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May 25, 2024 As per the official announcement, via Bruce Springsteen's Facebook page: Here's hoping that you're feeling better as soon as possible, Bruce!

May 23, 2024

May 22, 2024 Today Joe Ely, the great Texas-based singer-songwriter and longtime friend of Bruce Springsteen, officially announced the August 2 release of his next album, Driven To Drive. In conjunction with the announcement, Ely also released the first advance single from the album, "Odds of the Blues," featuring supporting vocals by Springsteen. "Driven to Drive is Ely’s first road album," reads the official announcement posted on Joe's website, "featuring a collection of songs inspired by his travels from different eras of his illustrious career which spans five decades. Along with the announcement, he has shared the official video for the album’s first single 'Odds of the Blues' (feat. Bruce Springsteen). The video was directed by Matthew Eskey and pulls from home video footage shot by Joe Ely, his wife Sharon and their families over the years." (You can watch it below:) While the video's anachronous mix of Super-8-film-style framing and effects with obviously videotaped vintage footage is at least a bit off-putting, who really cares when the music's this good? Ely and Springsteen blend together very well on this tasty slice of country-blues-rock. “I got the idea for the song from hanging out at an all night after hours joint on the edge of east Lubbock called TV's," says Ely in the official announcement. "[T]here was always a dice game in the back room, the pool table had a bad lean, and the jukebox mainly played old blues songs. I wrote the song later when I put my studio together in Austin. I asked Bruce recently if he would like to sing with me on this song and he said he’d love to. We’ve been long lost friends for a long time. One of my memories of us singing together was in Dublin, Ireland when we both got on stage with Jerry Lee Lewis and Shane MacGowan and sang ‘Great Balls of Fire.’” In anticipation of today's announcement/video-drop, last night Joe Ely's official Facebook page also posted this additional video memory from the autumn of 2001, featuring Ely and Springsteen delivering a great live version of "All Just To Get You," Ely's song that they recorded together for his 1995 album Letter to Laredo: Click here to purchase/stream "Odds of the Blues" and click here to pre-order Driven to Drive.

May 21, 2024 Filmmakers Thom Zimny (the award-winning director, editor, and archivist who is also Bruce Springsteen's longtime film/video collaborator and the director of the upcoming Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band,) and Frank Marshall (who's produced an astounding number of famous films directed by Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich and others, and launched his own impressive feature-length-documentary-directing career with 2020's The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend A Broken Heart,) have co-directed The Beach Boys, streaming exclusively on Disney+ beginning this Friday, May 24, 2024... just in time for Memorial Day Weekend, the unofficial beginning of summer here in the U.S. (How appropriate!) The Beach Boys features never-before-seen footage and all-new interviews with The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, David Marks, and Bruce Johnston, interwoven with archival audio and images of the late Carl and Dennis Wilson. There's new interview footage of 1972-73 member Blondie Chaplin, as well, and archival audio of the late 1972-74 member Ricky Fataar. In addition, new interview footage of other famous musicians who've been greatly influenced by The Beach Boys is included, featuring segments with Lindsey Buckingham (who also did a bit of songwriting with Brian Wilson back in the eighties,) Janelle Monae, Ryan Tedder, and Don Was (who also has worked extensively with Brian Wilson on several of his solo projects over the years.) The Beach Boys was produced with the cooperation and support of all surviving band members and the estates of those who have passed. “I’m super happy with the way the documentary turned out," said Brian Wilson upon the completion of the film. "They did an amazing job. It really brought me back to those days with the boys, the fun and the music. And of course, those incredible harmonies.” The film was scored by Pearl Jam's Mike McCready, who previously scored Zimny's films Elvis Presley: The Searcher and The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash. "I love working with Mike," Zimny recently told us via email. "He always brings so many surprises to the film. He's an amazing composer, and I hope to do a lot more films with him." The Beach Boys also marks the first time that Frank Marshall and Thom Zimny have directed a film together. Marshall and Zimny previously worked together in a producer-director relationship on The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash. Recently the two filmmakers were kind enough to join Letters To You in recording a special podcast, during which they discussed with us their new film after letting us screen it in advance, as well as the enduring influence and importance of The Beach Boys. (Zimny even teased a bit his next upcoming project with Springsteen, shortly before the official Road Diary announcement was made on May 14.) You can listen to the podcast via our SoundCloud and YouTube platforms, using the embedded links below: Of course, The Beach Boys' music has greatly influenced the music of Bruce Springsteen, as well. And there's no better time than right now - with the official release of The Beach Boys upon us - to grab our swimsuits, head to the beach, and take a deep dive into that sweet intersection of Paradise Cove and Asbury Park: It all starts with The Beach Boys' songs, of course, and the various lyrical and musical influences that can be heard in the music that Bruce Springsteen - who certainly had many of those great Beach Boys records embedded into his adolescent musical mix - made on his own records years later. Here, then, are the key Beach Boys-influenced Springsteen tracks that stand out for us... In terms of lyrical influence and connection, there's absolutely nothing that can top The Beach Boys' classic "Don't Worry, Baby," in relation to Springsteen's "Racing in the Street." In fact, the lyrics of "Racing..." could be heard very much as a straight-up "sequel" to "Don't Worry, Baby," moving the story and characters in "Don't Worry, Baby" forward to its heartbreaking conclusion. Both songs are sung in the first-person voice of an auto-racer, with verses focusing on the unnamed woman with whom he's fallen in love. Whether Bruce actually meant them to be heard as the same characters or not, what's much more important is that in each song, the auto-racing takes on much deeper psychological, psychosexual, and metaphorical meanings. That deeper psychological - and often melancholy - lyrical aspect of Beach Boys ballads like "Don't Worry, Baby," "In My Room," and "The Warmth of the Sun" also can be found in the lyrics of Springsteen songs like "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)," "Independence Day," "My Hometown," and "This Depression," to name a few prime examples. There's also the lingering possibility that the lyrics of The Beach Boys' single "Wendy" might have helped to inspire the name of the woman in "Born to Run." Yes, we are well aware of the "Peter-Pan-poster-on-Bruce's-bedroom-wall" theory, but in that same bedroom he also had "a 45 player right next to his bed so that he could just roll over and put a song on without having to get up." And maybe, just maybe, one of those 45s included The Beach Boys' "Wendy." Actual and potential lyrical connections are one thing, but it wasn't until much later in Bruce Springsteen's career - the 21st Century, actually - that The Beach Boys' musical influence became a strong one, though in the late 1980s and early 1990s you could hear some of it creep in on occasion. Case in point: "All That Heaven Will Allow" from 1987's Tunnel of Love, which sounds like it actually could've been a single by The Beach Boys. The live versions of "All That Heaven Will Allow" performed on the 1988 Tunnel of Love Express Tour expanded this connection, with Beach Boys-style backing vocal harmonies provided by the players in The Horns of Love. And on Springsteen's very next studio album, 1992's Human Touch, the title track's keyboard interludes and vocals, as well as the arrangement of "I Wish I Were Blind," owe a lot to Brian Wilson's groundbreaking work in the studio. More than fifteen years later, with another pair of back-to-back albums, Magic and Working On A Dream, Bruce totally let loose his inner Brian Wilson at last. Tracks like "Your Own Worst Enemy," "Girls In Their Summer Clothes," "This Life," and "Kingdom of Days" often sound very much like the best of Wilson's work, both with The Beach Boys and on his own. And on "This Life" especially, Max Weinberg channels his inner Hal Blaine, the late, great Wrecking Crew drummer who became a key Brian Wilson/Beach Boys collaborator in the studio, while Springsteen and a group of E Streeters deliver their best Beach Boys imitation on the track's closing harmonies. Speaking of Working On A Dream, in regards to its opening track, plenty of – ahem – musically under-informed folks (including Gene Simmons himself) have incorrectly claimed that part of the melody of Springsteen’s song “Outlaw Pete” was swiped from KISS’s 1979 disco hit “I Was Made For Lovin’ You.” Bruce, however, explained to Rolling Stone that he actually was “ripping off” The Beach Boys’ 1967 track “Heroes and Villains,” which of course means that KISS ripped off The Beach Boys, too. Springsteen's next all-new studio album after Working On A Dream, 2012's Wrecking Ball, also featured an opening track with a small but apparent nod to The Beach Boys. That synthesized siren sound at the beginning of "We Take Care Of Our Own" sounds very much like the theremin riff that opens The Beach Boys' "Wild Honey." Over the years, there also have been a few other notable Beach Boys/Bruce Springsteen intersections that occurred onstage, rather than in the studio. The 1973 and 1976 versions of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band occasionally added a bit of their take on a Beach Boys classic - either "Fun, Fun, Fun" or "Be True To Your School," depending on the night - to their performances of "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)." On June 1, 1985 at Bruce's first-ever concert in Ireland, which also was his first public performance as a married man, and featured what at that point was his largest concert audience ever, with an estimated 90,000 to 100,000 people in attendance, he performed a one-time-only full-length solo acoustic cover of The Beach Boys’ “When I Grow Up (To Be A Man).” And check out this excerpt from Springsteen’s speech inducting Jackson Browne into The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Class of 2004: “The Beach Boys and Brian Wilson, they gave us California as Paradise, and Jackson Browne gave us Paradise Lost. Now I always imagine, what if Brian Wilson, long after he'd taken a bite of that orange that the serpent offered to him... what if he married that nice girl in ´Caroline, No´ - I always figured that she was pregnant anyway - and what if he moved into the valley and had two sons? One of them would have looked and sounded just like Jackson Browne. Cain, of course, would have been Jackson's brother-in-arms, Warren Zevon. We love you, Warren. But, Jackson... To me, Jackson was always the tempered voice of Abel, toiling in the vineyards, here to bear the earthly burdens, confronting the impossibility of love, here to do his father's work.” Bruce also has performed twice as a guest with Brian Wilson and His Band, both times in New Jersey: *May 12, 2007 - The Brian Wilson Benefit Concert for The Count Basie Theatre Foundation - Red Bank, NJ (guitar on "Barbara Ann" and harmony vocals on "Love and Mercy") Springsteen and Wilson also co-autographed a Challenger surfboard that sold for $7,500 at the pre-concert charity auction. *July 1, 2015 - The PNC Bank Arts Center - Homdel, NJ (harmony vocals on "Barbara Ann" and backing guitar on "Surfin' U.S.A.") And as far as any Beach Boys members ever performing any Springsteen material, that's happened twice in the recording studio. The 1991 version of The Beach Boys provided beautiful, wordless backing harmonies on the Mighty Max & Friends/Killer Joe version of Springsteen's instrumental "Summer On Signal Hill," and in 2003 Mike Love recorded his Beach Boys-styled version of "Hungry Heart" for the various-artists album A Tribute To Bruce Springsteen. But back to Bruce Springsteen paying tribute to The Beach Boys, rather than the other way around... In the studio, onstage, and even at the movies, Bruce Springsteen repeatedly has expressed his love for The Beach Boys and, especially, Brian Wilson:

