“I lost a great friend and a great hero last night,” Bruce Springsteen said yesterday night, onstage at the Bellville Velodrome in South Africa. “Pete back home was a very courageous freedom fighter. This is a song he adopted and helped popularize… Once you heard this song, you were prepared to march into hell’s fire.”
Then he sang “We Shall Overcome.”
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The celebrated and influential folksinger and activist Peter Seeger died on Monday at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan.
He was 94 years old.
Seeger scored hit records in the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers; their recording of Lead Belly’s “Goodnight, Irene” topped the charts for 13 weeks in 1950, according to Wikipedia.
The New York Times wrote today:
Mr. Seeger’s career carried him from singing at labor rallies to the Top 10 to college auditoriums to folk festivals, and from a conviction for contempt of Congress (after defying the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s) to performing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at an inaugural concert for Barack Obama.
For Mr. Seeger, folk music and a sense of community were inseparable, and where he saw a community, he saw the possibility of political action.
In his hearty tenor, Mr. Seeger, a beanpole of a man who most often played 12-string guitar or five-string banjo, sang topical songs and children’s songs, humorous tunes and earnest anthems, always encouraging listeners to join in. His agenda paralleled the concerns of the American left: He sang for the labor movement in the 1940s and 1950s, for civil rights marches and anti-Vietnam War rallies in the 1960s, and for environmental and antiwar causes in the 1970s and beyond. “We Shall Overcome,” which Mr. Seeger adapted from old spirituals, became a civil rights anthem.
Rolling Stone called Seeger “a seminal figure in American music who kept folk music alive and influenced generations of musicians from Bob Dylan to Bruce Springsteen…”
Pete Seeger and The Weavers sing “Goodnight Irene”:
“Beans in My Ears”:
Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan, “Playboys and Playgirls”:
Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen, “This Land Is Your Land,” Obama inauguration:
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New video for “Just Like Fire Would” off High Hopes.
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This is tremendous. Last night Bruce Springsteen appeared on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” and turned “Born To Run” into a sarcastic commentary on the Governor Chris Christie Bridgegate scandal.
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Finally, the new Bruce Springsteen album, High Hopes, is here. If you dig it, buy it January 14, 2014.
High Hopes is out 1/14 via Columbia.
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Johanna’s Visions posted this excellent recording of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s entire concert at Long Island’s Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Dec. 29, 1980, along with some info about the gig.
Listen to the entire set here, and head to Johanna’s Visions for more info.
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An in-process handwritten draft of Bruce Springsteen’s lyrics for “Born To Run” sold at Sotheby’s today for $197,000.
At one time the notebook page was owned by Springsteen’s former manager, Mike Appel, according to Sotheby’s. However the identiy of the seller nor the buyer have been revealed.
Of course if you don’t need to have the original, you could do like I did and print out this scan of the lyric sheet.
It’s not gonna get you $197,000 but it’s pretty cool to check out a work in progress, especially when the writer is Bruce Springsteen and the song is “Born To Run.”
For more on the auction, check out this Associated Press story.
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A notebook page on which Bruce Springsteen worked on his trademark song, “Born To Run,” is going up for auction at Sotheby’s and is valued between $70,000 and $100,000.
The page reveals that the song didn’t come fully formed onto the page. Rather, much of the original lyric was reworked.
Check out a larger version of the notebook page here.
Here’s a line that didn’t make it:
They live in fury chasin’ the bad kind of fools glory down a killer’s highway into mainlined [scribbled word] of the sun.
Here are some lines that in revamped form did:
I looked out cross my hood + saw the highway buckle neath the wheels of a gold Chevy 6.
I was headin for the place were good girls die in the arms of wild angels in one last kiss.
There’s also this alternative version of that last line:
I was headin for the place where wild angels die in an everlasting or neverending kiss.
If this is of interest, there’s an article in the New York Times to check out.
Here’s the released version:
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New Springsteen album, High Hopes, will be released January 14, 2014.
The album mixes covers, originals and new versions of older songs. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello appears on eight tracks. It was produced by Brendan O’Brien and Ron Aniello.
