Bruce Springsteen: De opkomst

In 1975, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band made their breakthrough in a spectacular way thanks to the album Born To Run. A success that was later surpassed by far with Born In the USA. The singer did not get it all for nothing. His first albums were well received, but sold moderately. In the run-up to his concerts in the Netherlands next year, a look back at that long run-up to his success.

In 1972, Bruce Springsteen found a home at Columbia, the record company where greats such as Johnny Cash, The Byrds, Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel and Janis Joplin had released their records. However, this did not mean that the young singer’s living was secured. In the summer of 1972, he recorded his first album at the 914 Sound Studio in Blauvelt, New York. His managers Mike Appel and Jim Cretecos also took on the role of his producers. Record company boss Clive Davis was satisfied with the result, but he missed a few songs that could do well as singles. Not much later, the singer returned with Spirit In The Night and Blinded By The Light, which turned out to be the best songs on the album that was in the making. Clarence Clemons was hired for the saxophone part, who was later recruited by the E Street Band that year. The songs did not bring Bruce Springsteen the chart success he had hoped for, but years later they were given a deserved second chance in the performance by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band.

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Bob Dylan

Record company Columbia believed wholeheartedly in the band. Bruce Springsteen seized every opportunity to perform with his band with both hands and talked himself into blisters during the countless interviews he did on radio stations. He played as the opening act for established names such as Lou Reed, Blood Sweat & Tears, Chicago, Stevie Wonder and even The Beach Boys. The concerts yielded many positive reactions, just as his album – Greetings From Asbury Park NJ – was received with rave reviews. In the early seventies, the world seemed to be persistently looking for a new Bob Dylan and this young singer seemed the ideal candidate. Bruce Springsteen was annoyed by this. Not out of lack of respect for his great colleague; he wanted to be judged on his own merits.

History repeated itself with The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle, Bruce Springsteen’s second album in 1973. Leading music magazines like Creem and Rolling Stone were talking about one of the best albums of the year, but the record store counters remained eerily quiet. There was some unrest at Columbia’s office. Was it still going to happen with the singer or was it perhaps time to shred the contract?

Jon Landau

What saved his skin were the performances. Together with his E Street Band – as the band was only officially called from September 1974 onwards – he consistently made a big impression with the exhausting battles that were his performances. Bruce Springsteen himself in particular gave it his all every night, and seemed to have an almost superhuman energy. In May 1974, music journalist Jon Landau wrote the now legendary words in The Real Paper: ‘I saw rock and roll future, and its name is Bruce Springsteen.’ It was this statement in particular that made the record company and management put their shoulders to the wheel once more. The team was soon strengthened by the same Jon Landau, initially as co-producer of the crucial third album, later also as the singer’s new manager and confidant.

Recording budget

Everything was pulled out of the closet. Thanks to the large recording budget, Bruce Springsteen was able to afford a residency at the renowned Record Plant Studio in Manhattan. The singer felt the pressure. The sessions dragged on, and he felt plagued by doubt. Eventually he released the tapes and on August 25 Born To Run was in stores. A promotion budget of 250,000 dollars ensured that no one could miss this joyous event. Record stores were flooded with posters and other promotional material, radio stations were supplied with commercials. But it was above all the music that made the album such a success. With great songs like Born To Run, Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out, Thunder Road, She’s the One and Jungleland, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band had found the metropolitan, Phil Spector-like and above all exciting sound that the concertgoers knew all too well. The album was praised to the skies by the music press and shortly after its release, Bruce Springsteen’s characteristic face adorned both The Times and Newsweek – two prestigious news magazines. In November 1975, Bruce Springsteen also performed in Europe for the first time. A lightning visit that took him to a sold-out RAI in Amsterdam, where he made a deep impression with an almost three-hour war of attrition.

Prove It All Night

The carefully created momentum seemed to slip away when he got into a fight with his manager Mike Appel. The inevitable lawsuits put all musical activities on hold, so that the important fourth album Darkness On The Edge Of Town was not released until 1978. For a moment it seemed as if Bruce Springsteen was back at square one. The reviews were traditionally positive and in the form of Badlands, Racing In The Street and especially Prove It All Night it contained a number of irresistibly exciting songs. According to some, however, it also lacked the overwhelming energy that made its predecessor Born To Run such an experience.

It inspired Bruce Springsteen and his band to work on the next album with double energy. Just like in the case of Born To Run, the sessions were long and exhausting. The singer wrote dozens of songs, many of which were recorded on tape between April 1979 and May 1980. The River was intended as a single LP, if it had been up to guitarist and co-producer Steven van Zandt it would have become a 3-LP set. It became a compromise: The River was released on October 19, 1980 as a double LP.

The River

The album was rightly received as a masterpiece. Like no other artist, Bruce Springsteen seemed to be able to empathize with the worries, love and joy of the ordinary American, and then turn them into beautiful lyrics. The double album also offered more musical variety than the singer had allowed himself to do up to that point. Independence Day was a song about a son who broke away from his parental home – a familiar theme for Bruce Springsteen. The opening track The Ties That Bind was a call for community spirit, something the singer had also encountered often enough as a child. Each song contained recognizable themes for a wide audience, which he interpreted so virtuously.

Ahoy

The River made Bruce Springsteen a worldwide rock star. In April 1981 he came to the Netherlands for two performances in the Ahoy in Rotterdam. Shows that were described in superlatives by the newspapers. In light of these successes, his next step caused a lot of surprise. At the end of 1981 and the beginning of 1982 he worked on demos that were to form the basis for a next regular album. However, Bruce Springsteen decided to record them in their bare form – a solo album, which was released on September 30, 1982: Nebraska. The penetrating quality of the lyrics, stories about people for whom the American dream had remained an illusion, came out best in this sober setting. It is still considered one of his very best albums, but it was not accessible enough to become a commercial success. It was a daring step that the singer took at a crucial stage in his career. Two years later, however, he returned with an album that made him more successful than he had ever thought possible.

We also published Bruce Springsteen: The Roots