May 18, 2024 The Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music (BSACAM)'s monthly Conversations with our Curator series continues in May, with BSACAM Curator Melissa Ziobro in conversation online with author and scholar Kenneth Womack. Womack will discuss his latest book, Living the Beatles Legend: The Untold Story of Mal Evans (also available in a UK edition.) Evans was The Beatles' road manager, personal assistant, and devoted friend for the entire course of their historical career, and into their post-breakup solo years. He was preparing to publish his memoirs before his tragic, violent death in 1976. Womack was granted full access to Evans' unpublished archives, and also conducted hundreds of new interviews, in order to write the first full-length biography of Evans. Womack also has continued working with Evans' family, with plans afoot to follow up the Living the Beatles Legend biography with full publication of Evans' diaries and manuscripts. This Conversations with our Curator event will take place this coming Thursday, May 23, beginning at 7pm ET. As is customary with the Conversations with our Curator series, Ziobro's online conversation with Womack will be followed by an audience Q&A session. Registration to attend this online event is free and open to the public. Click here to register. All past Conversations with our Curator events also are archived at BSACAM's YouTube channel. Click here to view the Archives' Conversations with our Curator  YouTube playlist.

May 14, 2024 As per this afternoon's official announcement , Hulu and Disney+ will stream exclusively Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band beginning in October of this year. The exact premiere date is yet to be announced. [UPDATE: On September 5, it was announced that the film will have its Hulu/Disney+ streaming premiere on October 25.] More details from today's official announcement: "Springsteen and The E Street Band offer the most in-depth look ever at the creation of their legendary live performances in the new documentary featuring unprecedented, behind-the-scenes access to their 2023-2024 world tour. " Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band opens a new door to Springsteen’s creative process for fans around the world, sharing fly-on-the-wall footage of band rehearsals and special moments backstage — as well as hearing from Springsteen himself. "These conversations follow Springsteen closely as he develops the story he wants to tell with this tour’s setlist — interspersed with rare archival clips of The E Street Band, underscoring themes of life, loss, mortality and community. In this way, it serves as an essential and never-before-seen chapter in an autobiographical series spanning Springsteen’s memoir Born to Run , Springsteen on Broadway , and the films Western Stars and Letter to You ." Not surprisingly, this new film - just like Springsteen on Broadway and Letter to You before it - is directed by Springsteen’s longtime film/video collaborator, Thom Zimny (who also co-directed Western Stars with Springsteen) and is produced by Zimny, Jon Landau, Bruce Springsteen, Adrienne Gerard and Sean Stuart. Also from today's announcement: "The film begins with a one-of-a-kind look at the band’s preparation process, following them from their earliest rehearsals in Red Bank, New Jersey, to performances for tens-of-thousands across continents. All the while, fans get the chance to experience professionally shot footage from the 2023-2024 tour for the first time ever — in addition to hearing firsthand from band members about performing on stage with Springsteen and how they keep the magic of The E Street Band as potent as ever." We at Letters To You look forward to sharing more news about Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band  as it becomes available. Stay tuned...

May 9, 2024 Fifty years ago tonight, Jon Landau saw his second Bruce Springsteen concert, just under a month after seeing his first (and first meeting Springsteen) at the long-gone Charlie’s Place in Cambridge, Massachusetts. On this second in-concert encounter, Landau watched Bruce and his band open for Bonnie Raitt at Cambridge's Harvard Square Theatre, also long gone. After that May 9, 1974 show, Landau went home and wrote “Growing Young With Rock and Roll,” his essay-as-concert-review for the long-defunct Boston-area alternative weekly newspaper The Real Paper that contained this now-famous (and, certainly 'round these parts, now-prophetic) sentence: “I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen.” Barry Schneier was the only professional photographer to have captured images from that historical evening. To celebrate the evening's fiftieth anniversary in high style, he's produced fifty "Gold Anniversary Edition" prints of "For You," one of his greatest images from May 9, 1974. It's a "very special limited edition," as Schneier's website notes, "to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the night Bruce Springsteen was hailed as 'Rock and Roll Future.' A 10” x 17” print in a custom 16” x 20” gallery matte. Each image is printed with real gold in the toning solution, giving it a higher than typical archival quality." Click here for details on how to purchase a "Gold Anniversary Edition" print of "For You." The "For You" image also serves as the cover-image of Bruce Springsteen: Rock and Roll Future, the beautiful 2019 photo-essays book that Barry Schneier produced in collaboration with Chris Phillips of Backstreets. If you don't own a copy of this book already, we strongly encourage you to click here to buy one (or more, for any loved ones who also would enjoy the book.) Finally, check out today's 50th-anniversary-video posted on Bruce Springsteen's official social-media sites, featuring many of Barry Schneier's photographs from May 9, 1974:

