Bruce Springsteen
Before the Fame

1971, before the success.

Bruce Springsteen was a 22-year-old guy, homeless and without family ties (his parents had emigrated to faraway California), who played powerful rock between New York and his New Jersey with the bands he had founded, Steel Mill and the Bruce Springsteen Band. However, after years of concerts, they had no recording opportunities, except for a homemade (of terrible quality) recording of a 45 rpm. Springsteen had therefore decided to leave the bands and embark on a solo career, following the other soul of his artistic vein, the acoustic-singer-songwriter one, which he had already brought to the public, with great gratification, between Steel Mill and BSB concerts.

He met, thanks to his childhood friend and manager of Steel Mill and BSB, Tinker West, the young and ambitious record producer, Mike Appel, who, together with Jimmy Cretecos, had founded a small record label (today we would call it independent), Laurel Canyon.

Bruce met Appel twice, a few months apart: the second meeting took place in Manhattan on the Avenue of the Americas, home of Laurel Canyon, where Appel and Cretecos's partner, Bob Spitz, immortalized on a reel recorder the performances of that musician who had captivated the young producers with his personality.

A few weeks later, it was Appel who brought Springsteen to the great John Hammond, who opened the doors of Columbia and success for him.

The Manhattan recordings remain, and still are, the property of Laurel Canyon, which at the end of the 90s put this album on the market, actually official, triggering a long legal battle which, however, saw Springsteen and Columbia defeated.

Result: the record is still on the market and, I add, fortunately so, because it contains extraordinary songs for any listener, not only for Springsteen fans-collectors; another non-negligible fact is the more than good quality of the recording, despite the minimal equipment with which it is fixed on tape. The record in question is a double; a single CD version also exists on the market, containing a couple of well-made pieces not present in the double, Arabian night and Jazz musician.

It is difficult to classify the style of these recordings: it is not folk, it is not blues, it is not the new Dylan that Hammond and Columbia were desperately searching for; instead, we are listening to a songwriter with a very personal expressiveness, an emotional approach to music and singing. Just consider the intensity with which he plays his Martin D-45 acoustic: in Dylan's early folk records, the guitar is less in the foreground; here it has a full, powerful sound, competing with the voice, still nasal, but strong, especially for the intensity of the interpretation that recalls much of one of Springsteen's idols, Van Morrison.

The lyrics are also striking, rich in verses and therefore certainly indebted in inspiration to Dylan, but the ideas are less poetic, often very visionary, mostly taking inspiration from the personal stories of the young Bruce, like the not always easy relationship with his family and his hometown; however, social themes and changing times are not lacking.

Randolph Street is a delicate composition filled with nostalgia; it talks about the childhood spent at his grandparents' house, Alice and Fred, two old-timers a bit out of the rules, whose life had been irreparably marked years before by the tragic death of their little girl, run over a few meters from the house door by a passing truck. Bruce writes about that house, “…the kitchen smelt of kerosene, The sagging ceiling revealed the beams…” and about his grandfather, a respected electrician who lost his job after a severe illness, “.. the man, they said, his work could be exhibited at the Louvre, now he sits all day because his left arm doesn't want to move, he was a graduate in electricity, gave lectures on wiring and electrical circuits…..”.

Family song, instead talks about his parents, who moved to California when he was still underage, but already determined to pursue his dream of becoming a musician: he remained alone with his guitar and friends on Randolph Street. Springsteen writes, “…well you know, every father has dreams and plans for his son, and dreaming has not yet been declared a capital crime. I only hope that when I grow up, I'll have children of my own, whom I’ll love as best I can and let them build their minds on their own…..”. The piece is acoustic, but without the nostalgia of the other, with that intense and powerful touch of the guitar and voice, which are the stylistic hallmark of many pieces of this album.

