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August 9, 2023 "'Backstreets'... owes more to the stately, fuguelike music of the electric Dylan. It is led along by organ and piano interplay, the guitar understated and used to punctuate the phrases mathematically (as Dylan described Robbie Robertson's playing.)" - Dave Marsh's review of Born To Run in his biography Born To Run: The Bruce Springsteen Story

August 9, 2023 Since 2015, as the creator and host of Set Lusting Bruce: A Bruce Springsteen Podcast, Jesse W. Jackson has talked with a LOT of Springsteen fans - both famous and not-so-famous. Now he's talked with us... and not for the last time, if he and we have anything to do it. The latest guest on Set Lusting Bruce... yours truly, Letters To You editor/publisher Shawn Poole. Thanks, Jesse, for being such a great host and conversationalist, as expected. So glad we finally got to do this, and already I'm looking forward to doing it again as soon as possible. Be sure to check out all of Jesse's other archived conversations, as well. He literally has thousands of hours of interesting and insightful conversations with fellow fans. And if you really dig what you hear, consider becoming one of Jesse's Patreon supporters.

August 8, 2023 EDITOR'S NOTE: The recent publication of Warren Zanes' Deliver Me From Nowhere: The Making Of Bruce Springsteen's NEBRASKA has spurred renewed interest in and discussion of one of Springsteen's greatest albums. This is, of course, a good thing. But it seems that no major reviews of Zanes' book have challenged even some of his more questionable and central claims about the album. To wit... No, it's not true that, as Zanes writes, "Nebraska is the recording that matters the most in Bruce Springsteen's career..." That's still not true if Warren Zanes or even Bruce Springsteen himself believes it. (What's that old saying about artists not being the best judges of their work?) Part of what makes Springsteen such a great artist is that he has made many equally important and great albums in his career, not just one or even just a handful. In fact, some songs as dark and existentially foreboding as most of the material on Nebraska can be found on some of the great Springsteen albums that preceded it. "Meeting Across The River," "Adam Raised A Cain," "Factory," "Racing in the Street," "The River," "Point Blank," "Stolen Car" (especially the originally released version over the outtake version,) or, say, "Wreck On The Highway" for starters, anyone? Furthermore, while Zanes included in his book the part of his Springsteen interview where he said, "I don't know if there would have been a Born In The U.S.A. in the form it was in without Nebraska being released in front of it," he left out of his book the equally important part of that same interview where Bruce implicitly noted the importance of the popular Springsteen albums and songs preceding Nebraska in making the large-scale release and reception of such an offbeat, unique, and personal album even possible: "[W]e were popular at that time, so there were Bruce Springsteen fans who were going to go out and see what it was about. I guess I had some confidence in that fact that, yeah, people were going to be interested in my obsessions. As fucked up and crazy, as far out as they might be. I've got an audience for this stuff, I felt I did." (This portion of Zanes' interview with Springsteen was published only in a recent issue of MOJO Magazine.) And as great as Nebraska remains, it's never lived up to the claim that Zanes makes (twice) in his book about it serving "in its own way... a little like the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, a message saying, 'You can do this.'" Seriously? Can anybody, let alone Warren Zanes, cite a truly significant and historical flood or even trickle of "post-Nebraska" artists and recordings with signature sounds mimicking those found on Nebraska? The mere act of anyone ever setting out to "make" a record the way that Nebraska was created is a contradictory and futile task anyway, since not even Springsteen consciously "made" such a record. Every single track on Nebraska was recorded with absolutely no intention of what was considered at first to be just a demo track ever getting released to the public, so it's impossible for anyone to consciously re-create such a complete "happy-accident" kind of recording process. Okay, that's enough about those parts of Zanes' book. (... but hey, somebody finally had to write it!) Now, however, it's time to grab our popcorn and head straight to the movies... Overall Zanes' book certainly did a pretty good job of at least touching upon some of the films that greatly influenced Nebraska, but it still missed some important flicks along the way. Therefore, we are honored to have film-scholar, writer, and noted Springsteen fan Caroline Madden, author of Springsteen as Soundtrack: The Sound of the Boss in Film and Television, take a much deeper dive and help fill in the gaps for all of us Nebraska fans, present company included. And...ACTION! It’s been over forty years since its release, but Nebraska remains one of Bruce Springsteen’s most haunting albums. He strips his sound to the bone, recording entirely on a four-track cassette with the backing of a soft guitar. The whining harmonica mourns for the individuals in his stories grappling with economic hardships, social dislocation, and personal despair. These melancholy songs paint a very specific picture of the American Dream, one that is often dark and unforgiving, giving little reason to believe besides small glimmers of hope. They rattle with a vicious unease unlike most of Springsteen’s work. The album was written during Springsteen’s burgeoning relationship with his friend and manager Jon Landau. Landau helped to expose Springsteen to more thought-provoking books and movies than he had ever experienced before. “I mean, I hadn't read. I hadn't watched anything. It was all top 40 records, it was all—we were all creatures of the radio, and blues and soul,” Springsteen told NPR. Springsteen’s new appreciation of films opened him up to an artistic world beyond the Jersey Shore. Films from the New Hollywood era, what he describes as “dark, bloody pictures that dealt with the inner, with the flip side of the American experience,” inspired his construction of Nebraska. Badlands (1973) directed by Terrence Malick The film most widely associated with Nebraska is Terrence Malick’s Badlands, a poetic reinterpretation of 19-year-old Charles Starkweather and 14-year-old Caril Ann Fugate’s killing spree across the Midwest during the 1950s. Springsteen was fascinated by these real-life criminals and used them to write the chilling “Nebraska.” Springsteen’s flat vocals and sparse instrumentation evoke Malick’s detached filming style, the distant shots that linger on the vast prairie—the dull backdrop of the teenagers’ savage crimes. These types of monotonous landscapes—from the fields of Nebraska to the badlands of Wyoming—are where Springsteen sets the stage for his somber album. Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek’s aloof performances combined with Malick’s steady camera not only capture the couples’ sadistic misanthropy but also influence Springsteen's characters. They have the same icy indifference, unbothered by the inexorable meanness in this world that drives them to commit violence or embrace the inevitability of death. Deliver Me From Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska states that a late night viewing of Badlands empowered Springsteen to change his storytelling technique. He would build and expand upon his ability to use lyrics to create movie-like images in listeners’ minds. In an interview with Chet Flippo, Springsteen talked about wanting the songs he wrote for what would become Nebraska to “kind of just pan out and be very cinematic... where you get in there and you get the feel of life. Just some of the grit and some of the beauty.” His songwriting combined his precise musicality with visual expression to evoke visceral feelings in his listeners. We experience this countless times in the little details of Nebraska, the way Wanda thumbs a Texaco roadmap while eating fried chicken on the singer’s lap in “Open All Night,” Franky and Joe taking turns dancing with Maria in “Highway Patrolman,” and driving down the Jersey turnpike with only the glow of the refinery lights in “State Trooper.” In the plainly-sung “Nebraska,” Springsteen’s initial description of the innocent Caril twirling her baton on the front lawn is taken directly from Malick’s dreamy slow-motion opening. The last lines illustrate Starkweather’s macabre fate when he asks with a quiet, expressionless voice to let his baby sit on his lap “when the man pulls that switch, sir, and snaps my poor head back.” (In a footnote to the late, great critic Paul Nelson's review of Nebraska re-published in Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson, writer/editor Kevin Avery pointed out that in Fritz Lang's 1937 film You Only Live Once, Henry Fonda's convicted-criminal character is about to face electric-chair execution and tells a prison guard, "You can sit on my lap when they throw the switch." Springsteen, however, has never confirmed publicly whether You Only Live Once influenced his writing of "Nebraska.") Wise Blood (1979) directed by John Huston John Huston’s 1979 adaptation of Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood has a similar nihilism as Badlands and was another strong influence on Nebraska. Another recommendation from Jon Landau, it’s a strange, dark film that depicts the hypocrisy of religious organizations. Springsteen references the film in a 1981 interview with Rolling Stone: “One of my favorite parts was the end, where he’s doin’ all these terrible things to himself, and the woman comes in and says, ‘There’s no reason for it. People have quit doing it.’ And he says, ‘They ain’t quit doing it as long as I’m doing it.’” Springsteen relates this quote to his vow to provide his audiences with a life-affirming rock show each night. The main character of Wise Blood, Hazel Motes—a cynical World War II veteran turned faux preacher—takes the idea of dedication to a disturbing level, attempting to purge his sins and find redemption by strapping barbed wire around his chest, walking on rocks, and blinding himself. Springsteen can relate to Motes’ religious trauma, especially the disorienting flashbacks of authoritarian church leaders who use physical punishment, shame, and fear in order to affirm Motes’ beliefs. The unsettling sequences bring to mind the nun who stuffed Springsteen into a garbage can and said that’s where he belonged or the priest who dragged him face down on the altar. For his melancholic song “Reason to Believe.” Springsteen draws from Motes’ desperate desire to find meaning and purpose in a world he perceives as devoid of authentic spirituality. In Wise Blood, Motes establishes his own religion, the Church Without Christ, in an attempt to form a genuine dogma that does not attract greedy, cruel liars—the type of exploitative people that are often leaders of religious institutions. Throughout the film, Motes questions some of the cruel, hypocritical tenets of Christianity. Why does God condemn out-of-wedlock children as wicked if they can’t control how they were born? If Jesus once healed the blind, why do people still have disabilities? Would a true, just God allow pain and suffering to happen? Similarly, Springsteen’s Nebraska characters find little reason to believe when life continually beats them down. Against light guitar strumming, the “Reason to Believe'' lyrics touch on the same existential themes of faith, doubt, and search for meaning that Wise Blood explores. When facing the death of loved ones or the end of a relationship, Springsteen’s characters attempt to find hope in the same way that Motes searches for honesty in a corrupt world. Both Wise Blood and Nebraska also challenge the traditional notions of good and evil. They acknowledge the inherent complexity of human nature that religious societies often ignore. There are contradictions within us all—even the worst of wrongdoers. The Night of the Hunter (1955) directed by Charles Laughton There are several songs on Nebraska that allude to Springsteen’s formative years and draw inspiration from two distinct films with a child’s-eye view. The first of these films is The Night of the Hunter, an eerie tale about a sinister preacher who marries a widow with the intention of killing her family and stealing her money. Robert Mitchum’s villainous character, whom Springsteen also references in “Cautious Man” from Tunnel of Love, has the words love and hate tattooed on his knuckles. Much like Springsteen’s Nebraska album, Reverend Harry Powell exposes the dark underbelly of small-town America, particularly those who use religion to disguise their depravity. The film looks like how Nebraska sounds—especially the songs “Mansion on the Hill'' or “Used Cars.” We can imagine them brought to life with the same atmospheric black-and-white cinematography, exaggerated shadows, and skewed angles from a child’s vantage point. These Gothic formal qualities match the wistful sounds of Springsteen’s youthful memories. He specifically took from the expressionistic scene of the children escaping through the woods, fleeing Powell’s wrath after he brutally kills their mother. Laughton frames the sequence with an artificial countryside background—a stark, spooky painting that seems lifted out of a Grimm fairy tale. It recalls the “My Father’s House” lyrics where the young boy runs through the fields with the devil snapping at his heels and surrounded by ghostly voices, as well as the children racing through the tall cornfields and gazing at the mammoth steel gates that surround the titular “Mansion on the Hill.” As in The Night of the Hunter, these young characters are surrounded by a hyperrealized environment that overwhelms and overpowers them. