“You have to”: The one artist Bruce Springsteen studied to become a legend
Bruce Springsteen never looked at rock and roll like the party music everyone made it out to be. To him, this was salvation through sound, and looking through his record collection, everyone from The Rolling Stones to Chuck Berry to Roy Orbison was a musical saint who showed him the path to righteousness. While there were many people who guided him towards the front of the stage, he learned very quickly that causing a frenzy meant more than having a guitar in one’s hand.
For instance, look at what Elvis Presley did for his audience. Sure, he had a guitar draped across his chest in the first promotional films that he had, but it turned out that if someone had that engaging of a presence, it didn’t matter how fast he was going or what kind of model of guitar he had. It was all about the energy being created, and ‘The Boss’ knew that kind of work like the back of his hand.
Since most of his songs revolved around people with regular nine-to-five jobs, it was for Springsteen to approach his craft like it was his own kind of blue-collar work. He never claimed to be above working for the bottom line, and when he was crafting Born to Run, he was willing to put everything that he could into making the album just so he had something that could reach over the line into classic territory.
And looking at the kind of music he was making, he was never afraid to get incredibly winded by the time a show was over. Even if a certain amount of his shows had him explaining the mechanics of his song in great detail, no one was going to be on their feet for over three hours of an E Street Band performance without thinking that Springsteen was giving it his all. Then again, Springsteen was only doing his version of what the wild man had done one generation before.
There had already been those who stood in wide-eyed amazement at what Chuck Berry was doing, but Berry was tame compared to what one could do behind a piano. Little Richard had shown people what androgyny could look like in rock and roll, and while we were a long way away from artists like Elton John breaking down barriers for everyone, Jerry Lee Lewis could have been considered the devil by many parents’ metrics, almost as if a demonic force possessed him when he bashed out ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin On’.
“The kind of study that had to go on — like the gospel background in Jerry Lee Lewis’ piano playing, and it’s completely informed with church and honky-tonk — and you have to study that stuff.”
Bruce Springsteen
Some may have run in fear, but Springsteen was absolutely mesmerised by what he was hearing, saying, “The kind of study that had to go on — like the gospel background in Jerry Lee Lewis’ piano playing, and it’s completely informed with church and honky-tonk — and you have to study that stuff. I don’t mean study in the sense of literal schooling, but you’re drawn to things that make you seek out what they’re about. That’s studying.”
But there might be more to that gospel angle than Springsteen even realised when he started. The whole point behind his first records was being the kind of poet that Bob Dylan was, but when listening to his later records like The Rising, he wasn’t only using music as a way to communicate. It was a way for people to heal, and from the look on everyone’s faces at his concerts, they knew immediately what he was singing about when playing tunes like ‘Badlands’.
Lewis may have tapped into something a bit more primal back in the day, but ‘The Boss’ knew that studying his ways would give him the power to lead his own musical congregation. He was ready to tap into music that was a lot more powerful than three chords, and once he had the E Street Band behind him, he was ready to become a minister in the mighty church of rock and roll.