Border guard is the first piece where Springsteen talks about the troubled relationship with his father: other great songs will follow on the theme, My father's house above all. Dad is seen as a border guard, spending the night sitting in the kitchen drinking beer and smoking, waiting for the musician son to return, on whom to vent his anger and the fumes of alcohol, “.. I pity the border guard when he walks, yes when he walks alone. the echo of his footsteps is what a friend would recognize, a house is a funny thing; it binds you to the earth, as love is a crazy thing, in a child's eyes…..”. Some musical and vocal lines of this beautiful piece foreshadow the atmospheres of The ghost of Tom Joad: the intensity of the performance is moving, a mix of sweetness and anger, fueled by the father figure in the young Bruce.

Prodigal son is a diamond, mature, complete, highly melodic song built on short verses, without chorus, in which at the end of each verse, Springsteen raises the rhythm of the guitar and singing: it anticipates the theme of escaping from the small town that stifles aspirations and dreams of the young, a thematic sketch, that of escape, which will be developed in masterpieces like Thunder road and Born to run; here, however, the images are more poetic than the very "earthly" ones we will find in subsequent pieces, “In a place where outlaws are banned from the world, on the day the mountains fell into the enemy's hands, in a land where boys are forbidden to grow and metal is the only master, where the road ends and the desert breaks, and the buildings are bent by great earthquakes, and the statesmen crawl on their bellies like snakes and satisfy the public's desire, in a land where skyscrapers mar the sky, and delinquent daughters still lie to their mothers, dad standing at the corner wants to beat the big drum, welcome home, my prodigal son……”.

Evacuation of the west wasn't recorded in the session with the other songs on this product: it is a piece played by the entire original E Street Band, David Sancious on piano, Danny Federici on Hammond, Garry Tallent on bass, and Vini Lopez on drums. A song with a strong soul flavor that owes much to Van Morrison and Sam Cooke, artists whom Springsteen loved very much. The scenario described greatly resembles those of John Steinbeck, another literary reference very much alive in Springsteen's soul, the escape from the old rural world towards industrialized lands in search of a future and a better life: “…It happened the day Cowboys left the ranches, it happened the day cowboys were banned from the prairie; metal got in touch with the world as the master, they drove their ponies into cities of gold to leave them forever. Now the sun was swollen, red, and old, the land was windy, dark, and cold where the road ends the desert takes its toll so dusty, red, and enraged it was a time when men died out on the prairies without having a decent friend. At night the ghosts, mostly riders, were howled in the canyon winds, you could hear their wails, oh God, I think they were dying…..”.

Tokyo is a beautiful piano piece, set in a war scenario, featuring soldiers who survive thanks to the sensuality of the dancer and prostitute Linda Lee and the strength of music played from a radio, “Oh, save my sweet soul rock'n'roll because I'm fading fast. And at that moment the band played……”.

Another piano piece, If I was the priest, was played for the first time for John Hammond and it was this track that made him jump and convinced him to bring Springsteen into Columbia; it was left out of the debut album due to the text's near-blasphemous content. Musically it has a jazzy stride very much reminiscent of Van Morrison; Springsteen sings strongly of his world of outcasts, outlaws, and wild ones that we will find in masterpieces like Lost in the flood and Jungleland, in my opinion inspired by this very gem. He describes this crazy world using sacred figures: for this reason, the track wasn't played for Appel, a devout Catholic, but at a later time for Hammond; it goes without saying that the song wasn't recorded in the session from which the other songs of the album came, “Well if Jesus was the sheriff and I was the priest, if my woman was an heiress and my mother was a thief and dad carried guns across the border, there'd still be too many outlaws trying to work on the same line. Now sweet old Virgin Mary walks the Holy Grahal Saloon, where for a nickel they give you whisky and the blessed glass and the Holy Spirit is the bartender ……”

I recommend this album not only to Springsteen fans but to anyone who loves American singer-songwriter music: they will discover melodies and lyrics of absolute level, mature and poetic, despite the young author's age.

…1971, before the success, but not before the genius.