Bruce Springsteen: 'Hero of the working class' turns 70
Bruce Springsteen is, without a doubt, one of the most important figures on the music scene of the last half century. The American rocker, who turns 70 this Monday, has offered more than 2,700 concerts on five continents, recorded 19 studio albums and sold close to 65 million records, which places him among the 15 best-selling artists in the history of Pop music.
But he has also shown us a human side that we have rarely been able to glimpse in an artist of his level. From showing his most fragile profile in his autobiography Born to run -where he recounts the stormy relationship with his father or his episodes of depression-, to recording intimate and uncommercial records at key moments in his career -Nebraska, The Ghost of Tom Joad, Devils & dust- or embark on unpredictable and very personal projects, such as his long series of concert-monologues on Broadway or his recent debut behind the cameras in Western star, a documentary about the gestation of his latest album that has just been released successfully at the Toronto Festival.
Bruce Springsteen (New Jersey, 1949) felt the call of music the day he saw Elvis Presley in his mythical appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, a moment that in his autobiography he describes as his particular 'big bang'. But it would already be in the 60s, with the discovery of The Beatles, when he was clear about what he was going to dedicate himself to and convinced his mother, Adele, to buy him his first electric guitar, with which he began his career in local groups. like The Rogues or The Castiles.
The musician made a name for himself beyond the New Jersey scene -especially as a guitarist, an aspect that many fans are unaware of- thanks to his participation in bands like Earth or Steel Mill, which already included future members of the E-Street Band as Danny Federici, Vini Lopez and Steve Van Zant.
However, his ability to write songs caught the attention of Columbia Records, who asked him to record a solo album. Thus, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. was born. (1973), a work in which, despite its obvious influences -The Band, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison-, an evident voice and style of its own is discovered in songs like "Spirit in the night", "Growin' up " or "Blinded by the light".
A few months later The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, his second album. Although the reviews continued to be positive, its commercial reception did not live up to its predecessor, despite containing songs like "Rosalita (Come out tonight)", "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)" or "The E Street shuffle ".
The future of rock and roll
The final step came in May 1974, when music critic John Landau saw Springsteen and his band live and published a review in The Real Paper which included a phrase that went down in history: "I've seen the future of rock and roll and it's called Bruce Springsteen."
'The Boss' and Landau became close and together they co-produced Born to Run (1975), the record that put Bruce Springsteen in the top division of rock and roll. It couldn't be any other way with songs like the one that gives the album its title, "Thunder road" or "Jungleland", which continue to be an essential part of his repertoire.
It is at this time that the group of regular musicians that accompanied Springsteen became a more or less stable group, under the name of The E-Street Band, with the presence of names such as Clarence Clemons, Roy Bittan, Max Weinberg or Garry Tallent, who over time would be joined by others such as the aforementioned Steve Van Zant or Nils Lofgren, forming what many consider to be the best rock and roll band in history.
At the end of 1975 the group performed for the first time outside the United States, on a brief European tour (only three concerts: London, Amsterdam and Stockholm) with a fundamentally promotional objective. His company took several musicians and journalists from Spain to the concert at London's Hammersmith Odeon, which made Bruce Springsteen known in these parts, starting an idyll that continues today.
The E-Street Band got their thorn out with one of their most mythical tours, which led them to offer more than a hundred concerts throughout the United States and Canada throughout 1978, one of whose shows, the one they offered on September 19, 1978 at the Capitol Theater Passaic in New Jersey, has just been officially released -for many years the concert circulated on a pirated recording, the most famous among 'The Boss' fans-.
It is at this time that Springsteen begins to offer marathon concerts, lasting three and up to four hours, in which the repertoire varies every night, including requests from the public. For anyone who has been able to see the American rocker live, he knows that it is a unique experience, difficult to repeat by other artists, whose shows are measured to the millimeter, with hardly any room for improvisation.
