The Ten That Made Springsteen; 8. Creedence Clear Water Revival; Who'll Stop The Rain

Creedence Clear Water Revival, or CCR for short, is undoubtedly one of the key influences on the development of Springsteen's music. Although CCR hardly has the stature of the Stones or the Who these days, in their hey day they were almost as big as those two acts. CCR couldn't have escaped Bruce in the early days of his career. After the Castilles Springsteen made a sudden shift from the Garage to the Power Trio of Earth. Judging from their music and set lists the band was highly influenced by Cream, Jimi Hendrix and the Doors. Suddenly Bruce was sporting long wavy hair and a Gibson les Paul, looking more like a carbon copy of Jimi Page than of the Beatles like he had in the Castiles. For a short period Springsteen indulged himself in long spun out jams. Necessarily maybe for him to get more versatile on the guitar, but hardly interesting music or something that had his distinct own voice. With Steel Mill (first called Child) Springsteen started moving back to more straight forward R&R. Although the music was still lengthy, Steel Mill would incorporate much more down home R&R in their sets and approach. Though Steel Mill is often credited with being influenced by the Stones or the Who, their approach to R&R was very much akin to CCR. Maybe Steel Mill's shift to a more R&R approach could be credited to Steven van Zandt, who played bass at one point, but the band certainly started to go from long jams to a more structured sound. Most notably on early Springsteen fan favorites like "Going Back To Georgia". With songs like "Dancing In The Street" making it into the sets Springsteen was moving back to his Garage roots again in an approach that reminds me of CCR's "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" (Download an early Steel Mill show here) .



I've always seen CCR and Springsteen as similar artists. Like Springsteen, CCR seemed to be a summary of the R&R that came before. With their classic albums CCR tapped into early R&R as much as Springsteen did with "Born To Run". The bands had similar backgrounds. CCR was born out of Garage bands the Velvets and the Golliwogs. Although the latter recorded some memorable singles, John Fogerty and his brother Tom failed to make a dent in the charts until they transformed their approach to a more personal and distinct sound. Creedence tellingly first hit big with their rendition of Dale Hawkin's classic "Suzie Q" (featuring the immortal James Burton on guitar) but were soon off to making it big with their own material. They stayed so close to R&R's roots sometimes that they had to settle out of court with Little Richard when their "Traveling Band" bore more than a little resemblance to his "Good Golly, Miss Molly". CCR's hit sometimes were so close to the R&R standards of its golden age that they became standards themselves. Their "Proud Mary" is often mistakenly credited to Ike & Tina Turner and got covered by greats Solomon Burke. Although Creedence is best remembered for their swamp blues like approach to music, their influences didn't stop their. CCR are has always been infused with a heavy dose of Country harking back at Hank Williams and the like. I suspect that Springsteen's later infatuation was smoothened by listening to acts like Creedence. When CCR fell apart Fogerty went solo with mixed results. "Rocking All Over The World" (covered by Springsteen two times) brought him some succes in '75, but by the time he released his '85 comeback album Fogerty was surpassed in popularity by the very artists he (partly) inspired.



But going into Country was the only path I suspect Creedence smoothed out for Springsteen. Somewhere around the recording of the River album Springsteen's political awakening started, coached by Jon Landau. One subject that hit close to home for Springsteen at the time was the Vietnam war. Springsteen had been drafted for the war but got out of it by claiming he was gay (amongst other things. He got 4-F on account of his motorcycle accident in which he had badly injured his leg and acting as crazy as he could. Others around Springsteen weren't so lucky. The drummer of the Castiles went and came back in a body bag. Ron Kovic's book "Born On The Fourth Of July" about Kovic's experience as a Vietnam veteran, is well known to have had a major effect on Springsteen, so Creedence's songs on Vietnam must have been easy for Springsteen to tap into. Song like "Who'll Stop The Rain" and "Fortunate Son" must have made Springsteen realize how R&R could work as a political force well before he started listening to Woody Guthrie. "Who'll Stop The Rain" had been adopted by the Vietnam veterans as their anthem, so when Springsteen was asked to play a benefit for the Vietnam Veterans of America, an organization dedicated to the interests of the Vietnam veterans, on august 20th 1981 in LA (download the show here), it was the natural opener for a visible emotional Bruce who warned in his opening speech "you guys out there that are eighteen and nineteen years old, it happened once and it can happen again". Some twenty years later the second Gulf war started and America landed itself in a situation very similar to Vietnam. At the time the of the show the Vietnam veterans suffered from a severe lack of recognition of the pain they had brought home from the war and were shunned by the anti war movement. The war had ended in '75 and many veterans were looked upon as baby killers when the world was confronted with when the home front saw the shocking footage through a press that wasn't as embedded as they are these days. An artists with the stature of Springsteen playing a show in their tribute was one of the first steps in setting things right.



