Springsteen’s musical progeny teem within the alt-rock and Americana scenes, including our Club Jaeb series.
Let’s talk about Bruce.
Or, as millions (probably billions) of fans know him: BRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCE.
Why we haven’t seen a generation of children named Springsteen remains a mystery given the man’s four decades of generating an extreme fanbase with his theatrical, high-energy concerts and workingman’s albums that swing from pop to rock to folk to a certain Jersey Shore spiritualism. Then he became a New York Times bestselling author with his memoir in 2016 followed by his stint last year as a Broadway superstar during his sold-out one-man show/concert. Ever since 1975 when he decided to pump a little iron and release arguably the greatest blue collar American anthem ever penned with “Born to Run,” Bruce Springsteen has burned across the night sky of American pop culture like a riotous, infinite comet.
We have it on good word from a friend of a friend who happens to live in the Springsteens’ neck of the woods in Jersey and ends up at the same pub from time to time that the man always travels with half-written songs in his pockets. He never stops.
It’s no wonder, then, that in so many bios of young singer-songwriters something like “harkens to a Nebraska-era Springsteen” appears as a description of their authenticity, sound and depth. Although it seems inconceivable that anyone would be able to possess Bob Dylan’s power of musical influence on the singer-songwriter scene, Bruce does.
Unlike Dylan, however, Bruce is a ham. His live shows bear all the markings of theatrical contrivance—the impossibly long knee-slides, the roving spotlights, the mike-stand backbends, the grand gesticulations and well-timed shifts in voice. Bruce, like any great playwright, director or actor, snatches up the audience and threads them through an emotional wringer, all the while making sure they enjoy the experience.
Our beloved program manager Joel Lisi, who happens to be a big Springsteen fan, books our Club Jaeb singer-songwriter season. Joel’s a musician, too, and he knows the real deal when he hears it, which is why so many cool people end up on the Club Jaeb series. Inevitably, most of these cool folks cite Springsteen as a major influence.
So, we asked Joel why he thinks Bruce flexes such impressive musical power.
“The Boss obviously resides in the ‘once in a lifetime’ box,” Joel says. “What I mean specifically here is that I can’t think of another artist who has what I’ll call the Bruce duality. Or, ‘Bru-ality’ if you will. (Trademarked, don’t even.)”
Bruality?
“On one side, he’s the humble, introspective and pensive artist. As authentic and prolific as a Dylan, [Leonard] Cohen, etc. and as down-home-blue-collar-every-man-Americana as you can get,” Joel explains. “On the other side, he’s a pure entertainer. Look at some vintage E-Street Band footage. The three-to-four-hour concerts. Huge. Watch the choreography (for lack of a better word). The showmanship. He’s the likely product if Bob Dylan and Elvis Presley stepped into that machine from The Fly. But through this duality, he’s somehow been able to maintain his artistic integrity like none other. It really doesn’t make any sense.”
But what does that have to do with younger singer-songwriters?
“Well, The Boss is American. And, in an effort to make a point here, by that I mean ‘Merican. That mattered and still does. Why should it matter? Despite his iconic ‘Mericanism—in fact, maybe because of it—he never shied away from writing about harsh truths, inequities and painful realities this circus of a country seems destined to churn out. He embraced, struggled, pondered and screamed at them. Still does. That’s the heartbeat of the republic of American music,” Joel says. “So, if I’m a young songwriter and I get hip to the legacy of a guy like Bruce selling out stadiums, TRULY rocking the world in all its glory, feeling that power and energy… then listen to Bruce practically whisper profundities off an album like Nebraska? You know, art in many ways is about upholding the sound of truth. Like attracts like. Truth responds to truth. Bruce embodies a spirit that others catch, make their own, pass on. When younger people who want to write songs about real things hear what Bruce does, it’s almost impossible not to be profoundly affected either in musicality or the stories they tell in song.”
Our next Club Jaeb performer, Griffin House, launched into the big time because of Patti Scialfa, who happens to be married to Bruce, after she hand-picked him to be her opening act. House spent a few years in the Scialfa-Springsteen sphere of influence, eventually returning to Asbury Park to record a deeply personal album, So On and So Forth. House is one of the many magical sparks to fall from the Great Comet Streak himself, which you’d no doubt hear in his songs from So On and So Forth (and House’s other records) even if we hadn’t told you.
“He’s called The Boss,” Joel says. “What else is he gonna do but affect everybody?”