May 7, 2024 From our friend Bob Crane at Save Tillie: Since the demolition of Palace Amusements in Asbury Park twenty years ago, the one big lingering question has been this: Would we ever again see the surviving artifacts rescued from the walls of the historic amusements arcade – artifacts that include the backdrop for the famous early photo (above) of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band? As of last Saturday, there is a sliver of hope. On May 4, Preservation New Jersey, the state’s leading preservation organization, announced that it has added the Palace artifacts to its list of 10 Most Endangered Places for 2024. Endangered? Absolutely. Back in 2004, the State of New Jersey signed a deal that led to the demolition of "the Palace," a century-old arcade listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The deal was imperfect, but it contained an explicit promise. In exchange for lucrative waterfront development rights, developers pledged preservation and reuse of the artifacts. Twenty years on, the artifacts have never been brought back. Three large wall murals are in a wooden shed. Twenty-six decorative metal letters are said to be piled up in the notoriously neglected Convention Hall complex. A 75-year-old wooden door, drenched by Super Storm Sandy, is stashed in a beach front pavilion. Several artifacts have disappeared and have never been found. Three times over the years, the artifacts were inspected by a prominent conservationist, who most recently found evidence of serious deterioration. Why has this happened? Because the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection created a loophole in the deal, requiring preservation and reuse but leaving off a required end date. This has allowed developers to leave the artifacts in storage, facing demolition by neglect. In a May 4 statement, Save Tillie, the long-time Palace advocacy group, said that “when historically significant artifacts are destroyed through neglect or demolition, they are gone forever. Every loss chips away at the unique character of a community.” It is imperative, the group added, that “state officials undertake a long, hard, unbiased review of the deal, made in 2004, that has allowed the artifacts to be pushed to the brink of irretrievability.” The future of the artifacts remains uncertain, but with last Saturday’s announcement, a spotlight now shines on the endangered artifacts. Preservation New Jersey officials promised technical assistance and support for the fight to preserve the artifacts. Stay tuned... Letters To You continues our strong support of the longtime effort to preserve these important historical artifacts, and will continue informing our readers of what they, especially those who are citizens of New Jersey, can do to help. Again, as Bob wrote above, stay tuned...

May 2, 2024 EDITOR'S NOTE: We at Letters To You are very excited and honored to feature essays on some of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band's recent concerts by both co-authors of Mary Climbs In: The Journeys of Bruce Springsteen's Women Fans, an important book on which we've previously reported here. Last week, we featured an essay by Donna Luff, and this week Donna's Mary Climbs In collaborator Lorraine Mangione weighs in on her experience of seeing the recent shows in both Albany and Syracuse, NY. As was the case with Donna's essay, Lorraine's essay below is also accompanied by Dan Reiner's beautiful concert photography. Two Springsteen shows in a week... supersonic emotional expansion/transformation for Bruce, me, or both? Frozen, absolutely frozen with anxiety, fear, sense of danger, not knowing, for the first several songs in Albany. My friends and the crowd around me were all swaying, pumping, singing, rejoicing, yet I couldn’t move. "Candy’s Room," such an intense way to start, yet I barely heard it. Was he okay? "What is going on with Bruce? Will this really work out? Are we really here? Is he really there? How much of a bullet had he dodged this past year? Is he okay? Is he okay? Is he okay?" All of this streamed through my mind and body as I stood there, close enough so that he was a real person, glancing at the video screens when I needed more assurance and detail. “Letter To You” felt like he played it just for me, as it so resonated, every line. It was my life, particularly the last few years. And he eked out every possible thought, feeling, and connection as he delved deeply into all that song entails... the connection we all have, or feel we have, with him and his work. "The Promised Land..." yes, some hope, the theme that winds through all his concerts, yet seemingly more necessary, and so more recognized, now. Yet that doesn’t take away how hard life can be, whether in "Atlantic City" when you go ahead and make a deal that you might not really want to make, or when one is "Trapped," no hope, no exit ramp. My friend next to me had that as her signature song that she hoped for, and shrieked in utter joy, yet frozen, still frozen, I stood there while the audience screamed of being trapped. How can one reach the promised land when one is trapped? Bruce gets it - the coming together of impossibilities - and pushes on. Finally, finally, finally, "Spirit in the Night," the preacher exhorting us all to feel the spirit, call and response, and I could feel it. My shoulders stopped hunching. I could sway (or is it wave) a bit, unlock something, join in the great church of Springsteen, gather together with others, feel the grace, and then the tears came. Years ago my own Jackie and Marvin died unexpectedly, way too early, a few of them, especially Gene, Cathy, Lynn, and Lisa, all Springsteen fans, and "Nightshift," my favorite from Only the Strong Survive, again, felt like he was singing it just for me, although I am sure so many folks in that arena have unresolved and tragic losses, and we all lost Marvin and Jackie, way too early, and now a friend has just lost a little grandson. Tragedies abound. Thank you, Bruce, for honoring them and reminding us. Philosopher, minister, priest, spiritual guide, it was all there as he moved into "Racing in the Street" with the elongated ending, going up the scale slowly but surely, painstakingly, as we held together, holding out the hope for the woman to find new dreams, to get off her Daddy’s porch. Yes, we all need to keep living, even when one’s oldest friends are dying. “Grief is the price we pay for loving” wove together his tribute to his friend. Advice on how to live wove through all this, even given all the losses. So bring on the "Wrecking Ball" where, yes, all the dead are here, but so is the intensity of living and life, connections and dreams, honoring and surviving, feeling the anger. His move to what felt like romantic relationships with "Because the Night" and larger societal issues and commentary, with "Badlands" and "The Rising," could have offered a respite from the loss and