Here’s more info off Springsteen’s website:
High Hopes finds Bruce in a number of different musical settings, and includes the members of the E Street Band as well as guitarist Tom Morello and many additional players. Recorded in New Jersey, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Australia and New York City, High Hopes marks Bruce’s 18th studio album and includes his own liner notes that detail the album’s evolution, viewable now at brucespringsteen.net.
Morello joined Bruce and the E Street Band on tour in Australia in March 2013 (sitting in for Steve Van Zandt), and became, as Bruce says, “my muse, pushing the rest of this project to another level.” Besides his guitar playing on the album, Morello also duets with Bruce on ”The Ghost of Tom Joad.” Clarence Clemons, who passed away in 2011, and Danny Federici, who passed away in 2008, also appear on several songs of what Springsteen calls “some of our best unreleased material from the past decade.”
Here’s the “High Hopes” video:
High Hopes tracklisting:
1. High Hopes (Tim Scott McConnell) – featuring Tom Morello
2. Harry’s Place * – featuring Tom Morello
3. American Skin (41 Shots) – featuring Tom Morello
4. Just Like Fire Would (Chris J. Bailey) – featuring Tom Morello
5. Down In The Hole *
6. Heaven’s Wall ** – featuring Tom Morello
7. Frankie Fell In Love
8. This Is Your Sword
9. Hunter Of Invisible Game * – featuring Tom Morello
10. The Ghost of Tom Joad – duet with Tom Morello
11. The Wall
12. Dream Baby Dream (Martin Rev and Alan Vega) – featuring Tom Morello
All songs written by Bruce Springsteen except as noted
Album produced by Ron Aniello with Bruce Springsteen
*Produced by Brendan O’Brien
**Produced by Brendan O’Brien, co-produced by Ron Aniello with Bruce Springsteen
Here are Springsteen’s liner notes:
I was working on a record of some of our best unreleased material from the past decade when Tom Morello (sitting in for Steve during the Australian leg of our tour) suggested we ought to add “High Hopes” to our live set. I had cut “High Hopes”, a song by Tim Scott McConnell of the LA based Havalinas, in the 90′s. We worked it up in our Aussie rehearsals and Tom then proceeded to burn the house down with it. We re-cut it mid tour at Studios 301 in Sydney along with “Just Like Fire Would”, a song from one of my favorite early Australian punk bands, The Saints (check out “I’m Stranded”). Tom and his guitar became my muse, pushing the rest of this project to another level. Thanks for the inspiration Tom.
Some of these songs, “American Skin” and “Ghost of Tom Joad”, you’ll be familiar with from our live versions. I felt they were among the best of my writing and deserved a proper studio recording. “The Wall” is something I’d played on stage a few times and remains very close to my heart. The title and idea were Joe Grushecky’s, then the song appeared after Patti and I made a visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. It was inspired by my memories of Walter Cichon. Walter was one of the great early Jersey Shore rockers, who along with his brother Ray (one of my early guitar mentors) led the “Motifs”. The Motifs were a local rock band who were always a head above everybody else. Raw, sexy and rebellious, they were the heroes you aspired to be. But these were heroes you could touch, speak to, and go to with your musical inquiries. Cool, but always accessible, they were an inspiration to me, and many young working musicians in 1960′s central New Jersey. Though my character in “The Wall” is a Marine, Walter was actually in the Army, A Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Infantry. He was the first person I ever stood in the presence of who was filled with the mystique of the true rock star. Walter went missing in action in Vietnam in March 1968. He still performs somewhat regularly in my mind, the way he stood, dressed, held the tambourine, the casual cool, the freeness. The man who by his attitude, his walk said “you can defy all this, all of what’s here, all of what you’ve been taught, taught to fear, to love and you’ll still be alright.” His was a terrible loss to us, his loved ones and the local music scene. I still miss him.
This is music I always felt needed to be released. From the gangsters of “Harry’s Place”, the ill-prepared roomies on “Frankie Fell In Love” (shades of Steve and I bumming together in our Asbury Park apartment) the travelers in the wasteland of “Hunter Of Invisible Game,” to the soldier and his visiting friend in “The Wall”, I felt they all deserved a home and a hearing. Hope you enjoy it.
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