The artist Jackson Browne called “the embodiment of rock”
As the 1970s got underway, the golden age of the singer-songwriter was just beginning. Although many great artists since The Beatles had tried their hand at writing original songs as opposed to a laundry list of covers, it took a master’s touch to turn a decent song into something beautiful, with artists like Joni Mitchell and James Taylor creating perfect melodies behind their songs. While Jackson Browne was getting his feet wet in the California rock scene, he found the next phase of history on the other side of the country.
While Browne had carved himself out as a decent songwriter with tracks like ‘Doctor My Eyes’, some of his most excellent material was used by his friends. Working around the same time that the Eagles were making their first inroads to success, Glenn Frey would eventually help Browne finish off songs, coming up with the central lines for tracks like ‘Take It Easy’.
While Browne had a specific science to making a hit song, it would never come easy. Throughout his first few years of writing, Browne would spend most of his time working with a teapot next to his piano, going over songs line by line until he was comfortable with it. As Browne was finetuning his songs in LA, Bruce Springsteen was making tracks that became lyrical masterpieces in New Jersey.
Instead of the sounds of California sunshine, Springsteen wanted to write tracks that were more indicative of where he came from, penning spellbinding tales of down-and-out heroes who are looking to make their dreams come true no matter what the cost. Even though Browne could tug on listener’s heartstrings when he wanted to, he was convinced that he saw where music would be headed when he heard Springsteen for the first time.
Speaking to Rolling Stone, Browne would say that Springsteen’s performances with The E Street Band were some of the greatest that he would ever see, recalling, “I’d never seen anybody do what he was doing: He would play acoustic guitar and dance all over the place, and the guitar wasn’t plugged into anything. There wasn’t this meticulous need to have every note heard. It filled that college gym with so much emotion that it didn’t matter if you didn’t hear every note.”
Over the years, it’s easy to see Springsteen’s style of songwriting making subtle inroads into Browne’s writing as well. Throughout albums like Running on Empty, the characters that permeate Browne’s songs remain lost to their own emotions, constantly looking for something other than the raw hand they were dealt in life.
Even though Browne never had an opportunity to work alongside ‘The Boss’, he would say that he is the personification of what great music should always be, explaining, “In many ways, Bruce Springsteen is the embodiment of rock and roll. Combining strains of Appalachian music, rockabilly, blues and R&B, his work epitomises rock’s greatest values: desire, the need for freedom and the search to find yourself.” Browne may always be concerned with pushing music forward in his songwriting, but Springsteen is more interested in the here and now than the future.
