I’m working my way through Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” audio autobiography, which is proving to be quite excellent. I’m a long time fan of Bruce, but with the same frustrations that I have with Dylan. At his best Bruce is extraordinary, but at times I remain mystified at his output which is often somewhat bombastic. That said just as I can forgive Dylan for his X Mas album, as he released the brilliant Blood on the Tracks and Highway 61, I can forgive Bruce for all the duff albums after he released “Darkness on the Edge of Town” and “The River” as well as “Born to Run”
The autobiography is fascinating for a variety of reasons. One of the main things that stands out in the early chapters is just how hard Bruce works to generate any kind of income from his music. Yes, he starts to get a local reputation in New Jersey, but excursions to California are unproductive and pretty demoralizing. Many artists would simply not have the stamina to keep going. There’s a lot of great observations about how certain clubs only want a specific type of music, how many places won’t pay for artists and how often its tough to get the right band dynamics.
This reminds me of Steve Martin’s wonderful autobiography “Born Standing up” which again details how he spent years developing his craft. Its the same for Bruce and its generally accepted that Born to Run was his roll of the dice to become well known after a few moderately well received albums. “Nebraska” was the equivalent of Neil Yong’s “Tonight’s the Night” both far from commercial mass appeal albums. I applaud both artists for such initiatives.
This reinforces my belief that the most successful artists are playing the long game. I have massive respect for this attitude. Bruce also has written some excellent songs with sharp attention to lyrics. The autobiography is also extremely well written and takes the reader or listener to the author’s word. Along with Keith Richard’s book, this is highly recommended.