Over the years John Fogerty's seem to have resurfaced every time Springsteen wanted to assert himself politically. He played "Bad Moon Rising" on 18 Jun 1988 at Chateau De Vincennes, Paris, France, at the SOS Racism Concert that was broad casted on French TV, but more significantly, when the Bush administration invaded Iraq of March 20th 2003 "Who'll Stop The Rain" started to reappear regularly in the sets of the Rising tour. When that tour was over Springsteen aligned himself politically for the very first time, at least in an explicit way, with his John Kerry endorsement and the "Vote For Change" tour. Before that his political loyalties had always been implicit in his songs. With "Vote For Change" it all came into the open as he opposed both the war and Bush openly. Although the campaign failed and America got stuck with four more years with the blunder in chief Dubya, for Springsteen the gloves were off. In recent years we've heard a more outspoken Springsteen than ever before, seemingly rallying against the war every chance he gets. His songs suddenly became open indictments against president bystander in "How Can a Poor Man (Stand Such Times And Live)" and against the war in Bring Em Home". VFC also got him some significant stage time with his hero John Fogerty teaming up "Fortunate Son" and "Promised Land" through out the tour. Two songs that represent both sides of the coin, America's nightmare and its lasting promise.



See also the December 2007 Newsweek article

"Who'll Stop The Rain" - Bruce Springsteen
"Rocking All Over The World" - Bruce Springsteen
"Suzie Q" - Dale Hawkings
"Don't Tell Me No Lies" - The Golliwogs

The Ten That Made Springsteen; 7. Curtis Mayfield & The Impressions, People Get Ready

Soul music has been a constant in Springsteen's career. Maybe even more so than R&R. Albeit that the influence wasn't always as pronounced as his R&R influences. But from the very beginning Soul music was there. At first the influence might have been secondary, borrowed through the Beatles and the countless Garage acts. But soon enough Springsteen picked up on some originals and reworked them in his own fashion. Rufus Thomas' greasy Soul classic "Walking The Dog" was somewhat of a regular in the early days of the E-Street Band. Through Sancious' influence it came out decidedly jazzier than Rufus' funky original. More Funk came into the picture when Little Steven joined the band as a regular guitar player. On the "Born to Run" album Steve arranged the horns on "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out" almost as a carbon copy of the Stax sound. That Memphis based label had been almost as influential on the development of R&R as Elvis and the Chess studios that gave us the likes of Willie Dixon and Muddy Waters. Bands like the Animals and the Rolling Stones looked at acts like Otis Redding and Rufus Thomas for their sound and inspiration. When the Stax revue hit Europe in '68 they were treated like major stars, where as in America they were still a few regular Joes from Memphis Tennessee. Of course this was a two way street. The British Invasion had an enormous impact on American music and soon the Soul and R&B stars from the states would be covering their British counter parts. With Springsteen's affinity for British Invasion music and Garage a dive into Soul would be inevitable.



Not only did Springsteen infuse his show with a few classics from the genre, most notably "Quarter To Three" from Gary 'US' Bonds and "Raise Your Hand" from Eddie Floyd fame, his showmanship borrowed a lot from the world of Soul. E-Street show were infused the Cropper like guitar phrasing from then 'Miami' Steve, Danny's soulful organ grinding and Clarence's wailing. Springsteen milked the Soul antiques for all they were worth, bringing down the band, slowly, softer, before taking them back into a R&R explosion that would have everybody jumping in the aisles, dancing on there seats. To top it off Springsteen stole James Brown's cape routine, where he would fall down, apparently from exhaustion, the Big Man rushing to comfort him and pick him up, leading him back stage to rest. But Springsteen would break free, bust loose, fueled as it were by the power of R&R, blazing in yet another chorus of "Quarter To Three", "Twist and Shout" or "Higher and Higher". Seemingly refusing to go home until both he and the audience were completely drained. He sometimes mockingly warned that the next tune might be bad for your health, asking those with weak hearts to step out, by the time he was through, that warning didn't sound as tongue in the cheek as it seemed at first.



