Yes, it was a clear, crisp, and cold Saturday night, and I knew,
after a while, that it was a night to hear some Bruce-like sounds. Maybe it
felt this way because it was a cold night like a “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out,” or maybe
it was a night to be “Dancing in the Dark.”
Whatever it was, it was somehow in the air scattered about my hometown.
A few nights ago, I heard that songwriters Cynthia Weill and Barry
Mann wrote “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” recorded by Eric Burden and the
Animals, an emotional anthem of the late 60s that was a great influence on
Bruce Springsteen and his Born to Run spirit. Many years ago, I interviewed Barry Mann for
the Good Times magazine—still going strong in Long Island at 50 years. Barry
and I really hit it off that day, and it felt like a special interview. We spent several hours exchanging ideas about
what was great rock music, and we explored, in some small way, the mysteries of
how it was created. That day, I felt like I tapped into the source of
some great rock and this special connection to Barry Mann, thereby connected me
to Bruce as if I introduced Bruce to the Mann/Weill song.
Tonight, a few blocks from my home, on a nearby hometown-main
street, Bruce in the USA, a Bruce cover band was playing at the local State
Theatre. I have to admit that I always feel
a little ambivalent about cover bands, because true rock seems unbounded, and a
cover band tends to imitate and stay within its boundaries. So I was ambivalent, and did not buy tickets
in advance. When I got to the State
Theatre and waited in line, I ran into an old friend who I had not seen for a
while, so it was already a good night. But the cover band was sold out, and I
would not be hearing live Bruce-like sounds tonight.
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