The guitarist Bruce Springsteen called one of the best in America: “Incredible”
Everything Bruce Springsteen ever made was always about capturing the American spirit.
Even though everyone and their mother like to complain that he stands for anything but the USA whenever he sings any number of his songs, that’s only because he’s saying things that a certain subsection of Americans don’t like. There’s no one prouder to be an American than ‘The Boss’, and that means fighting for what he believes in and using the best musicians he can find to help realise his vision every time he plays.
Which explains why the E Street Band has grown so vast over the years. Compared to the traditional set-up for what a rock band is supposed to be, Springsteen has amassed the kind of pedigree that sounds like a rock and roll orchestra half the time. The biggest names in the bands are all legends in their own right, and even though some friends have fallen by the wayside like Clarence Clemons, hearing Nils Lofgren play guitar or Tom Morello in a battle with his instrument is an absolute treat for the eyes and ears whenever they perform.
Rock and roll is always the main factor in any of Springsteen’s songs, but there’s a lot more that goes into making some of his biggest tunes. He doesn’t want to make music that was all about loud guitars and pummelling drums, which probably explains why some of the best albums that he ever made were primarily acoustic. Born to Run is where fans get roped in, but Nebraska is where everyone begins to see the real dirt underneath Springsteen’s boots.
He was willing to talk about subjects that most people would have been too scared to talk about at the time, but there was also a silver lining to a lot of his tunes as well. He didn’t want to count out every single character that he wrote about, and that’s the same reason why he admired people like Pete Seeger. Seeger was an eternal optimist, and that extended to Springsteen when he tried his hand at folksy music.
As he’s grown older, Springsteen wasn’t afraid to wear some of his Americana roots on his sleeve, and even when unveiling some tracks that he didn’t want anyone to hear, you can still hear when he’s trying to get the best out of every recording he made. A lot of what he was doing could be done with just his voice and an acoustic guitar, but he felt like getting someone like Marty Rifkin to play on some of his tracks was the ace in the hole to fill out his tunes.
Rifkin’s reputation as one of the best pedal steel players did make him a bit of an odd choice for Springsteen, but ‘The Boss’ knew when he hit on the right emotion for every song that he sang, saying, “Marty Rifkin is a badass steel guitarist, one of the absolute best in the country. He played with me on the Seeger Sessions tour. He plays tremendously on this album. He’s a real secret resource. He’s an incredible musician, a wonderful guy, and he really comes to the fore and shows what he can do on Somewhere North of Nashville.”
And for someone who was trying to take hold of his country roots, you can definitely hear what Springsteen was going for with Rifkin. This is the kind of record that he kept under wraps that someone like Willie Nelson could have recognised in an instant, and while ‘Repo Man’ is just a taste of what he could do, a lot of what turned into this record felt like the companion piece to what Springsteen was working towards on The Ghost of Tom Joad.
It took a lot of time and patience for him to finally feel comfortable with these kinds of tunes, but Springsteen just needed the right person to show their face in the studio whenever he worked on these tunes. All of these characters needed a proper home, and if they were working on something that was a lot more rootsy, they needed that pedal steel to practically put the tears in everyone’s eyes for them.