But it didn't stop there. Springsteen infused his show with numerous raps. Something uncommon in R&R shows, but a custom that had a long tradition in Soul music. James Brown, Isaac Hayes, Solomon Burke and much of the Stax roster were known to rap to their audience at length. Springsteen is one of the few R&R artists I've known to do that. That isn't to say that his raps were carbon copies of the great Soul acts. Springsteen had his own original voice when he was spinning his yarns. For one thing his stories were a lot more subdued at first, though they did grow cockier when success came knocking. For fans the story telling is part of what Springsteen is about. Some of his tales are considered to be as classic as his songs. There is the story of small town resident Ducky Slattery as in the intro to Änd The Band Played" in 1973, getting the band together as in the intro to "The E-Street Shuffle" in '75, his struggles with his father as in the intro to "It's My Life" and his uneasy first steps into the world of girls leading into "Pretty Flamingo", and of course the teenage werewolf story where God personally commanded Springsteen to "Let it ROCK!!!!" in 1978. His early raps hovered somewhere between that church Soul shouting, the romantic confessions from the classic Doo Wop records and Frank Sinatra's coy stage antiques.



As his success progressed and took him into the big arenas and stadiums, the story telling gradually changed into something that was getting closer and closer to Solomon Burke and his version of store front preaching. Springsteen gradually developed a thunderous preacher shtick. The preacher bit first surfaced during the "Born in the USA" tour where the "garden of eden" bit led into "Pink Cadillac". But gradually the bit grew and took a more prominent place in the shows. With the Tunnel of Love Express tour "I'm A Coward" was a staple, a show piece that came back every show and had an important narrative function in the set. There still was the more Doo Wop based rap leading into "All That Heaven Will Allow", but they would become a thing of the past after that tour. The big arenas and stadiums begged for a more powerful and more important, louder performance. The subdued raps had people scurrying to the beer stands, the preacher shtick commanded more attention, with added audience participation the shtick was more inclusive and about as intimate as you could get before tens of thousands of people. "I'm a Coward", built around Gino Washington's "Gino's a Coward", proved to be the perfect vehicle.



When Springsteen disbanded the E-Street Band and formed another road act in '92, the Soul influence became even more pronounced when he added a gospel like background choir to some of his songs. On his records his writing became even more soulful than ever before teaming up with the legendary Sam Moore, from Sam & Dave fame, on "Soul Driver" and infusing his songs with quite a bit more Soul imagery like in "Leap of Faith". The shows might have been heavy on the guitar but it was clear that Springsteen wanted to bring this side of him more to the front. Seeing how the albums and tour turned out, one might wish he made a more fundamental choice and went all the way tour with his version of the Mar-Keys. Though Dave Marsh claims in his live overview "On Tour" that Springsteen's audience may have been too "white" to grasp the concept, and thus shunned the tour and album, I think that is hardly why it was a relative failure. Springsteen always had a strong R&B influence in his music, it has always been part of the attraction, the problem was that Springsteen still had one foot in the E-Street Band with his music and material choice. The result was more E-Street light and less the Soul revival it could have been.

In spirit Springsteen's music, especially with the E-Street Band, has always had a heart full of Soul. Not just musically but spiritually as well. Soul music, as Ray Charles designed it and Sam Cooke and Curtis Mayfield molded it, has always been about the sanctification of every day life. With a heavy root in church music, Soul music is very much about rising to the occasion, transcending hardship, keeping your pride in times of strife. That humanist strand infused with an almost religious fervor is very much present in Springsteen's R&R. Springsteen has often stated that he views music as a force that can change people, called his shows a revival meeting and a political rally. It is clear that Springsteen feels his music is more than just hedonistic escapism. Springsteen's R&R is less sex & drugs than most of his counter parts in the world of Rock. Songs as "Promised Land" are more indebted to a song as "People Get Ready" or "A Change Is Gonna Come" than they are to the staples of R&R. Although the first might not be the song that introduced him to the genre I do feel it captures the essence of Springsteen's approach to his music best. "People Get Ready" was, when released in 1963 one of the first civil rights songs to be recorded in the R&B and Soul industry. It is a song of tremendous promise and although its a Gospel it does have the feel of rewards to come in this world. "People Get Ready" taps into that quintessential American imagery of the train. Through the rail roads the west was won. As such trains symbolize the promise of America a century or so earlier as much as cars did when Springsteen grew up. Of course in "People Get Ready" the train also calls back to the underground railroad that helped to free slaves in the south. As such it is a song about personal freedom. "People Get Ready" acknowledges the individual but stresses that the individual is lost when he or she isn't connected to the people around him, in order to achieve something people have got to work together, get on that train together.

