![]() ![]() Live, though, its songs are afforded equal footing. The Ghost of Tom Joad is one of Springsteen’s most searing pieces of commentary but, emerging as it did from his 90s hinterland, it’s often been overlooked in favour of earlier, more youthful treatises on the withering of the American dream. Youngstown (The Ghost of Tom Joad, 1995 / Live in New York City, 2001) “When are you going to record the vocals?” was Jimmy Iovine’s barb when he heard it for the first time. ![]() Springsteen and the E Street Band so successfully tapped into garage band bluster that The River was almost unmixable. The angel and devil on Springsteen’s shoulders telling him to keep things live and loose, he shares plenty of the credit for the euphoric moments when The River really clicks. Dragging the rock ’n’ roll of Springsteen’s youth into the fraught space between the 1970s and 80s, it mainlines jangle-pop leads that would have turned Teenage Fanclub’s heads at any point in the past three decades, feeding off the rough and tumble fun prioritised in the studio by Van Zandt. The Ties That Bind opens side one of The River and perhaps best captures its retro-futuristic charms. The Les Paul in the song’s lyrics belonged to George Theiss, Springsteen’s former Castiles bandmate who passed in 2018, leaving the Boss as the only surviving member. It is in touch with the young Bruce, who saw six strings as a way out of the four walls of his existence. Ghosts is a celebration of old Fender Twins, of the power of the E Street Band at full throttle, and of the musicians whose fingerprints on their sound refuse to fade. “I hear the sound of your guitar,” Springsteen sings in its opening line, answering his own reminiscing with a barrelling rush of chords, with Nils and Steve offering different voicings, capo placements and tunings to Bruce in order to create a barrel-chested charge. Unashamedly nostalgic and with the passing of time weighing on its shoulders, Letter to You kicked against any sense of inevitability through songs like this one. In Bruce Springsteen’s world music is a team sport, as these multifaceted guitar moments attest. But it’s also poised, precise and in service of the whole. His style is punishing and physical, almost hopelessly dramatic. But when the Boss decides to flex, he can flex. ![]() The floor is often ceded to Roy Bittan’s piano or Clarence Clemons’ sax when the big moments strike and his guitar lieutenants – Steve Van Zandt and Nils Lofgren – bring bags of personality to the party. Springsteen’s music and live shows lay bare several things about his work as a guitarist and bandleader: he’s unselfish and unshowy, favouring dynamic performances and the sanctity of the song over fireworks. “I come from a boardwalk town where almost everything is tinged with a bit of fraud,” runs the opening line of Springsteen’s memoir. According to Petillo, the space dates to the Payola era: it housed extra pickups and jacks to multitrack guitar lines, driving up session pay on the sly. READ MORE: The Beatles’ 20 greatest guitar moments, rankedįitted with hot single-coil pickups and Petillo’s triangular frets, the Esquire is also famously light thanks to a large hole under the scratchplate.“With its wood body worn in like the piece of the cross that it was, it became the guitar that I’d play for the next 40 years,” he wrote in his autobiography. In his own words the guitar, which he bought at luthier Phil Petillo’s shop in Belmar, New Jersey for $185, is “a 1950s mutt with a Telecaster body and an Esquire neck.” It’s an underdog, the sort of character that Springsteen might build a legend around. Loyalty and chemistry are major currents in Bruce Springsteen’s music, and they’re reflected by the instrument that’s been by his side since the early 70s. ![]()
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