In 1980 came another of his major works, The River, a double album that alternated festive rock and roll with an optimistic cut ("Sherry Darling", "Two hearts", "Hungry heart") with other darker and more intimate songs ("Point black", "Drive all night") that make up another peak in his discography.
But, above all, the title track stands out, that intense and incomparable "The river", which Springsteen dedicated to his sister and his brother-in-law and which tells us about the lack of expectations of American youth at that time, finals from the 70s. A song that confirmed him as a true 'hero of the working class', a role he continues to play for different generations.
The subsequent tour brought the artist to Spain for the first time: on April 21, 1981 when 'The Boss' performed at the Palacio de los Deportes in Barcelona, which from then on became one of his favorite destinations.
In total, Springsteen has performed in Spain 51 times, ahead of other European countries such as Italy or France and only behind the United Kingdom and Germany. Not only Barcelona or Madrid have been able to enjoy his music: also other cities such as San Sebastián, Gijón, Bilbao, Seville, Santiago de Compostela, Valladolid or Benidorm.
Mass phenomenon
Fully confirmed as a great world star, the 80s turned Springsteen into a mass phenomenon. Despite the publication in 1982 of his most personal album to date, Nebraska -which had a poor commercial reception-, two years later he broke all his records with the edition of Born in the USA, his best-selling work, with 30 million. copies shipped worldwide.
Despite the fact that at the time it was wanted to be seen as a propaganda vehicle from the Reagan era -the Republican president himself wanted to use the title track at his rallies-, the truth is that "Born in the USA" -the song - is a new vindication of the humble class, in this case of the soldiers who returned from Vietnam forgotten by their government.
But the album was practically a great success from beginning to end, with legendary songs ("Dancing in the dark", "Cover me", "Glory days"), although with a production closely linked to the more eighties sound, like dictated the fashion of the moment.
But as usual in his career, his next step did not follow the easy path and, instead of delving into the line started by his predecessor, in 1987 he released Tunnel of love, a more introspective album that, despite having hits like "Brilliant disguise" or the title track, returned in some sections to a more personal sound, far from the rock and roll brilliance of its predecessor.
It also offered, from the very cover, an image of maturity that was transferred to the grooves of vinyl -then it was still the majority format-. It is at this time that the recently released Blinded by the light is set, a film that tells of the fascination exerted by the music of 'The Boss' on a teenager who aspires to be a writer.
E-Street Band, period... and followed
The tour was once again a resounding success, although it marked a turning point in the singer-songwriter's career, who decided to do without the E-Street Band in their following projects.
Thus followed one of the darkest stages of Springsteen's career, with his move to Los Angeles, the release of uninspired records (Human touch, Lucky town) recorded with session musicians; the Oscar achieved in 1994 for the song "Street of Philadelphia", part of the soundtrack of the film Philadelphia; or the publication of another of his acoustic records, The Ghost of Tom Joad, poorly received by the public despite its high artistic level.
How could it be otherwise, Springsteen and the E-Street Band were doomed to meet again and in 1999 they carried out a reunion tour, which ended up in 2002 with the publication of The rising, inspired by the attacks of 11-S and in which the rocker from New Jersey returned to count on his old partners to recover his more classic sound.
Since then, Bruce Springsteen has settled into an almost tireless routine of work, with the regular recording of albums (more or less inspired) and kilometric tours that exhaust paper wherever they go. Perhaps one of the most difficult moments for him was the death in 2011 of Clarence Clemons, the black saxophonist who became one of the most popular musicians in his band and to whom he pays tribute every night during the performance of "Tenth Avenue Freeze". -Out".
At 70 years old, and seeing his passion for work, it seems difficult to think about Bruce Springsteen's retirement, despite the fact that in recent years he has been interested in exploring new avenues. But, despite the fact that he has not gone on tour with his latest album, fans from all over the world hope that 'The Boss' will put the machinery in motion again and offer a new series of massive concerts, a terrain in which, today for today, Springsteen is still king.
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