It was between the break up of The Bruce Springsteen Band and the formation of The E Street Band that Bruce hired new management to help take his career to the next level. In 1972 his management arranged for a series of recording dates. Most of these sessions were for the purpose of recording what are called publishing demos. One session was an audition for John Hammond of Columbia Records who wanted to sign him right on the spot.
These sessions produced more than 70 songs according to some sources with half of those songs circulating on bootlegs and a small handful officially released on box sets and other compilations. The majority of these tracks are solo recordings of just Bruce and a guitar or piano. John Hammond wanted Bruce to continue in this style but Bruce had other ideas and soon The E Street Band was born.
But what if Bruce had released a solo record before Greetings From Asbury Park? What would it have sounded like? Well wonder no more as I present the latest installment in my Debut Albums That Never Happened series, Bruce Springsteen circa 1972.
Side One
01 Two Hearts In True Waltz Time
02 Jesse
03 Arabian Night
04 Jazz Musician
05 Family Song
Side Two
06 Hollywood Kids
07 Randolph Street (Master Of Electricity)
08 Lady and the Doctor
09 If I Was The Priest
10 Prodigal Son
Reality Notes
It took me a while to warm up to Bruce. I owned and enjoyed the Nebraska album but not much else. It took the Live '75-'85 box to open me up to his other stuff. Since then I dove deep into his catalog only to come up for air occasionally. I first heard these recordings on a pair of bootlegs, Before The Fame and The Early Years. Each was a two disc set with a large overlap of titles but each containing a few unique songs. Between them they held 36 songs from this period.
To create this alternate debut album I listened to each song and slowly removed songs until I had a good solid single LP. I first removed any song that was later recorded for the first two albums. I then took out any song that featured a full band. This still left me with enough songs for a halfway decent double album but how many labels would be willing to take the risk of releasing a debut double album? Not Me so I continued removing songs until I was satisfied I had only the cream of the crop.
With the exception of the first song which has a bass guitar behind the guitar all other songs are just Bruce and one instrument. Two songs, Jazz Musician and If I Was The Priest, feature the piano. The rest are guitar songs but a few use a 12 string, some use a steel six string and at least one sounds like a classical nylon stringed guitar so we have a variety of sounds and styles.
The fidelity of these songs were pretty good to begin with so very little was needed as far as mastering was concerned. I did brighten things up slightly but my main task was in sequencing and making sure that there was enough variety to keep the album from being boring and same sounding which is what keeps me from listening to the original discs straight through.
There are enough tracks leftover for a decent follow up if I allow songs with more instruments but it would take a suspension of belief to allow an artist to release three albums in such a short time span. This album would have to be released in July '72 at the earliest to allow all songs to be used. Asbury Park was released in January '73 and the follow up was released in September '73. Both of those albums would have to be pushed back to make room for a follow up to this album. As prolific as Bruce can be record labels usually like to give the audience some time to digest one album before releasing another.
I'm really happy with how the cover turned out. I managed to simulate a cutout that exposes a picture of Bruce on the inner sleeve of the album. You can imagine pulling out the sleeve and reading the liner notes and lyrics. I cannot say for certain that the picture is of the right vintage but Bruce's image did not change much from '72 to '75 and this picture has that brooding singer/songwriter/Dylan vibe that I imagine he was going for at the time.
Sources
Before The Fame
The Early Years
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