Here we are now in 2007. Since 1995 Bruce Springsteen had released 3 albums of new music (“…Tom Joad”, “The Rising” and “Devils & Dust”). We are about to enter a busy period with 4 new albums in the next 8 years. Sadly, the first 2 of those 4 are, to my ears, 2 of Springsteen’s weakest records, were you to ask me to rank all of his 20 studio albums the bottom 3 would certainly be “Human Touch” plus these next 2. Both of them feature 3, maybe 4, songs of a standard we’ve become used to  and thereafter seem to be padded out with the sort of things that in the past would have been shelved for the next iteration of “Tracks”. 

“Magic” was Springsteen’s first album with the E Street Band since “The Rising” in 2002 (betwixt had been the afore mentioned “Devils & Dust” and “We Shall Overcome…”). When you read about it’s making a couple of things stick out to me. All the songs were written at the end of 2006 but Springsteen allowed producer Brendan O’Brien (who also produced “The Rising” and “Devils & Dust”) to pick which songs should go on the album. Secondly, the E Street Band never played together as a unit on this record. Some of them now had other commitments, primarily Max Weinberg who was the drummer in the house band on the talk show “Late Night With Conan O’Brien” from Monday to Friday. So while everything else was worked on during the week, Springsteen, Weinberg, bassist Garry W Tallent and pianist Roy Bittan would convene at weekends to record basic backing tracks which the rest of the band would add to during the week. It may be that this is why I always think the album has a disjointed feel to it. When you have a band as good as that you really want them all in the room together, that’s when the magic happens.

It starts with “Radio Nowhere” a nice enough rocker but the opening riff is is so closely related to “Shame” by Eat (who I’m in absolutely no doubt Springsteen had absolutely no knowledge of but…) it’s always felt a bit off to me just because of that. “You’ll Be Coming Down” is one of the better songs on here but it still feels like an OK “Sprinsgteen by numbers” number, a good singalong live I’d imagine, not that I’ve ever heard it live. “Livin’ In The Future” starts well with a good ol’ blast of Sax from Clarence but it degenerates into something that sounds like it would have been a discarded outtake around the time of “The River”.

Side One closes out with 2 of the better songs on “Magic”, “Gypsy Biker” and “Girls In Their Summer Clothes”. “Gypsy Biker” is suberb, an angry song, a song about loss with a moody setting and a wailing harmonica throughout giving the whole song an uncomfortable, ghostly feel. Conversely “Girls In Their Summer Clothes”, one that my wife absolutely adores, is a bang-perfect summer pop tune, on a sunny day it makes for another good old singalong. Even so you still get the feeling the singer isn’t a part of the scene, he’s looking in from the outside (“The girls in their summer clothes pass me by”) he’s not part of that crowd, just an observer.

Over on Side Two “I'll Work For Your Love” starts with a classic Professor Roy Bittan piano intro but doesn’t really go anywhere after that. The title song would have sat easily on “…Tom Joad” or “Devils & Dust”, it’s a quiet, eerie song with a lyric that draws an outline of the likes of Trump and Boris Johnson years before they were suffered upon us (“Trust none of what you hear, And less of what you see, This is what will be”), conmen, liars. “Last To Die” is kinda formless and rushed. There’s the germ of a great song somewhere inside “Long Walk Home” but it never really breaks the surface.

The final two songs are where it’s at. “Devils Arcade” is a pointer to the future. Here is the embryonic sound of “Western Stars” fully 12 years before we heard that album, that big orchestrated sound that made up “Western Stars” was trialled right here. It’s a song of loss, heroism, and defiance, and unusually for Springsteen is seemingly sung from a female perspective, it’s a beauty. 

Lastly, after a long silence, is “Terry’s Song”. It was added to the track listing so late that on some initial CD copies it’s not on there. It’s a tribute from Springsteen to his long-time personal assistant Frank “Terry” Magovern. The two had met in 1972 when Bruce played the bar that Terry was managing and they clicked immediately. “Terry’s Song” was written and performed at his memorial service within 3 days of his passing. A heartfelt eulogy from one friend to another “The Taj Mahal, the pyramids of Egypt are unique, I suppose, But when they built you, brother, they broke the mould”.

“Magic” is OK. The trouble for me is I expect better than OK from Bruce Springsteen. It’s a problem of mine more than anyone else’s. I’m sure the themes of the album and the songs themselves are things the writer is proud of, it just doesn’t move me so much. Some guys you just have to stick with even through the less than stellar times.

Devils Arcade - https://youtu.be/zOuj5NjAJRI?si=NOKnFbEIsjqKn_Lr

Recorded at the Point in Dublin over November 17, 18 & 19, 2006 this a live album with the Seeger Sessions Band taking in 10 of the 13 songs from that album (omitted are my personal favourite “John Henry” (harumph), “Shenadoah” and thankfully “Froggie Went A Courtin’”) plus 13 other Springsteen songs and covers.

The original songs chosen are quite interesting, many not songs I would usually expect to hear at an E Street Band show. “Atlantic City”, “Further On (Up The Road)”, “If I Should Fall Behind”, “Highway Patrolman”, “Long Time Comin’”, “Open All Night”,  “Growin' Up”, “American Land” and “Blinded By The Light”. 

The remaining songs are old folk and traditional songs given a Sessions Band makeover. “How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live” was written and recorded by Blind Alfred Reed in 1929. This version, apparently, owes more to Ry Cooder’s 1970 take than it does to ol’ Blind Alfred. Everyone knows “When The Saints Go Marching In”, right ? It’s a song that grew out of various hymns and spirituals and is forever connected to New Orleans style Jazz but here is slowed right down to an acoustic ballad and sung by various members of the band. “This Little Light Of Mine” is a traditional Gospel song that has a strong connection to the Civil Rights Movement and is one I’ve seen performed live with the E Street Band in Kilkenny in 2013. 