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) directed by Robert Mulligan The 1984 interview with Chet Flippo also confirmed that Springsteen was influenced strongly by Robert Mulligan’s 1962 classic To Kill a Mockingbird while writing the songs that became Nebraska, especially its childhood perspective and Southern Gothic writing style. "The Nebraska record had that cinematic quality," said Springsteen. "I was thinking in a way of To Kill A Mockingbird, because in that movie there was a child's-eye view." The Southern Gothic genre explores the violent secrets that lie beneath peaceful American communities and characters who confront their dark past. Southern Gothic is frequently attributed to another Nebraska influence, author Flannery O’Connor. However, while To Kill a Mockingbird explores the harsh truths of racial inequality, there’s a warmth in the characters’ genuine desire to enact social change. Springsteen emulates Scout’s loss of innocence in his songs “Mansion on the Hill” and “Used Cars.” Just as Scout becomes aware of Maycomb’s cruel racial prejudice, the children in his songs begin to feel the weight of economic disparity, yearning for the unattainable comfort of the mansion on the hill or flinching with humiliation as their father rattles their used car down the street. Springsteen tells Warren Zanes that he experienced these same uncomfortable feelings about his own upbringing: “I know the house was very dilapidated. That was something that embarrassed me as a child. It was visibly ramshackle, my grandparents’ house. On the street you could see that it was deteriorating . . . That would have been my only sense that something wasn’t right with who we were and what we were doing. I can’t quite describe it. It was intense.” If these songs were projected on screen, they would have the same hazy, black-and-white cinematography that imitates the fading aura of memories, just as Scout narrates To Kill a Mockingbird as a nostalgic recollection. To Kill a Mockingbird also relates to Nebraska as a work with unflinching empathy for those on the fringes of society. Through his gritty acoustic melodies, Springsteen gives death row inmates, desperate small-time criminals, and blue-collar workers facing financial constraints a voice in the same way that To Kill a Mockingbird has compassion for the outcast Boo Radley and falsely accused Tom Robinson. Through Nebraska, Springsteen carries out Atticus Finch’s legendary maxim: “You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.” Springsteen uses similar language when discussing how the goal of his music is to illuminate other perspectives, writing in his memoir Born to Run, “I imagine a life, I try it on, then see how it fits. I walk in someone else’s shoes, down the sunny and dark roads I’m compelled to follow but may not want to end up living on.” Watching these films expanded Springsteen’s songwriting style and vision to create a raw, introspective musical journey that invites listeners to reflect on the tribulations of American life.

August 5, 2023 EDITOR'S NOTE: Our friend Donna Gray at Bruce Funds has launched several campaigns for upcoming U.S. shows, with more to come, as always. The most imminent campaign, of course, is next week's two-night Chicago run, which is officially and unsurprisingly sold out. Donna has been working with Andrew Harris and Brian Reed, who manage two Chicago YMCA Housing sites for low-income residents. Andrew and Brian reached out to Bruce Funds to try to get Springsteen@Wrigley tickets for as many of their interested residents as possible. (And as you'll read below, there are MANY interested residents.) We asked Andrew, who's also a Springsteen fan himself, to share his story personally with our readers. Please read it, and if you or anyone you know happens to have any Springsteen@Wrigley tickets you can spare to donate (for ANY location inside the ballpark,) please click here to donate your ticket(s) to Bruce Funds ASAP. Hi everyone. I am Andrew Harris, the housing manager at the Irving Park YMCA here in Chicago. We are a men’s-only residency, as we rent only individual furnished rooms to our tenants. We rent to men of all ages. Our youngest resident is 21 and our oldest is 92. We are one of the last affordable single-room occupancy centers left in Chicago. Our tenants work at jobs you will see at a typical Bruce Springsteen concert, from operating the concession stands to serving as one of the Uber drivers who drop you off at the venue. It'd be safe to say that all of us have come in contact with one of these typical low-wage workers every day that our tenants fulfill. Each of the Y housing centers in Chicago has a case manager like myself on staff who can help these men try to move upward on the social ladder, but as we all know, this is a very long and difficult process. Recently one of our residents was playing Bruce's album Nebraska (great album) a bit too loudly, and I went up to speak with him about the noise level. We got to talking about "The Boss" and how much of a fan he was. The resident mentioned that Springsteen was coming to Chicago and how he never has seen Bruce in concert, and how much of a dream come true it would be to see him play at Wrigley. That is when I started my search to see if I could find anyone who would donate tickets to our low-income adult residents. I was lucky enough to find Bruce Funds, and I reached out to Donna to see if she could help us secure some tickets to the show. She was immediately on board and was able to secure us a pair of tickets from an amazing fan (Field seats, no less!) We then held a tickets raffle for all interested tenants in both our location and the Lakeview Y (managed by my colleague Brian Reed.) Participation in this raffle was astronomical! I was surprised to learn that most of the residents have never been to Wrigley Field, let alone seen a concert there. Springsteen songs take a rough and unflattering look at America. It makes perfect sense that Bruce’s songs would strike a chord with our residents, as they can relate more than most about how rough times can get. The resident who won the tickets has been walking around with the biggest smile on his face and is PUMPED for the show. Hopefully, as more tickets come in, we can hold more raffles for the interested tenants and send many more of our interested residents to see Bruce at Wrigley Field, as his fans graciously donate. All of our residents would either have a very hard time affording or would never be able to afford typical housing in Chicago. These donated tickets go a long way to help give our guys a sense of normalcy. The lucky residents who attend the show will get to "escape" for a bit into the songs of the Boss, performed in person. Thanks again to Donna and Bruce Funds, without which none of this would be possible. Again, dear readers, if you have any Chicago tix to spare for this campaign, please click here to donate your ticket(s) to Bruce Funds ASAP. Thanks!

