Bruce Springsteen Forum

YOUR NIGHTLY 'E&P' VIDEO: A Springsteen Rarity from 1973

By Greg Mitchell
Published: December 19, 2006 4:00 PM ET

NEW YORK When we first launched the "nightly video" feature here, one of our first offerings was a Bruce Springsteen rarity from 1972 -- what I believe was a tryout for John Hammond of Columbia Records well before Bruce's first album (as we used to call them). That video proved popular, so here's another.

This one comes from 1973 or so, and I remember it well. Not to belabor the point, but when I was at the legendary Crawdaddy magazine, I wrote with Peter Knobler the first magazine article about Bruce before that first album came out, a 10,000-word opus titled, "Who is Bruce Springsteen and Why Are We Saying These Wonderful Things About Him?" The rest, as they say, is history.

That "Greetings from Asbury Park" record sold poorly and his second album, "The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle" also got off to a slow start, despite our continual flogging for it. Eventually, Jon Landau (later his manager/producer) wrote a rave for a Boston weekly that pushed Columbia into overdrive. The video here was the result -- a belated "promo" film to keep interest alive while Bruce finished his turning point "Born to Run" album.

But as usual, Columbia in 1973 didn't know quite how to sell him. Landau was pushing him more into rock yet the promo features "Circus Song," still in the acoustic mode, and "Thundercrack," one of Bruce's best early rockers -- but not on either of his records. Oh well, things worked out okay for the boy in the end.

On a personal note: Both of those songs were featured when Peter and I first saw Bruce perform at the old Kenny's Castaways in New York on my birthday, Dec. 7, 1972. We had accompanied Bruce to Sing Sing prison for a very scary gig earlier that day. But that's another story.

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