Springsteen To Tour

[DRL]

Springsteen To Tour
Behind New Album
Feb 16 2005


(AP - New York) The seeds for Bruce Springsteen's new album Devils & Dust were sown nearly a decade ago, when the singer-songwriter launched his first-ever solo acoustic tour.
"I was so excited after playing on that tour, I'd get off the stage and go write," Springsteen told The Associated Press about those 1995-96 dates. "Then I put those songs on the shelf for a while, until I had a chance to revisit them."
The visit is now complete, with a 12-song album due in stores on April 26 - Springsteen's first release of all-new material since his September 11-themed The Rising in July 2002. A tour was planned to follow the release, although Springsteen said it was unclear if he would perform alone or with a small band.
Two of the new album's songs, "The Hitter" and "Long Time Comin'," were actually written and performed on The Ghost of Tom Joad tour. But not all the material dates back that far; the title track was written around the start of the war in Iraq, Springsteen said.
"It works as a metaphor for all the music underneath it, the individual stories of people wrestling with their demons," Springsteen said of the title track. "A lot of it is set in the west, in what feels like a rural setting.
"It's about people working through their confusions, sometimes well and sometimes tragically," he said in a telephone interview earlier this week.
Springsteen opted to record without the E Street Band for Devils & Dust. The core group was Springsteen on guitar and other instruments, producer Brendan O'Brien on bass and drummer Steve Jordan, who had produced last year's 23rd Street Lullaby album by Springsteen's wife, Patti Scialfa.
In keeping with his pattern of recording, the new album is a quieter, more acoustic affair than The Rising. Springsteen, now 55, has alternated between large-scale rock records followed by more introspective material since 1982's Nebraska was released two years after The River.
Pedal steel guitar, harmonica and violin fill in the sparse, rootsy arrangements. Springsteen, who says his vocal range has expanded with age, provides some higher-pitched vocals on the track "All I'm Thinking About."
Springsteen said the accompanying tour would be an acoustic affair whether he performs alone or with a band, targeting theaters and smaller venues.
"I was actually signed as an acoustic act, and I've always enjoyed playing acoustic," Springsteen said. "Even when I was in a band, back in my early days, I was always writing songs that weren't meant for the band."

[LS]

Springsteen Spiffs Up 'Devils & Dust'

Bruce Springsteen's new album, "Devils & Dust," will be released in DualDisc format on April 26. In addition to the standard audio tracks on one side, the DVD side will sport acoustic renditions of the title track, "Long Time Comin'," "Reno," All I'm Thinkin' About" and "Matamoras Banks," filmed by Danny Clinch last month in New Jersey.

In addition, Springsteen has added his extensive introductions to the tracks. The DVD also boasts a 5.1 Surround Sound mix of the album.

"Devils & Dust" will be available as a deluxe edition, with exclusive photographs and what the label describes as "unique, song-specific elements" for each of the 12 tracks. This version will also be issued as a DualDisc.

The new album follows the format of Springsteen's '90s studio work, in which he eschewed the presence of the full E Street Band and was instead surrounded by a rotating cast of collaborators. The core band features only Springsteen on guitar, producer Brendan O'Brien on bass and Steve Jordan (Steely Dan, Keith Richards) on drums. The latter also produced Springsteen's wife Patti Scialfa's 2004 Columbia studio album, "23rd Street Lullaby."

[LS]

On 'Devils & Dust,' Springsteen Rocks On, Powerfully, In The Real World
by Glenn Gamboa
DROPS
April 21, 2005

When Bruce Springsteen sings, he bends his knees and plants his right foot firmly on the stage. This leaves his left foot free to tap out the beat or hover in midair, which it does a lot, especially when he's singing about something emotional.

It's a lot like his music - always grounded in straightforward rock and always reaching for something more, something uncertain. Over the years, this split has even become more or less formalized in his two performing personas: Springsteen the Man and Springsteen the Bandleader.

Springsteen the Bandleader, charismatic head of the mighty E Street Band, is the popular one - the one who sings of tramps like us and dancing in the dark. Springsteen the Man is the solo artist, the one who sings of Tom Joad and reasons to believe.

"Devils & Dust" (Columbia) is the latest album from Springsteen the Man and it tackles the heady material one would expect - war and loss, broken hearts and busted dreams. However, the uplifting songs, especially the gorgeous acoustic blues romp "All I'm Thinkin' About" and the powerful, break-the-cycle rocker "Long Time Comin'," will surely please even the toughest fan of Springsteen the Bandleader.

"The people that are interesting are the people who have something eating at them and they're not exactly sure what that thing is," Springsteen explains on the accompanying DVD documentary. "The characters on this record are all trying to find their way through that, through those questions. Some do somewhat successfully and some come to tragic ends."