August 4, 2023 This summer marks three decades since Bruce Springsteen first supported the Kristen Ann Carr Fund with a sold-out benefit concert in New York City's Madison Square Garden arena. The fund was organized in memory of the older daughter of former longtime Springsteen co-manager Barbara Carr and music-writer/Springsteen-biographer Dave Marsh. In early January of 1993, Kristen Ann Carr died at 21 of sarcoma. Recalling that June 1993 concert just a few years after it took place, Marsh wrote, "With a beautiful vase of Kristen's beloved pink roses placed downstage left, as if she herself were present, Bruce opened with a spectral version of Woody Guthrie's 'Lonesome Valley'... Four hours later, the show ended with Bruce singing 'Follow That Dream.' I sat in the loge, the kind of seat where I first saw Bruce with Chicago in 1973, and sobbed. Mainly, I cried for my kid, but partly I cried for the kind of friendship and love that had been poured over us. The concert raised more than $1.5 million, more than twice what was needed to hire our sarcoma researcher. Today, in addition to the fellowship, the Kristen Ann Carr Fund sponsors support services for teenagers, young adults, and sarcoma patients. Each year, our friends at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York work with the Fund to sponsor a Christmas party for all the pediatric patients at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. None of that would be possible without Bruce." This year, Bruce Springsteen and Jon Landau Management continue to lend their support to the Kristen Ann Carr Fund with a series of ticket-auctions benefiting the Fund. Each winning bidder will receive a pair of premium tickets to an upcoming concert by Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band. If you win the auction, you'll get your choice of GA pit (if available at the venue) or management-designated seats. (Exact seat location will not be known until a week prior to the concert.) In addition to winning the tickets, if there is an E Street Lounge at your venue, you will receive a pair of passes for that experience, as well. Shows for which tickets currently are being auctioned include the upcoming dates in Philly, New Jersey, Boston, and Syracuse. Click here to see a complete list of concert-ticket packages currently being sold at auction for the Kristen Ann Carr Fund. Next month the Kristen Ann Carr Fund will celebrate its thirtieth anniversary in New York City with its annual A Night to Remember gala fundraising event. This year's honoree will be Karen Rosenberg, President of Empire Events Group, Inc., a longtime supporter of the Fund. The event will be held at Tribeca Grill on September 23 and will feature a special musical guest performance by Jackson Browne. Individual tickets to attend, group-table/ad-packages, and raffle tickets all remain available for purchase. Click here for more information.

August 2, 2023 Enjoy! UPDATE/NOTE - This promotional 2023-European-Tour-highlights video has since been removed from Bruce Springsteen's official YouTube channel, but apparently still can be viewed at this link with a Tidal account: https://tidal.com/browse/video/309024335

August 2, 2023 Not surprisingly, fans and friends of the great, beloved musician-songwriter-producer-entrepreneur-philanthropist Jesse Malin - who has been unable to stand or walk since suffering a rare type of stroke last May - have been stepping up to support his ongoing recovery effort. It's only fitting that so many want to help the "Mayor of the East Village," given all he's done over the years to support so many fellow musicians, his hometown music scene, and organizations like the Light of Day Foundation. Clearly Jesse's full, Bad-Brains-inspired embrace of "P.M.A. (Positive Mental Attitude)" is inspiring many others to do the same. Among them is photographer Danny Clinch, whose Asbury-Park-based Transparent Gallery has launched a special Jesse Malin Fundraiser. Clinch is selling archival pigment prints of three of his photos, with all proceeds going to help cover Malin's medical bills. Two of the photos were taken in 2007, when Clinch directed the music-video for Malin's "Broken Radio," featuring Bruce Springsteen. (Click here to watch the 2022-remaster version of the music-video.) The third photo is a beautiful image of Bruce Springsteen in concert at Madison Square Garden on April 1, 2023. Click here for all of the details on the Jesse Malin Fundraiser by Danny Clinch's Transparent Gallery. Sweet Relief Musicians Fund's Jesse Malin Fund is where fans and supporters can contribute directly to assist in Malin's recovery. The Jesse Malin Fund also has a collection of shirts that can be purchased, with proceeds directed to the Fund. Click here to purchase a shirt. Our friends at Virgil Films also are planning something special to help Jesse Malin. More details will be announced soon and shared here at Letters To You; stay tuned.