It's the spirit of "People Get Ready" that lead directly to one of Springsteen's most powerful recordings in the past 10 years, "Land Of Hope And Dreams". Comparing the lyrics one might even say that Springsteen was more than just a bit inspired. "People Get Ready" was often included as an apt coda to the song it borrowed so much from. The coda returned during the curring Magic tour in Europe at the tail end of "Promised Land", somehow it sounded like it had been there all along. "Land Of Hope And Dreams" debuted during the Reunion tour were Springsteen got the band back together. In the tour that followed his signature raps were gone, but he did refine his preacher shtick in a raucous version of "Light of Day". The Reunion tour was very much about the reaffirmation of Springsteen's promise, proving R&R could save, if only for those two to three hours of sweat infused performance. In his speech he captured it perfectly, "Unlike my competitors" he belted out to an enthralled audience "I cannot, I will not, I shall not, promise you life everlasting......" clinging to his mic, looking like he's going to pass out, rising up again sweat dripping from his forehead "but I can promise you life, right NOW!!!!!". What more do you need?

"Pink Cadillac (live)"
"Light of Day (live)"
"Land Of Hope And Dreams (live)"
"Gino is a Coward (aka I'm a Coward)" - Gino Washington

Bruce Springsteen in Arnhem: High Energy Magic

Bruce Springsteen shows are always something akin to going to church for religious fans. A sermon delivered right creates a transcending experience for those watching. Springsteen live in Arnhem last night was a very well performed R&R sermon. Springsteen likes to use R&R to exorcise personal demons but with Magic he's been going after real live demons as well. Springsteen is angry about the state his country is in, that anger in reflected in the current tour. Springsteen comes at you with high energy, hard rocking, vicious sets that leave you gasping for air.

The Arnhem shows were marred with a few problems. The legendary E-Street Band was set to play the Gelredome, a large soccer stadium. At first an "intimate" setting of 19.000 people people was chosen. When tickets went faster than Roadrunner crashing over the coyote a decision was made to expand the capacity to 33.000, leaving people in bad seats who had great ones at first. Then on the day of the show Springsteen was caught with a nasty virus, needing to postpone to the next day. Being an artist that attacks fans from all over the globe this meant some off them were stranded. Springsteen had something he needed to make up for, he did so in spades.

The Gelredome isn't a real intimate arena, seats are up high, no where near the stage, the floor a wide concrete spread. The pit was huge and held some thousand people. The stage itself was higher than it usually is, fans couldn't lean on the catwalk like is customary these days with Springsteen shows. Not an ideal setting to see the Boss. In effect this was his first stadium show in what's supposed to be a barn storming tour. But still, when the first notes of "Radio Nowhere" hit the crowd exploded in a feverish release, hardly relenting throughout the shows. European crowds are different from the American crowds in that way. They seem more fanatic when an artist like Springsteen hits Europe. We've got fewer possibilities to see the real thing and when we do we dive into it full force. It also means European fans are ruder when it comes to getting into the pit and cutting in line. I found the American crowds to be more relaxed, easier to hang around with. "I'm Alive" Springsteen joked before crashing into "Radio", as the show would proof the Boss being alive spoke for itself.