Lastly I need to make mention “Love Of The Common People” (yes the very same song that once was 80’d up by Paul Young) written by John Hurley and Ronnie Wilkins (who also wrote “Son Of A Preacher Man”) and first recorded by the Four Preps. Sadly Bruce attempts the song in a laughable cod-reggae style and, much as I’ve never wanted to hear Bob Marley tackle Rock ’n Roll, I’ve never in my wildest imaginations wanted to hear the Boss play Reggae…and never wish to again !

“Live In Dublin” is an enthusiastic performance in front of an enthusiastic crowd. A great document of a tour I didn’t get to see.

Long Time Coming - https://youtu.be/_eehLPcXxBQ?si=j-kcZEchaOpSkWTO

On Side 6 of “Live/1975-85” Springsteen performs a wonderful version of “This Land Is Your Land”, Woody Guthrie’s critical answer song to Irving Berlin’s schmaltzy, patriotic “God Bless America”. While introducing “This Land…” Bruce says “There’s a book out right now. It’s called “Woody Guthrie: A Life”. It’s by this fella Joe Klein…and it’s really, it’s really a great book”. Finally ,after almost 40 years, I got around to  reading it and Pete Seeger features heavily in Woody Guthrie’s story. 

Pete Seeger was born in New York in 1919. His father was a Harvard educated composer and musicologist, his mother was a concert violinist trained at the Conservatoire de Paris and later a teacher at Juilliard so I guess music was always gonna be a thing with Pete. He originally started playing the Ukelele as a child and from there developed into one of America’s most important folk singers, songwriters and social/political activists. His songs (including “If I Had A Hammer”, “Where Have All The Flowers Gone”, “Turn!Turn! Turn!” and of course “We Shall Overcome”, an arrangement of a spiritual that became the anthem of the Civil Rights Movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King) and performances with the likes of the Almanac Singers and The Weavers sparked the Folk Music revival that ultimately led to the rise of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell in the 1960’s. Pete Seeger is an American musical legend.

“We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions” is Bruce Springsteen’s tribute to Seeger, his first album not featuring any songs written by himself, it contains 13 songs popularised by Seeger. It also features an almost entirely new band, headed up by future E Street Band violinist Soozie Tyrell. The Sessions Band, as it came to be known, was made up of lesser known musicians from around New Jersey and New York led by Tyrell, Patti Scialfa and the Miami Horns. One musician of note in the Sessions band is keyboard and accordianist Charlie Giordano who, following the Sessions Band tour, has stepped in to the shoes of the late Danny Federici in the E Street Band (he also played on Jerry Joseph’s album “The Man Who Would Be King” that we covered a few months back).

This whole album was recorded in Bruce Springsteen’s living room, live with no rehearsals, over 3 one day sessions and it sounds like…well it sounds like everyone involved was having one helluva great time. This was confirmed by a BBC broadcast of a Seeger Sessions show from St Luke's Church, London where you could absolutely see that everybody was having a total blast playing in this band.

“We Shall Overcome…” is real Americana, songs gathered from and popularised by the folk singers of the 1940’s and onwards  that originated from 19th century black face troupe’s (“Old Dan Tucker”), from Gospel music (“We Shall Overcome”) to traditional folk tunes (“Shenandoah”) and even a song celebrating the building of the New York State Barge Canal which would see modernisation and the transition from mule power to engine power when it opened in 1918 (“Erie Canal”). The instrumentation is almost entirely acoustic (there is some electric organ) and the sound harks back to traditional American Folk Music (if you are at all familiar with Folkways Records legendary “Anthology Of American Folk Music” you’ll know the sound here). And yes, for one or two acquaintances that have taken the piss, it does include “Froggie Went A-Courtin’” and yes he has played it live !

My favourite is “John Henry”, the epic tale of a freed African slave who went on to work as a “steel man” on the railways, hammering in the steel “pins” that kept the rails attached to the sleepers. He was so proficient that he entered into a race against a steam powered hammer. He won the race only to die with his hammer in his hand as his heart gave out from the stress. In the song John Henry proudly tells us he’s “Swingin' thirty pounds from my hips on down, Yeah, listen to my cold steel ring, Lord, Lord, Listen to my cold steel ring”. It’s a song that has been performed in one arrangement or another by many artists. I have versions by Johnny Cash, Steve Earle and the Drive-By Truckers and there are others by Woody Guthrie, Van Morrison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Lonnie Donegan, Pete Seeger of course and many, many others. Bruce Springsteen’s tilt at it has a real party swing about it (in as much as a song about a man working himself to death can be considered a party song), the sound of a gathering out on the porch fuelled by moonshine.

“We Shall Overcome…” is a homage to American Folk music, the conclusion of Springsteen’s fascination with the likes of Woody Guthrie that stretches back to his introduction of Woody’s “This Land Is Your Land” and the nod to Joe Klein’s book”Woody Guthrie: A Life” on “Live / 1975-85” (when Springsteen appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs in December 2016 his book choice was Joe Klein’s tome). It’s also (in the main) a great happy singalong party as you’ll see if you check out that BBC St Luke’s Church gig.

John Henry - https://youtu.be/bqxjHzff-Qo?si=ayq-qaMKQgiWoGMm

The Sessions Band, St Luke’s Church, London 9 May 2006 - https://youtu.be/dFTDkS6xUE0?si=-McyBVejoeKsF5S_