Observing Patti Scialfa's and The Rising's birthday weekend July 30, 2023 This weekend Patti Scialfa (born on July 29, 1953) turned 70 and The Rising (officially released on July 30, 2002) turned 21. There's no better way to mark both occasions than by experiencing or re-experiencing Patti's beautifully moving, powerful, and wordless solo-vocal introduction to the Live In Barcelona performance of "Into The Fire:" Special thanks to Bev Stevenson for the inspiration.

Courtesy of concert-photographer extraordinaire René van Diemen: the final shot he took at last Tuesday night's show in Monza, Italy, a beautiful image of Bruce Springsteen leaving the stage after performing his solo-acoustic version of "I'll See You In My Dreams." Before Springsteen began singing the moving show-closer, he said to his audience, "This is our last night in Europe. I want to thank all of our European fans who came out to see us, all of our Italian fans. Had an incredible time; we'll be back!" July 30, 2023 From this weekend's official press-release: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THE E STREET BAND’S EUROPEAN STADIUM TOUR CALLED "THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH" (BILLBOARD) WITH MORE THAN 1.6 MILLION TICKETS SOLD CAREER HIGHS CONTINUE WITH SPRINGSTEEN'S RETURN TO NORTH AMERICA FOR 31 TOUR DATES KICKING OFF AUGUST 9 Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band’s triumphant return to Europe was met with over a million and a half tickets sold, and widespread praise as the best shows of the band’s career. With a finale to over 70,000 in Monza, Italy; the fourteen-country tour included multi-night stands in each of Barcelona, Dublin, Paris, Amsterdam, Gothenburg, Oslo, London and Copenhagen. In London’s Hyde Park, Springsteen and The E Street Band performed to over 130,000 across two nights - backed by The E Street Horns and The E Street Choir - with The Telegraph declaring “Springsteen is at the peak of his powers” in a five-star review, and USA Today urging audiences to “run, don’t walk, to see Springsteen” when he returns to North America next month. That momentum will continue with 31 more tour dates before the end of the year, beginning with two nights at Chicago’s Wrigley Field on August 9 and 11 and wrapping at San Francisco’s Chase Center on December 10 and 12. Multiple-night runs are also scheduled for Philadelphia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pittsburgh, Toronto and Los Angeles. The release listed all of the upcoming U.S. dates, which of course remain listed at Springsteen's official website, as well, with the official links for purchasing whatever tickets still remain for each upcoming concert. And finally, the release included these four stunning photos from the 2023 European tour, taken by Springsteen's official concert photographer, Rob DeMartin:

July 26, 2023 While Bruce Springsteen's next full-length studio recording of his own has yet to be announced officially, let alone released any time soon, fans currently have a chance to hear Bruce singing on several new tracks by other artists. There's even a new recording of a Bruce Springsteen composition that has never been released previously by anyone else, not even Springsteen himself. Just last month John Mellencamp released Orpheus Descending, featuring Mellencamp's version of a Springsteen-penned song entitled "Perfect World." This is the first officially released recording of this moving ballad, and despite having contributed vocals and guitar to several tracks on Mellencamp's 2022 album Strictly A One-Eyed Jack, Bruce did not sing or play at all on Mellencamp's version of "Perfect World." A few weeks after Mellencamp released his latest effort, Lucinda Williams dropped Stories From A Rock N Roll Heart, featuring both Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa backing Williams on "New York Comeback" and "Rock N Roll Heart." (Click here to read Letters To You contributing writer Lisa Iannucci's deep dive into both Williams' career and her latest work.) And just last week The Gaslight Album released the title track from their forthcoming and long-awaited album History Books, due in its entirety on October 27, almost ten years after the band released its last album. Bruce Springsteen duets with The Gaslight Anthem's Brian Fallon on "History Books" after Springsteen suggested that Fallon write a song for them to sing together. “When Bruce Springsteen said I should write a duet for us," says Fallon in a media statement, "I think my head exploded. It will never get old to me that one of the greatest songwriters in the world, and one of my hero’s voices, will forever be captured in a song I wrote at a small wooden desk, in October, in New Jersey.” Below you can hear "History Books" and watch its official music-video:

July 26, 2023 EDITOR'S NOTE: As recently reported on BruceSpringsteen.net, Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa contribute backing vocals to the latest album by Lucinda Williams, Rock N Roll Heart. Williams also just announced a special series of October shows in support of Rock N Roll Heart, combining her songs with storytelling. It's been dubbed "The Don't Tell Anybody The Secrets" Tour, a name derived from the title of her recently published memoir. "With the extraordinary year I’ve had," says Williams, "including the release of my memoir and latest album, I figured we needed to have a special tour to commemorate it. This will be an evening with me unlike you’ve ever had, no matter how many shows you’ve been to over the years. Im so excited to put this together and hope you are just as excited to experience it." The October tour's finale is slated for October 29 in the heart of "Bruce country" at The Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, NJ. Click here to purchase available tickets for all of Williams' upcoming concerts, and below you can read Letters To You contributing writer Lisa Iannucci's deep dive into both Williams' career and her latest work: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the world of rock n roll troubadours, the