After "Radio Nowhere" Springsteen drove that train straight into "No Surrender", maybe the song that reflects his commitment to R&R best, "We learned more from a three minute record man, than we ever learned in school". With the base pounding in your ears and chest, those are the lines that make you feel like your heart is about to explode. It was the material from Magic again that allowed for some rest points in the frantic set. By the time he hit "Gypsy Biker" I felt like I had already witnessed a complete show. We weren't even 15 minutes in. With the material on "Magic" Springsteen tries to reflect the times were living in, the challenges we face as we experience the fall out from the so called "War On Terror". Reflecting the disoriented times where "The truth feels like a lie and a lie appears to be the truth" Springsteen said as he explained to us that the title song of his album was about tricks, not about Magic. Springsteen commentary isn't up front, never really direct, but the emotional layers of the show tell you where he's coming from. Springsteen is angry and tears into that anger with a sweaty fervor. His determined to be optimistic anthem "Promised Land" follows the somewhat ironic "Living In The Future", a song both about the denial of these times as their impending shadow hanging over us. Springsteen wouldn't be the Boss is he didn't signal us to take control of our own destiny again. To take our lives back from those "tyrants and kings".

That same anger is reflected in the relentlessly rocking version of "Reason to Believe", with Bruce belting over John Lee Hookers brand of road house blues. That anger comes back in "Last to Die", it is there again as "we spit in the face off these bad lands". If this would have been the complete picture Bruce would've have painted with his Magic show, his message would've been impressive enough. But the Boss never stops there. He wouldn't stop without offering promise and release. And there was release in abundance last night. There was the sexual release in "She's The One" with hip grinding Bod Diddley beats. There was the release in "Darlington County", an infectious R&R rave up compelling you in silly dance moves somewhere between the Monkey and the Penguin. There was the ultimate release in "Born To Run", that ultimate E-Street song which throws the audience in to R&R camaraderie.

The band seemed in prime shape last night. Clarence was slinging his tambourines looking like he was ready to kill, hardly missing a note on his saxophone. Little Steven was belting out his Soulful not so honey sweet moans on "Long Walk Home" as the band's guardian of R&R. Though Danny was sorely missed Charles did a great job replacing him. Springsteen himself was stirring up a storm, going in his trademark Gospel belting at one point, slinging his guitar, shooting raucous erratic R&R chords, leaving the audience drained yet screaming for more.

The show's high point this time came from an unexpected "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town". A song he regularly pulls out in the States during the Holiday season but had never reached our side of the pond. He rechristened it to "Sinterklaas Is Coming To Town" after our version of the Holiday. An unlikely stadium breaker, but it did the trick.



"Living In The Future"
"Promised Land"
"Darlington County"

The Elusive Lasting Appeal of Gary "US" Bonds

Gary "US" Bonds is a strange phenomenon in the world of Soul. One of those artists who's reputation transcends his body of work or the relevance there of. Gary's biggest trump card is a handful of hits scored in the early sixties that got him to headline the Beatles in Europe during his 1963 tour. His hits "New Orleans" and "Quarter to Three" on the Legrand label hit big because of the cunning marketing ploy by record producer Frank Guida. Born Gary Anderson he was marketed as "US" Bonds, hoping the war bonds association would get DJs to play him, mistaking the "New Orleans" 45 for a public service announcement to ensure Bonds' success the color of his skin was also hidden from the public. DJs and audiences thought Bonds was white. According to Bonds himself this contributed to his success in the Pop charts. The ploy worked and "New Orleans" found its way to the charts, crossing over from Pop to R&B, a rarity those days. Catchy as this single and the follow up "Quarter to Three" were it is hard to see today why Gary "US" Bonds has such a lasting appeal. His hits weren't anything ground breaking, they fitted perfectly in the trend of early sixties R&R singles souped up with a Gospel feel. Great as those singles were, they had to compete with literally thousands of other singles for a lasting appeal.



A few things aside from the initial cross over success helped. Amongst songs cut for the Legrand were a few gems that had a big appeal on the collectors and the hipsters, ever searching for hidden gems. "Where Did The Naughty Little Girl Go" and "I Wanta Holler (But The Town's Too Small)". Second was his association to unrecognized genius Jerry "Swamp Dogg" Williams, with whom Bonds wrote some of Soul's golden moments, all hidden and obscure. Yet somehow Swamp Dogg's work has always found its way to collectors and Gary's reputation may have benefited from that.