hope interchange, but I couldn’t really take in some of the songs. I was on a different plane. "The Rising," though, feels both personal and societal to me, and, no longer frozen, still very much alive, I was back with my NYC friend with whom I went to one of The Rising Tour's concerts. Tears fell, and I loved that my husband was right there. The empowerment and hope seep in there too, but I wasn’t feeling them. I wasn’t in Mary’s garden. Clarence came to me, along with a few lost friends, with "Bobby Jean," and, of course, with loving Jake and what felt like a much bigger role in the band for him. Then I was a bit annoyed when Springsteen went into "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out," not understanding how he could even do that without Clarence, but, of course, he did not let me down. He did it with Clarence, with his noting that “this is the most important part” when the Big Man joined the band, with the absolutely gorgeous pictures, with running through the crowds, and with Jake right there with him. Thank you, again, Bruce, for showing us how to do this with our loved ones who are gone, for memorializing, for doing what was said years ago: “Italians tend to keep their dead with them,”* which also fits with Springsteen’s words in his eulogy for Clarence. *[Giordano, J., McGoldrick, M., & Klages, J. G. (2005). Italian families. In M. McGoldrick, J. Giordano, & N. Garcia-Preto (Eds.), Ethnicity and family therapy (3rd ed.). The Guilford Press.)] Now we all can think about this, at whatever age, given Bruce’s age and his wisdom to know how to live, and to know that it won’t last forever. Yes, we will see each other in our dreams. Thanks for coming back and sharing that with us in Albany, Bruce. An incredible night…. And then something happened, to me or to him or to both of us, in the couple of days between shows, such that Syracuse was a whole different experience, even with some overlap in the music. I was no longer frozen with fear and anxiety, although a bit crept back when he and the band were later in taking the stage than they were in Albany. Uh-oh, is something happening back there, in the bowels of this gigantic mega-stadium that can hold a football field indoors? But no, there they soon were, Bruce brimming with excitement and energy, even as he came out to greet us with - in comparison to "Candy's Room" - the somewhat less energetic opening song, "Lonesome Day." But "Lonesome Day," which still rocks, is also a song that so effectively sets the frame for the despair/hope juxtaposition that winds through so much of his work and his current presence. In cramped bleacher seats a straight shot all the way back from the stage and not conducive to standing or moving, "No Surrender" totally subsumed and screamed through my entire body, as I shouted and pumped out every word while it spoke to the decades-long fighting spirit. (I felt bad for the newly met fan on one side of me.) It was as if we were both back in school, busting out in our own ways, over fifty years ago, and somehow that had sustained us. Moving directly into "Two Hearts," with Little Steven right there as their hearts and voices embraced in a frenzy, set the stage for the night for me. Hope, empowerment, love, and relationships will get you through... the bursting camaraderie with everyone in the audience, and even with the women in our fans research who were there in spirit. I wasn't consumed by the loss and grief, as I felt in Albany, and it seemed that Bruce wasn't, either. Yes, the loss was still there in the setlist, the "Ghosts," the vows to remember, the honoring of his old and beloved friend, as the loss still was there for me. But Bruce was in a different mode around this set of life experiences. He was the teacher, mentor, and spiritual guide that the women in our research and book, Mary Climbs In: The Journeys of Bruce Springsteen’s Women Fans, described with such fervor and attachment. Maybe because he did not do “Letter To You,” the perspective shifted, perhaps less intimately personal? Maybe… Or, perhaps he danced into the other side of loss, what some grief researchers call “oscillating”, such that one does not always have to be consumed by the loss, and he was giving us the strength to be there, too. "The Promised Land" brought me to my feet, despite only one other person in my whole section standing, but she was right behind me, so that gave me "permission" to stand, too. He was moving into his preacher stance and having way too much fun with the audience up front for me to stay seated. The giant video images in Syracuse flooded the arena and it was impossible to not see them, something I had to get used to and accept, as part of me just wants to see the real Bruce, as tiny and far away as he might be, but the videos gave us a front seat view into some endearing and amazing interactions with fans of all ages lucky enough to be so close, and lucky enough to play harmonica with Bruce. "Atlantic City" was perhaps the best I have ever heard, the most intense and compelling, the seeing and feeling it in so much of life and death, in our world writ large and small, almost ubiquitous. Then he got to the emotional heart of the show… Which is when he really talked to us, straight from the heart, connecting with us, helping us, teaching us, knowing we all need each other to get to where we needed to go, to live with the losses, with our own mortality, with the friends and family who are leaving us. It was the conversation he has been quoted as saying he has with his fans. He walked us into "My City of Ruins," and the world shattered, as it did over twenty years ago, but he held it, and held us, as he did over twenty years ago. Part of how he did this was by really talking with us, by being there, directly, in what psychologists call “the here and now.” And the horns carried us through. "Nightshift," what a gift to bring that back to us, to bring Marvin and Jackie back to us or, with the younger fans - and there were many - to introduce them. The horns and chorus singers took center stage with those on the nightshift, deepening it. His friend George was there, with the 45’s and the guitar and the KofC halls, as Bruce spoke of being the "Last Man Standing." His invocation of the years 1965, 1966, and 1967 with that first band as such monumental years in the history of our country—yes, let’s not forget that. Honoring those who came before us. I also felt his mother