legendary Lucinda Williams casts a long shadow. Considered one of the greatest songwriters of her generation by critics and fellow musicians, she began her music career making records that received their kudos but little notice by the buying public. That began to change when DC-area country artist Mary Chapin Carpenter had a hit with Williams’ “Passionate Kisses” in 1992. But it wasn’t until the release of the classic Car Wheels On A Gravel Road in 1998 that she received the widespread recognition she so richly deserved. Eclectic in style, the album concerns itself with childhood memories of her family’s peripatetic existence, with the hardscrabble musicians Williams met on the road, and with relationships gone astray. Car Wheels... –  over three years in the making due to the collapse of the American Recordings label, to studio scuffles with co-producer Steve Earle, and to the impossibly high standards Williams sets for herself – had been stopped, started, scrapped and reborn several times before its release. (A 1997 New York Times Magazine profile offers a glimpse into her painstaking creative process.) But it was worth the wait; the finished product, which features vocals by Earle, Emmylou Harris and Jim Lauderdale, guitar work by luminaries like Charlie Sexton, Buddy Miller, and Ray Kennedy, and production support and keyboards from E Streeter Roy Bittan, is now considered not just a landmark in her career, but an alt-country masterpiece. The success of Car Wheels..., which afforded Williams the opportunity to tour with a top-notch band that included Miller and Lauderdale on guitar, was just the beginning of a storied career that has continued to this day. Over the years, she’s been called “difficult” - a pejorative that rarely applies to her male peers - and has had tumultuous relationships with a who’s who of “bad boy” rock’n’rollers from Ryan Adams to Paul Westerberg. Like Adams, she’s walked offstage mid-set; like Dylan, Springsteen and so many others, she’s spent countless hours in recording studios laboring over minute details. But in the male-dominated world of rock’n’roll, as Joe Jackson famously wrote, “it’s different for girls.” She’s been pretty successful at pushing back on that over the years, but it hasn’t been easy. Certainly Williams was never in the business of being anybody’s role model, but even with the success of Car Wheels..., it took some time for the next generation of artists to cite her as an influence. Career-wise, Lucinda is in constant motion. She’s been releasing records and touring pretty much nonstop for decades now, but the pandemic of 2020-21 forced her off the road, where, like many creative folks, she had the time to work on side projects and develop new material. During that time, she released a series of six homemade works - the Lu’s Jukebox series - most of them tributes to some of her favorite rock and rollers, as well as a holiday release. Available as downloads as well as vinyl and CD collectibles, these releases were mostly covers, but there were some originals like “Stolen Moments" thrown into the mix, too. She also worked on a memoir, the recently released Don’t Tell Anybody The Secrets I Told You, which, aside from dishing about those “bad boy” dalliances, reveals more about the chaotic childhood and ongoing mental health and self-esteem issues with which Williams has struggled over the years. Through it all, she’s still a woman apart, someone who marches to her own drummer, but has ceased caring about fitting in or belonging. Why fit in when you can stand out? “‘I’m just stubborn, it works for me,” she recently told Yahoo Entertainment’s Lily Moayeri. Stories From A Rock N Roll Heart finds her in a ruminative mood. It’s a backward-looking record laden with nostalgia and regret, filled with lonely barflies longing for a past to which they can never return. Haunted by loss and by relationships that went bad, mentally and physically isolated, this is Williams in search of lost time - sitting in a bar, nursing a beer and playing the same songs over and over on the jukebox, seeking solace in the familiar. The album starts off with the upbeat “Let’s Get the Band Back Together,” a song in the vein of the Beach Boys’ “Do it Again.” It’s a celebration of the camaraderie of being in a band, of shared focus and shared stages and tour buses, of a rose-tinted reunion. Unfortunately, the happiness and renewed focus (and often lucrative compensation) always seem short-lived when the band gets back together, as inevitably, the forces that drove them apart surface once again. So what happens when you’re trying to resurrect those bygone days? What follows is the aural trip down the memory lane of a musician who’s spent too many hours on the road, seen the inside of one too many bars from L.A. to Gotham. The production by Williams, spouse Tom Overby, and her old friend Ray Kennedy, is more crisp than some of her previous work, which leaned hard into the murky, sloppy blues of the Delta in which she grew up. It’s up-front and confrontational, just like Lucinda. The next track, “New York Comeback” (co-written with another longtime friend and collaborator, Jesse Malin,) is a somewhat wry play on the trope of self-reinvention in the Big Apple. Malin also co-wrote “Let’s Get the Band Back Together,” and both songs are also reflective of his many years on the road and late nights in bars. But it’s not just the late nights nursing “another green bottle” (“Last Call for the Truth.”) There are also the desperate alcoholic afternoons described in “Hum’s Liquor” (based on the tragic final years of The Replacements' Bob Stinson, with backing vocals provided by his half-brother and fellow Replacement Tommy Stinson) and the lonely melancholy of “Stolen Moments,” which she says is about “feelings that come unexpectedly.” (It’s dedicated to her late friend Tom Petty.) “This is Not My Town” -  another song about isolation and the damage it does to people – also concerns itself with lack of trust and the havoc it wreaks both on personal relationships and on public institutions. In the standout single “Rock N Roll Heart” we hear how music reaches down into people’s lives and saves them, which should sound familiar to most Springsteen fans. In her memoir, Williams relates the story of hanging out with Bruce after a show in L.A. Tom Overby, (her date for the evening and future husband) is meeting Springsteen for the first time, and he tells him that Bruce’s music had reached down to him in a similar fashion. And as if to complete the circle (and go completely “meta”), it’s none other than Bruce and wife Patti on backing vocals. (They also provide vocal support on "New York Comeback.") In a sense, we’re all historians of our own lives, examining the events of the past in order to make sense of the present. And after the pandemic, we all seem to be dealing with trauma on some level; we’re all doing our best to get through the day, each in our own way. (This is a process that those who’ve worked with psychotherapists may recognize.) Stories From A Rock N Roll Heart, despite its upbeat title, is in many ways concerned with the process of healing, with finding things to hang onto, with self-preservation. “I’m hung up on the past/And life is movin’ on too fast,” Williams sings in “Never Gonna Fade Away.” Her best work always seems to be rooted in bygone days, and this is no exception. Stories... is another strong outing from a seasoned pro who’s still contending with life’s ups and downs (especially as she continues recovering from a stroke she suffered in 2020,) but who always seems to come up swinging. “I’m never gonna fade away,” she sings as the album closes out, and you believe her. This is Lucinda Williams at 70: battle-hardened and scarred, and, as always, a survivor with a rock n roll heart.

July 26, 2023 It ain't no secret - especially around these parts - that as a songwriter, Bruce Springsteen often has served to reveal and explore many important truths, plumbing the depths of individual and shared memories and experiences. But apparently if you ever get the guy to speak publicly about the first vinyl record that he bought, the truth of that particular matter suddenly becomes a bit more elusive. Not that I believe that Bruce ever actually has lied whenever he's been asked about it, mind you. It's just that he seems to have not quite recalled all of the details correctly. It certainly would be understandable if that is indeed the case, given that now more than 65 years have passed since he bought his first record. The first time I encountered Springsteen discussing his first-purchased record was back in the late nineties. It was in an interview with Patrick Humphries that was first published in the February 1999 issue (issue # 234) of the long-running London-based magazine Record Collector. (Copies of that back-issue are no longer available through Record Collector's website. Most of Humphries' interview later got republished in Chris Phillips' and Louis P. Masur's excellent anthology Talk About A Dream: The Essential Interviews Of Bruce Springsteen, though the first-purchased-record question and Springsteen's answer, which ran as a sidebar in Record Collector, were not included in the republished version.) "The first record I actually bought," Springsteen told Humphries, "was by a guy named Dusty Rhodes. It was an EP, four tracks, and he did a cover version of 'Jailhouse Rock,' and a few other things - covers of hits of the day. And that was the first record - outside of your Peter Pan records when you were a kid. It was an EP, and cheaper than getting the original record. It was a pretty good record, but I don't know what happened to Dusty Rhodes." In 2011, Bruce again publicly discussed the first record he bought, this time telling Stevie Van Zandt about it in a special two-part edition of Stevie's weekly Underground Garage syndicated terrestrial-radio show dubbed "The Bruce and Stevie Show, Parts 1 and 2," which remains essential listening. "The first record I bought was Dusty Rhodes," he told Stevie early on in Part 1, "who was... Remember in those days they would make EPs of four top singles... and you would go out and you'd buy them for, like, 59 cents instead of 99 cents, and you'd get four songs instead of two... And so I think one of the first records I bought was an EP of somebody covering four Elvis songs." Stevie, who either forgot or never knew about the popularity of such cover-version EPs, just laughed and replied, "That's really weird." But Bruce definitely was right about the proliferation and popularity of knockoff versions of the popular records of the day issued by "cheapo labels." (Until a few years ago, there used to be a wonderful Yahoo! "cheapo_labels" group with an online focus on the records issued by such lesser-light labels, though unfortunately it since has folded along with the rest of Yahoo! Groups.) They appealed especially to kids like young Bruce Springsteen, whose family didn't have much money to spend on relative luxuries like records. These cheapo-label recordings could be found easily in the records/music departments of discount stores like Woolworth's, Murphy's, and McCrory's, which were the Targets and Walmarts of their day. (Incidentally, one of these now-extinct stores later got name-checked in this line from "Rosalita"'s lyrics: "Little Gun's downtown in front of Woolworth's...") Several famous musicians, including Elton John, Dolly Parton, and Lou Reed, recorded singles, EPs, and/or albums for such "dime store labels" in the years before they achieved stardom. Like all of the musicians who worked on records like these, the overwhelming majority of whom never achieved any kind of popularity or stardom, usually they were credited under pseudonyms if they were credited at all on these "budget" recordings. What Bruce seems to have misremembered slightly, however, is the credited name(s) on the first record he bought. More than a few musicians have performed under the name "Dusty Rhodes" over the years. Probably the two most famous are the late steel-guitarist who worked with country-music legend Buck Owens and the late fiddle-player who recorded for Sun Records in the 1950s