The band Bruce Springsteen said “course through my veins”
In American rock music, very few artists are as comprehensively talented as Bruce Springsteen. Not only is The Boss a uniquely gifted songwriter who covers poignant and culturally pertinent topics, but he is also a dynamic showman capable of getting the hips shaking and arms swaying. After all, Springsteen learned from the very best as a lifelong fan of Elvis Presley and an early Beatles convert.
As a solo artist, Springsteen’s showmanship is comparable to that of Presley, whom he saw performing on television as a child. “I saw Elvis on TV, and when I first saw Elvis, I was nine, but I was a little young, tried to play the guitar, but it didn’t work out, I put it away,” Springsteen once told Rolling Stone. Perhaps he was a little young at the time. However, a few years in, The Beatles tipped the scales and sealed Springsteen’s fate. “The keeper was in 1964, ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’,” he added.
After becoming fascinated with The Beatles’ early hits, “it was nothing but rock ‘n’ roll and guitars” for Springsteen. However, the four-piece from Liverpool wasn’t the be-all and end-all. In The Beatles’ wake, British invasion stalwarts like The Kinks, The Rolling Stones and The Who rose to global prominence and further demonstrated the scope of rock ‘n’ roll.
Springsteen was particularly enthusiastic about The Who. The London-born band emerged with era-defying hits like ‘My Generation’ and ‘Can’t Explain’, stabilising with groundbreaking rock operas and heavy live shows precursory to the punk and metal genres. The band boasted the lyrical power of Roger Daltrey, the percussive excellence of Keith Moon and the unmatched bass virtuosity of John Entwistle. However, as a guitarist, Springsteen was always most impressed by bandleader Pete Townshend.
In 2015, Springsteen presented Townshend with the Stevie Ray Vaughan Award for his work for MusiCares charity. During his speech, the American singer remembered that the first rock concert he attended was a stop on The Who’s 1967 US tour. “I was a young pimply-faced teenager who managed to scrap enough together to go see my first rock concert ever,” he recalled. “Pete and The Who were young pimply-faced teenagers with a record contract, a tour and a rude, aggressive magic.”
Although the set was markedly short, Springsteen remembered being entranced by the infectious energy and Townshend’s famous destructive tendencies. “The Who came out, and they played for probably a little more than 30 minutes,” he continued. “Pete, in a cloud of smoke, demolished his guitar, bashing it over and over into the floor and his amplifier. All I knew, for some reason, this music and the demolishing of all these perfectly fine instruments filled me with incredible joy and I never looked back.”
As the 1970s dawned, Springsteen set about establishing his own music career with an early incarnation of the E Street Band. As he made his first steps, the Boss felt the spirit of The Who coursing in his veins. “As I grew older, The Who’s music seemed to grow with me, the sexual frustration, politics, identity,” Springsteen noted. “These things course through my veins with every concurring Who album. I always found myself there somewhere in their music.”
Towards the end of his speech, Springsteen opined that Townshend “is the greatest rhythm guitarist of all time.” For Springsteen, this was important because The Who showed him that he didn’t need to focus on lead guitar. “You don’t have to play any lead,” he said. “It’s an amazing thing to behold. Pete managed to take the dirty business of rock and roll and somehow make it spiritual and turn it into a quest. He may hate this, but he identified the place where it was noble, and he wasn’t afraid to go there.”
Watch Bruce Springsteen perform ‘My Generation with the surviving members of The Who at the MusiCares benefit concert in 2015 below.