There also was his live reputation. Bonds undeniably had a stage presence. He was rowdy yet at the same time very charming. Bonds always had the air of a very accessible entertainer which must have gained him some lasting appeal amongst his peers or the people who saw him perform. Though it is not certain if Little Steven van Zandt, guitar player of Bruce Springsteen's E-Street Band, ever saw "US" Bonds perform, but he liked him enough to get the Boss hip to him in '75. Bruce Springsteen, who had just released his break through album Born to Run, still had too little material himself to flesh out his marathon shows. His own body of work was also missing the rave up material he needed to close the show. Quarter to Three was added to the encores on a regular basis to send those crowds home in a frenzy.



A couple of years down the road Springsteen would repay Bonds his depth when he contributed three songs to the Little Steven produced "Dedication" album and eleven more to the follow up "On the Line". Springsteen was at the time in his creative peek in terms of out put. In the same time these two albums were released, Springsteen put the River on the market. That double album was in a sense a tribute to the era of Bonds, a celebration of the 45 era. The River was initially intended to be a single album called "The Ties That Bind" (Still widely available as a bootleg) , but with creative juices flowing it soon expanded into the double we have now, with enough material in the vaults for two more.

Gary "US" Bonds was the logical vessel for that material, after all he had his peek in the era that album paid tribute to. Bonds knew how to handle that material maybe even better than Springsteen himself knew. On both albums the E-Street Band provided the backing with Little Steven at the production wheels. For the latter this must have been a dream come true. Van Zandt had long since been pushing Springsteen to record a true Garage Rock 'n Soul album, preferably in Mono. On the River van Zandt was side tracked by producer John Landau and Springsteen's own ambitions to expand his song writing skills. The River became much more than it initially set out to be on the "Ties That Bind". Especially "On The Line" stayed closer to the original concept Little Steven had in mind for the River. On the Bonds albums he was the Boss. Resulting in what could arguably be the best sounding E-Street Band records that ever hit the market. It seemed that Little Steven had a better idea of how the band should be produced than the Boss himself.

"Dedication" and "On the Line" were also two of the few true Rock 'n Soul albums released in the eighties, a time when heartfelt and authentic R&B seemed to have died. Soul and R&B were basically crushed under the weight of Disco and FM radio formats. The genres that depended so much on local markets and "mom and pop" record labels or local radio stations, simply couldn't compete with the block buster sales of albums like "Saturday Night Fever". A 100.000 copies of an album sold, very respectable figures back in the day, suddenly weren't enough anymore for the big record companies, once again dominating the field. Soul and R&B had always been a singles market, where the profits were slow. Soul veterans like Bobby Womack or Gary "US" Bonds were dropped like a brick or simply couldn't get signed. The Springsteen push behind the albums got Bonds very respectable sales again in a time when the genre went all but belly up. Even though songs like "Out of Work" had that undeniable blue collar Springsteen Rock stamped all over it, most of "On The Line" shortly brought back the music Van Zandt and Springsteen grew up on.

After the early eighties, Bonds slowly slid back in obscurity again. He remained popular on the oldies circuit, especially on the East-Coast, where his Springsteen association continued to draw him crowds. As his 2001 live album attested these live shows were something to behold indeed. Listen to "King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents Gary U.S. Bonds" and some of his lasting appeal becomes apparent. Bonds knows how to work a crowd and his joyful Rock 'n Soul singles hark back to a time when things seemed simpler. Gary "US" Bonds represents that time before the massive cultural shift in the half to late sixties, when the USA was simply a country filled with promise and being proud of the USA wasn't such a mixed an uneasy affair as it is today. Bonds represents a time before social unrest, before Vietnam, before massive lay offs. Gay "US" Bonds puts you smack dab back in the middle of a time when General Motors made the world's best cars, back in the day of Juke Boxes and diners, back in the day of Junior High Prom and mom's apple pie. Bonds is class A nostalgia.

Bonds came back unnoticed once more with the ironic album title "Back in 20" issued in 2004, some twenty years after his comeback with the E-Street Band albums. The album went largely unnoticed by the buying public. even though it found Bonds once again collaborating with Springsteen on the opening song "Can't Teach an Old Dog New Tricks". That raucous opener sums up the album perfectly. "Back in 20" is a great old fashioned R&B album, somewhat grittier than what Bonds did in the past, closer to his current live sound, but essentially what he's been doing since the release of "New Orleans".

"New Orleans"
"I Wanta Holler (But The Town's Too Small)"
"Out of Work"
"Can't Teach an Old Dog New Tricks"

Official Site.