yet.
Critical plaudits were now starting
to pile up. One review, in particular,
however, would capture the imagination
of all who read it, building in resonance
throughout the years to become the most
oft-recalled epithet of Springsteen’s long
career. Jon Landau, who had given a
largely glowing review to The Wild, the
Innocent & the E Street Shuffle in The
Real Paper, the local arts magazine he
edited in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
was also the 26-year-old reviews editor
of Rolling Stone. A music journalist
that had already won the respect of the
music industry by actually working in
it as an occasional producer and A&R
man, Landau produced the second MC5
album, Back in the USA and championed
Maria Muldaur’s breakthrough hit
Midnight at the Oasis. Although he had
not been familiar with Springsteen’s
work previously, Landau was intrigued
enough by his second album to go along
and check him out when he played at
a local club named Charley’s, in
April 1974. The timing of Landau’s
arrival at his first Springsteen
show was prescient. Not only was
the band reaching its musical
apotheosis after playing together
on the road solidly for over a
year, but Bruce himself was fast
evolving into the consummate
live performer we know today;
introducing songs with little
autobiographical vignettes that
served to both explain and
frame the songs he sang. A livewire one
moment, quiet and contemplative the
next, and backed by a band entirely
simpatico both musically and personally,
Springsteen astounded Landau with hisSpringsteen and the E Street Band in performance in October 1985.“If you don’t play like that,
pack your guitar up, throw
it in the trash can and go
home... The night I stop
thinking that way, that’s the
night I won’t do it anymore.”