there, although I don’t think he named her, but she was there, with the early guitar. And his words of wisdom, again, to be put up on a banner: "Grief is just the price for loving well." Then came the party, which brought us through, almost, until the very end, and my section, most of the arena, finally started standing up, moving, rocking, arms pumping. I was all in, totally overtaken, in a way I was unable to do in Albany, given the preoccupations. "Badlands..." I really felt it, shouted it, that it ain’t no sin. "Thunder Road," the all too famous line about which so many women in our fans research and book had so much to say, still singing it joyfully. "Wrecking Ball," feeling the anger that we need in our world these days to keep moving forward. How many times did he ask, “Are we having fun?” Somehow in there he included "The Rising," and, it got to me. My friend Lisa was there in New York City on that fateful day, and in Springsteen concerts with me so many times over the years. She's no longer with us physically, her birthday any day now, but as Bruce typically does, I came back... back to the hope, to the rising, to Mary in her garden. Hard to say what was an encore, as the band never ever seemed to want to leave, but the giant party continued unremittingly with, of course, "Born to Run," and "The Detroit Medley," something I hadn’t heard in years and loved every minute of it. He already had introduced the band earlier, so I was thrilled when he introduced them again, as he just seems to have so much love and gratitude for all of them. He brought Clarence back, as he had in Albany, but tonight this felt more joyful and less sad, more honoring and less mourning. The Big Man. And then, of course, the heartfelt ending. He will see us in his dreams, we will see him in our dreams, intimate and close. But it was the “Good golly, Miss Molly!” party that sustained us, that we walked out with, that accompanied us on our long drive home, and that kept us in the upswing of life. Ecstatic, my friends and I left the concert with comments like “Best ever!” “Unbelievable!” “Bruce was ecstatic!” “So much energy!” and "Played like it was his last”. So what brought us to such heights of ecstasy? I would say his presence, his reaching out and really talking to - and listening to - us in his role as an artist and performer and ours as his audience, his commitment to the music, the band, and the fans. And his wisdom, his ability to see so much and work through it. As one woman fan said in our research, “Springsteen needs an audience; the audience needs Springsteen.” We were such a part of it, for so many reasons. Yet for me, I keep wondering what happened between those first and second upstate-NY concerts that week, both amazing events but somehow different. Did I change, did he change, did the universe change, on the journey through life and through music, to frame each concert in its own unique individuality? What I do know, and "re-know"after having just seen both of these shows, is that women fans in our book have spoken of him as feeling like a friend, family member, teacher, mentor, guide, spiritual guide, and therapist. To me, he felt like all of those on each night.

May 4, 2024 Happy Birthday, and best wishes for many, many more happy birthdays ahead, to E Street Band member Soozie Tyrell. Beginning with Lucky Town in 1992, Soozie has contributed vocals and/or instrumentation to each of Bruce Springsteen's officially released studio recordings, from Lucky Town through his latest release, Only The Strong Survive. Her violin/fiddle-playing has been an essential part of much of Springsteen's music for more than two decades, both in the studio and on the stage, beginning with her special appearances on The Ghost of Tom Joad Tour and the Reunion Tour, and of course expanding greatly once she officially joined the E Street Band, beginning with The Rising Tour. Soozie's recorded and performed extensively over the years with not just Bruce Springsteen, but other major artists like David Johansen (aka "Buster Poindexter") and Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes. She hasn't been quite as productive, however, when it comes to solo recordings under her own name, with just one officially released full-length album, 2003's White Lines, under her belt. Nevertheless, while Soozie's solo work may be low in quantity, it more than makes up for it in quality. Case in point: her contribution a decade ago to the 2014 various-artists compilation Songs From A Stolen Spring. This was a unique project, pairing American and English musicians with Arab artists, in the wake of the 2011 uprisings known as "the Arab Spring." As producer Erik Hillestad wrote, "What in the West has been named the 'Arab Spring' brought so much hope when it started in Tunis in January 2011. But in all the countries involved, those revolutions have been stolen by forces of various kinds, from salafist militants to military coups. Still, people refuse to give up... Just as people at similar moments of struggle have done before them, Arab artists also created new songs, shared by the masses in the squares of Tunis, Cairo, Beirut, Damascus, Jerusalem and in many other cities. This album presents a few of their songs paired with some from the time of the American struggles." Soozie's contribution was a beautiful, moving version of Percy Mayfield's song "Danger Zone," which Ray Charles recorded as the B-side for his 1961 number-one hit single "Hit The Road Jack," also written by Mayfield. On the Songs From A Stolen Spring album, Soozie's "Danger Zone" segues directly into "Break Your Fears" by the late Palestinian singer-songwriter Rim Banna. YouTube links for each individual track are below, but it's best to hear them segued seamlessly, as they are on the album: Of course, great music like this remains all too essential and relevant to our current realities. If you're seeking some voices of reason and hope, when it often feels like you're searchin' for light in the darkness of insanity, you certainly couldn't find much better. Songs From A Stolen Spring remains available to purchase in both physical (CD) and digital form at the Valley Entertainment website, as does Soozie Tyrell's 2003 solo-album White Lines. Click here for purchasing options. Thank you, "Sister Soozie," for "Danger Zone" and all of your other beautiful musical gifts to us over the years. And here's to much more great music to come. Happy Birthday!