"Black Cowboys," for example, is the wrenching story of a boy who leaves home because his once-loving mother falls in love with a drug dealer and becomes an addict. Its power comes not just from Springsteen's intricate details and his moving vocals, but also because it flies in the face of what we've come to expect from Springsteen the Bandleader. There's no triumph - or even escape - in this story, only heartache. You could waste your summer praying in vain for a savior to rise from many of the streets Springsteen the Man walks in "Devils & Dust."

In "Reno," Springsteen sings in graphic terms about how an evening with a hooker can't fill the emptiness that comes from a lost love. The desperation feels even more potent as Springsteen sings in a Dylanesque drawl over the lonesome country sounds of the Nashville String Machine.

At least in "Matamoros Banks" - a haunting, poignant tale of a failed attempt to cross the Rio Grande to come to America - the narrator has the memories of her lover for comfort, even though he has died in his attempt to reach her.

"What I did on this record and I've done on a few other records is tell very specific narrative stories," Springsteen says in the documentary. "These are all songs about people whose souls are in danger or at risk through where they are in the world or what the world is bringing to them. That's a human constant. That risk is something they feel on a daily basis."

At a taping of an episode for VH1's "Storytellers" earlier this month in Red Bank, N.J., Springsteen said he's not sure that talking about his lyrics really works. "It's kind of an iffy proposition," he said. "Talking about music is like talking about sex. Can you describe it? Are you supposed to? ... It's better when demonstrated."

Yet he was forthcoming about his current single, "Devils & Dust's" title track, and its origins. He said the song's narrator is a "regular guy caught in the crosshairs of history," as he sings, "I got my finger on the trigger, but I don't know who to trust."

Following the onset of the Iraqi war and the erosion of civil liberties after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he wanted to write a song to be an example of where "the personal and political collide."

Without taking sides, he asks the question: "We've got God on our side, we're just trying to survive. What if what you do to survive kills the things you love?"

"How much of this was I thinking about when I wrote it? None of it," Springsteen said. "How much of it was I feeling? All of it."

The feeling that Springsteen captures is what makes "Devils & Dust" not only one of the album's strongest songs, but arguably one of his strongest solo songs ever.

At the "Storytellers" taping, he showed other links between his earlier solo work and his current songs. He explained how the theme behind "Nebraska" is that "Everyone knows what it's like to be condemned." The theme behind "Jesus Was an Only Son," a new song that looks at the relationship between Mary and Jesus as mother and son, he said, is "Everybody knows what it's like to be saved."

The "Devils & Dust" album is sort of a cross between the stark Americana of "Nebraska" and the political world view of "The Rising." However, once again Springsteen strives to take it to a new level, using his malleable voice in extraordinary ways. He adopts a soulful falsetto for "All I'm Thinkin' About," a folkie bellow for "Long Time Comin'" and a Neil Young-ish twang for "Maria's Bed."

Springsteen also has strengthened his songwriting skills, filling songs that are not autobiographical with the same loving details that were once reserved for his remembrances of New Jersey.

As it stands, "Devils & Dust" is a powerful combination of the soul-searching Springsteen the Man and the life-affirming Springsteen the Bandleader - a challenge to Bob Dylan's "Love and Theft" and Damien Rice's "O" as one of the best-written albums of the past five years. It's a unification process that started with "The Rising" and has really been a long time coming.

For Springsteen, it should be a natural fit - a lot like walking. It's just a matter of the left foot and the right foot working together to get where they need to go.

("Devils & Dust," in stores Tuesday; Grade: A)

Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.

[snizz]

I give it 4 1/2 beers! ;D It's cool to hear he finally got around to recording a few that he's been doing for a while. I have to withhold giving it a full 5 beers though. He has to learn he can't go back and record something after Southside records it. After old Johnny gets done with it, nothing else can hold a candle to his version.
So what do you say there Jersey girl? ;D

[LS]

Jersey girl totally agrees... ;D

Egads!! Since I'd already heard most of it- that's the one I headed for first...don't ask me why, ;D but I really was looking forward to hearing his own version. When it started playing- it was totally unrecogizable and I'd thought I'd accidentally hit the wrong track number. Double checked- and according to the track listing it was the right one- so I hit play again...heard the same totally foreign melody and took me 2 more listens to realize he was singing the same lyrics!! You're definitely right...he should never, ever record something after Johnny does...He actually managed to totally massacre his own song ...and a really great one too!!

...But otherwise I likes it fine. ;D I was expecting something between Nebraska & Tom Joad- but it's actually closer to Tunnel Of Love. Can't wait to hear "Maria's Bed" with the band- that should be awesome!!