with his brothers Slim and Speck Rhodes. The fiddle-player (who coincidentally once performed onstage with the E Street Band's Garry Tallent at two 2001 Asbury Park benefit concerts saluting Sun Records) obviously had the stronger connection to Sun Records labelmate Elvis Presley (who actually performed early on with The Rhodes Family Band and was briefly considered for possible membership in the band,) but after extensive research I've never come across any recording of "Jailhouse Rock" in any format by any artist performing under the name "Dusty Rhodes." What I did eventually find, however, are some copies of what I believe is most likely to be the first record that Bruce Springsteen ever bought. It's a 1957 four-track "cheapo label" EP, originally priced at only 49 cents in its 45RPM version (pictured above,) which is even a bit cheaper than the 59-cents price that Bruce recalled when talking to Stevie about it back in 2011. The EP contains a version of "Jailhouse Rock" performed by a singer credited not as "Dusty Rhodes," but as "Dusty Glass." None of the remaining tracks feature Dusty Glass, nor are they knockoffs of any other "Elvis songs," despite what Bruce told Stevie just over a decade ago. They are, however, as Bruce told Patrick Humphries back in the late nineties, "other...covers of hits of the day:" specifically "Wake Up, Little Susie" (original hit version recorded by The Everly Brothers, covered here by "Andy Bennett and The Toppers,") "Silhouettes" (original hit version recorded by The Rays, covered here by "Pat Greene and The Toppers,") and "Melodie D'Amour" (original hit version recorded by The Ames Brothers, covered here by "Pat Greene and The Toppers," as well.) The EP was issued in a 45RPM format and a 78RPM format, both of which were still popular vinyl formats in 1957. Over the years I've managed to track down and purchase hard-to-find vinyl copies in each format, but fortunately now everyone can hear this record much more easily, thanks to the fine folks at the Internet Archive website. The site has posted digitized versions of the complete EP (using a 78RPM copy as its source) for your streaming, downloading, and listening pleasure. Click here to hear the A-side, and click here to hear the B-side. If this EP indeed represents young Bruce Springsteen's first purchased recording, the track lineup connects strongly with much of Springsteen's own career as a professional recording and performing musician/songwriter, in obvious and also some less obvious ways. The strongest connections, of course, can be found in "Jailhouse Rock" and "Wake Up, Little Susie," both classic and widely known servings of the musical stew called rock-n-roll that inspired much of the best music that Springsteen has made throughout his career. Those two songs also feature the same kind of vividly memorable characters with class- and age-based situations that came to populate so many of Springsteen's own songs. There's some clever humor to be found there, too. "Silhouettes" shared many of these same qualities, as well, though it was much more of a novelty than a true classic. Nevertheless it still offered up a doo-wop/pop hybrid that helped to set the stage for the truly groundbreaking singles later recorded by The Drifters, which had an enormous influence on the music of Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Van Zandt, and Southside Johnny. (Incidentally, The Rays' version of "Silhouettes" was co-produced by Bob Crewe, who also co-wrote the song. Crewe went on to produce many of the best records by The Four Seasons, a lot of which featured spectacular arrangements by Charles Calello, who also arranged the strings on Born To Run's closing track "Jungleland.") And even the most whitebread, non-rock-and-roll fifties pop hit here, "Melodie D'Amour," has an interesting if offbeat Springsteen connection... One of his greatest latter-day musical heroes, Pete Seeger (the only artist to date for whom Bruce Springsteen has recorded an entire album of his own "covers" in tribute,) recorded an instrumental version of "Melodie D'Amour" on his 1967 album Waist Deep In The Big Muddy and Other Love Songs, produced by the late, legendary John Hammond, who signed Springsteen (and Pete Seeger, and Bob Dylan, and Aretha Franklin, etc.) to Columbia Records. One credit that does not appear on this EP is that of its producer, who was the late Dave Pell. Pell was a highly respected musician with strong ties to the big-band and California jazz circles of the forties and fifties. He also did a lot of production work for the Tops "cheapo label" (including what is now considered an exotica/lounge classic: Robert Drasnin's 1959 Voodoo! LP.) Fortunately, before Pell passed in 2017, I had gotten to ask him about the EP by "Dusty Glass," et al. Pell distinctly recalled his production work on the 1957 EP, and added that he was "thrilled" that it just might be the first record that Bruce Springsteen bought. "I used to produce every six weeks a note for note copy of all the upcoming hits," he continued. "These were the best-selling records we [at Tops] released. I had my local pros in L.A. do it. I cast the sessions with great singers who could mimic the records that would possibly be hits in six weeks. I made up fictitious names...very vanilla names that sounded real. I can't remember who I used [for the Dusty Glass et al. EP,] but I did this kind of recording every six weeks...a long time ago...fun..." So there you have it; mystery mostly solved, apparently. All that's missing, of course, is some kind of official confirmation. If and when that happens, I gladly will donate at least one of my copies of the 1957 Dusty Glass et al. EP to The Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music at Monmouth University. After all, as noted (and New-Jersey-born-and-bred) archaeologist Dr. Indiana Jones would've said, "that belongs in a museum." Special thanks to Robert Drasnin (RIP,) Terry Gordon, Skip Heller, Pasi Koskela, Dave Pell (RIP,) and Val Shively for their assistance over the years in the completion of this long-gestating article.