April 21, 2024 EDITOR'S NOTE: We are pleased and honored to feature this moving essay by Donna Luff on last week's Albany, NY show. Donna is the co-author of Mary Climbs In: The Journeys of Bruce Springsteen's Women Fans, an important book on which we've previously reported here. Her essay below is accompanied by Dan Reiner's beautiful concert photography. “We've known each other ever since we were sixteen.” In Albany, NY last Monday night, those words from “Bobby Jean” felt personal. It was "third time’s the charm" for the Albany show. The original date was scheduled for March 2023. Then the illness-related postponement came too late for me to change plans, so my oldest friend - who had driven down from her home in Toronto - and I spent two days in a snowy and mostly closed Albany, making the best of it. The rescheduled September 2023 show also ended up getting postponed due to Bruce's peptic ulcer disease, so our nerves ran high as we made our trek back to Albany on April 15th. We walked into the MVP Arena elated, only to discover that our Ticketmaster codes wouldn’t scan. After long, nerve-racking minutes in the box-office, we emerged with old-fashioned paper tickets and slowly reducing heartbeats. (PSA: We were not alone in the box-office; anyone attending other rescheduled shows should check your tickets early!) The high emotions presaged the show that followed. Bruce looked visibly better than when I saw him last at Gillette Stadium in August 2023, just before his peptic ulcer disease was revealed, and the crowd was overjoyed to finally see him and the E Street Band. As Bruce put it in his parting words, we were “fucking fantastic.” The setlist was looser than the 2023 shows. The opening double-header of “Candy’s Room” into “Adam Raised a Cain,” both tour debuts, suggested a treat was on the way. Though there were no rarities, and only one further debut (“Downbound Train,”) the set drew from many of his major albums across the decades, while remaining centered in Letter to You and the thematic, emotional anchor of “Last Man Standing.” Highlights for me included a haunting “Racing in the Street” and joyous, soulful “Spirit In The Night.” And any show that features “Atlantic City,” here a blistering, rocking rendition, is alright with me. Clearly feeding off the energy in the arena, Bruce laughed a lot, both with his bandmates and the crowd, pointing, waving, and mouthing messages to familiar faces (I’m sure I saw him say “text me, text me” to someone he recognized.) Gone was the stylized chest-baring of prior shows on this tour, which I was glad about; back was Bruce roaming the pit perimeter, shaking outstretched hands, and singing “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” from the floor riser, which delighted me even more. The show felt like a reflective and life-affirming reunion among friends. At least that’s how it was for me. Before the show, my friend and I had reminisced about our first show together - almost 43 years ago, in June 1981, in Birmingham UK - marveling at the length of our fandom. She asked me again about that first time I heard “Hungry Heart” on the radio, in the backseat of my father’s car when I was sixteen, a story she knows well. But she wanted details we haven’t talked about for a long time, which led to more reminiscing about our childhood on another continent. In Albany, as Bruce launched into “Hungry Heart,” I teared up. This does not usually happen. It is not that kind of song, and I have seen him perform it countless times since 1981. That night, however, I was awestruck anew about the impact that song had on me, how it had changed my life. I thought of all the roads that followed from my first hearing that three-minute record, the latest of which was writing a book about the journeys of women fans to understand how, why, and how far we have traveled with Springsteen’s music as our companion. As I joined the rest of the audience in singing the opening verse of “Hungry Heart” to Bruce, I was touched by the profound mysteries of life: that, decades from our first show when we were sixteen, my childhood best friend and I were standing together in Albany, both of us now living in the Americas, thousands of miles from where we grew up. She and I were still there with our “friend” Bruce. The moment felt spiritual. Or like magic in the night. And coming soon... an essay from Donna's Mary Climbs In... co-author Lorraine Mangione, who also attended last week's Albany and Syracuse, NY shows, accompanied by more of Dan Reiner's photography. UPDATE (May 2, 2024:) Click here to read Lorraine's essay.

