The soul musicians Bruce Springsteen called “my great mentors”
After decades of performing and making music, with plenty of variety making up his discography, the thing that stays at the centre of Bruce Springsteen’s career is authenticity. As both a performer and a songwriter, he always wants to be portrayed as himself, which means only writing songs that come from the heart and experience, as well as putting on gigs that rely on the music and don’t lean on pyrotechnics or lighting.
When you look at Bruce Springsteen’s early influences, it’s obvious why he became so enamoured with writing from the point of truth. One of the first artists he was ever obsessed with was Bob Dylan, who he continues to call the “father” of his country because of how truthfully he can write about it.
“I was very influenced by Dylan. I always say he’s the father of my country,” said Springsteen, “He initially provided me with a picture of a country that I recognised. One that feels real, feels like the truth.”
He always said that when he made music, he wanted people to react similarly to what he had when he first listened to Bob Dylan. “I want people to get the same experience from listening to one of my records as I had when I listened to Highway 61 Revisited,” he said, “The idea that something was revealed to them that was fundamentally true and essential, and gave you a view of your world, your country, your town, your neighbours, your family.”
With this kind of mindset, it was never easy for Bruce Springsteen to play covers, as he always found it difficult to play somebody else’s song in a way that did it justice. While he’s no stranger, they’ve always come from a place of truth, as they take an anti-war stance or are about his hometown. When he was putting together an album of covers, though, Springsteen found it particularly hard to pick the songs he should be performing.
“Initially, it was really hard,” he said, “I was picking material and I’m going, ‘It’s hard to sing somebody else’s songs, and get them to sound authentic and it’s coming out of you’. So I made an entire record that I threw out.”
Eventually, he put together his own rendition of Frank Wilson’s ‘Do I Love You’ and decided to lean on soul musicians and Motown when recording these covers. He admitted he was already a huge fan of the style of music and felt a deep connection with it, so putting his own variations of songs out was quite simple.
“I said, well, maybe I’ll orient myself towards soul music, because it’s how I grew up, and all my great mentors were soul men that came, Sam Moore and, of course, James Brown, Smokey Robinson as a writer,” he said, “I mean, just so many. And the great singers, David Ruffin, Levi Stubbs, all masters. They were all my masters, and I said well, let me try and sing some of this material.”
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