April 28, 2024 This report is posting slightly later than expected, mainly because the day after the event in question, I learned that what I thought was just a persistently clogged left ear was actually a "perforated tympanic membrane" (eardrum.) Nowhere near as serious as it sounds, and no, last Wednesday night's American Music Honors 2024 event wasn't what ruptured my eardrum. (It more than likely was caused by cabin-pressure during one of my flights to or from the first Bruce Springsteen/E Street Band 2024 Tour show in Phoenix last month.) Nevertheless, the diagnosis/treatment has slightly hampered my writing mojo in recent days. In a way, however, this unforeseen delay also helped to crystallize some of my thoughts on this year's event a bit more. So here - for whatever they're still worth - are those thoughts now, and here's hoping that I have at least a few things to offer beyond what's been shared and re-shared on the 'net ad infinitum already. First and foremost, I'm so glad that in this second year of what Bruce Springsteen referred to onstage last Wednesday as "our project," he was able to attend in person. At last year's inaugural event, a last-minute case of COVID-19 prevented him from doing anything more than paying tribute to two of the honorees via hastily-shot videos. Those video tributes were articulate, funny, and insightful, not surprisingly. Seeing Bruce look so strong and healthy onscreen, despite testing positive for COVID-19, also was very reassuring to all of us fans in attendance, of course. But his absence meant that not only was he unable to participate in any of the musical performances that evening; there also had to be last-minute changes in who sang what to cover Bruce's absence. In some cases, this was fortuitous; getting to witness Darlene Love sing "Soul Man" with Sam Moore was a "You-probably-will-never-get-to-see-THIS-again" treat. In other cases, such as watching poor Steve Earle gamely try his best to cover Bruce's parts during the show-closing set... not so much. This year, however... As the immortal Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell sang, "Ain't nothin' like the real thing, baby!" Springsteen being fully present at the American Music Honors for the first time helped greatly to drive home exactly what "our project" is all about. As its Executive Director Bob Santelli reminded us yet again in one of his two relatively brief moments onstage, The Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music was named as such very purposefully. Bruce sees himself as part of a community and tradition much larger than himself and his own artistry. Therefore, having him there in person last Wednesday to sing, play, and interact with this year's honorees made it clearer than ever that "our project" isn't just about celebrating and exploring Springsteen's music. It's just as much about understanding the musical legacy that has inspired it and - we hope - will continue to inspire generations of artists to come. What a superb idea to have an annual event where some of the greatest living figures in that musical legacy get honored while they're still with us, in which Springsteen gets a chance to perform with them. (And as writer Donna Luff, who also was in attendance on Wednesday, later commented to me, "an unexpected and deep joy for me was seeing him as a member of an audience. Watching him clap, dance, and cheer others on stage touched me.") Not only does it make for a "hot-ticket" type of evening that can generate substantial revenue for the Archives/Center, but the potential television/video revenue for the Archives/Center is there, as well, especially with Springsteen present. With that in mind, and despite what obviously many others already have decided to do, no extensive details and certainly no cellphone-video-links are included with this report. Although unfortunately there already is an absolute plethora of such things made easily available online, in some cases by folks from whom you wouldn't normally expect that kind of thing, here's hoping that eventually all interested fans still will want to see a professionally filmed and edited version of this year's American Music Honors, in a way that helps the Archives/Center to grow in its mission and purpose. Okay, with that noted, what I will share in a "non-spoiler" spirit is the following: In just two years' time, Little Steven's Disciples of Soul have established themselves as one of the greatest "house bands" you could have for an event like this. They perform extremely diverse styles of American music with aplomb, and everybody sounds at least a bit greater when they're backed by the Disciples. It's no wonder that Bruce has "borrowed" some of their members for his current tour. Long may the Disciples reign at the American Music Honors! The night was not flawless by any means. There were a few flubs - in both the musical performances and the testimonials - but probably nothing that can't be fixed with some skillful post-production/editing. There's also a not-so-fine-line between totally justified local pride and downright chauvinism, with a "facts be damned" attitude. For example, having the evening's emcee purposefully claim onstage that New Jersey was at some point "the center of American music" crossed that line that just shouldn't be crossed, at least not in a nation containing New Orleans, Memphis, Nashville, New York, Los Angeles, etc. It's unbecoming, unnecessary, and (I hope) unwanted in terms of the Archives/Center's desired public image. Be gracious, Garden State-based folks; you have so many actual accomplishments and attributes to be proud of indeed, so there's no need to have anyone making any further claims that simply aren't true. The spoken tributes to the honorees, on the other hand, were outstanding. I was impressed especially by Jon Landau's speech about Jackson Browne. I've never previously read or heard anything by Landau that went into such detail about how purposefully and aggressively he pursued transitioning from music criticism to record production. And both his and Browne's accounts of The Pretender's recording sessions were riveting. Bruce's speech about John Mellencamp was equally revelatory. Again, as with Landau, I heard from Springsteen insights I'd never heard or read before, in this case openly comparing his own songwriting style to Mellencamp's. As so often happens with such speeches by Springsteen, one gets the gift of new insights into another artist's greatness and influence. That recognition and articulation of another artist's greatness occurred between and among the honorees themselves, as well. For example Dion's comments on Mavis Staples' enduring greatness - made via a funny joke involving himself, the other 2024 honorees, Springsteen, and Stevie Van Zandt - also articulated what surely everyone in the audience felt about Staples after we all were lucky enough to hear her sing live. For many of us Springsteen fans, we've benefited not just from his own music, but from getting to hear him share so much about the many other great artists who've inspired and influenced his work, and in turn becoming fans of those artists' music, too. Through the years, he's done this through various interviews, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction speeches, onstage raps, his 2012 SXSW keynote speech, and the like. In many ways, it's a continuation and expansion of how bands like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones helped to turn on generations of listeners to artists like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, The Marvelettes, Irma Thomas, and Muddy Waters. And now, if all goes well, Bruce will continue doing this each April somewhere in the swamps of West Long Branch, New Jersey for many more years to come. I'm looking forward to such a development, and I also hope that eventually everyone who can benefit from seeing each of these special nights of American music in their entirety will be able to do so, in person and/or via professional video/audio.