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Fact #79146

When:

Short story:

The first known performance of Bruce Springsteen's Born To Run takes place during a show at The Harvard Square Theatre, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, during a show headlined by Bonnie Raitt. Journalist Jon Landau reviews the show for The Real Paper, saying 'I saw rock'n'roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen.'

Full article:

SPRINGSTEEN - ROCK AND ROLL FUTURE - FEATURE V1.

by Johnny Black

(N.B. A shorter version of this feature by Johnny Black was originally published in Classic Rock magazine)

In early 1974, Bruce Springsteen’s career at CBS Records was all but finished. Despite favourable reviews, his first two albums had sold badly, and his main champion at the label, company President Clive Davis, had recently been sacked. Worse still, in place of Davis, came Charles Koppelman who was throwing the company’s marketing might behind Billy Joel. Springsteen’s days at CBS looked to be numbered. Then a rock journalist in Boston saw Springsteen at the Harvard Square Theatre and wrote one brief sentence that would turn the tide and set Bruce on the road to superstardom.

Barry Schneier (photographer) : I first saw Springsteen during a run of four gigs in early April 1974 at a small club called Charlie’s Place, which was also where Bruce first met Jon Landau.

Jon Landau (music journalist) : I went to this club, and it was completely empty. He had the smallest of cult followings. Before the show, I asked the guys in the bar where Bruce was, and they pointed outside.

Barry Schneier : The club had posted up a copy of Jon Landau’s review of The Wild, The Innocent And The E Street Shuffle, and Bruce was outside reading it.

Jon Landau : I stood next to him and said, ‘What do you think?’ ” And he said, ‘This guy is usually pretty good, but I’ve seen better.’ I introduced myself, and we had a good laugh.

Mike Appel (manager/producer, Bruce Springsteen) : Jon had made some criticisms in his review of the recorded quality of the album and, eventually, he became Bruce’s producer but, in 1974, I didn’t see Jon as any kind of threat to my position. He was a journalist. I didn’t look at him as a producer. He’d had some experience producing the MC5 and J. Geils, but they hadn’t done anything.

Jon Landau : The production is one of the only two things that I guess I criticised … I said I thought that the instruments sounded too separated to me … [Bruce’s] voice wasn’t clear enough … Mike was clearly irritated about that particular criticism.

Barry Schneier (photographer) : At Charlie’s, I remember thinking to myself that I had never heard music like that before, didn’t even know music like that existed. It was such a fresh, fantastic sound. I literally, the day after seeing him at Charlie’s, called Ira Gold, who was one of the local promoters, and said, 'You have got to put this guy on somewhere.' My motive was purely personal - I just wanted to see him play again.

The gig Ira put Springsteen on, about a month later, was a support slot with Bonnie Raitt at the Harvard Square Theatre.

Russell Gersten (music journalist) : It was an old one-screen cinema that had seen better times, because in 1974 there were several cinemas in Boston so there was a lot of competition. Myself and my best-friend, Jon Landau, were both writing for a local rock publication called The Real Paper, but we were also both movie buffs, so we knew The Harvard Square Theatre quite well.

Strangely, although Jon was a much bigger rock fan than me - I was more into soul or r’n’b - I actually met Springsteen before him. I was up at CBS in New York in the summer of 1972 interviewing the A+R man John Hammond about a new Aretha Franklin album, and this guy walked into John’s office barefoot. John introduced him to me as Bruce Springsteen, so I became familiar with his first albums, and even went to see him at Paul’s Mall (January 1973) in Boston, but I wasn’t as impressed by him as Jon was.

Mike Appel (manager, Bruce Springsteen) : At that time, Bonnie Raitt was very big in the North East and in Boston in Particular, so it was a great gig for Bruce to get.

Barry Schneier (photographer) : On the afternoon of the Harvard Square gig, at the soundcheck, Bruce had this intensity that I had not seen in any other act. He was directing them, much in the way an orchestra leader or a choir master would lead his musicians. He would make them repeat riffs over and again. I remember him pointing at Clarence and the others and saying, "Do that again, 1,2,3,4…’. There was a seriousness at his rehearsal that I’d never seen before. He was so precise in his direction that it was clear why the band was so tight. They would all stop and pay 100% attention to him.

Mike Appel : There’s was always an unpredictability about what Bruce was going to play on any particular night. That’s just the way he is, but he played great that night.

Barry Schneier : Ira Gold later told me that Bruce was only supposed to play a 35 minute set, but he just carried on and he had no intention of giving up the stage. He took advantage of the moment.

Jon Landau (review of Harvard Square gig in The Real Paper) : Springsteen does it all. He is a rock ‘n’ roll punk, a Latin street poet, a ballet dancer, an actor, a joker, bar band leader, hot-shit rhythm guitar player, extraordinary singer, and a truly great rock ‘n’ roll composer. He leads a band like he has been doing it forever. I racked my brains but simply can’t think of a white artist who does so many things so superbly.

Barry Schneier : At the end of the set, when it looked like the band was leaving the stage, I put my camera down, and then I noticed the band members were all around me, Gary Tallent with his bass up against his chest, Ernie 'Boom' Carter with his sticks to the side of me, they were not leaving. Then Springsteen sat down at the piano, about three feet from where I was, and started playing this slow song, which I gradually realised was a slow version of For You. I very quickly re-loaded the camera and started shooting, so I got some lovely, totally unexpected solo shots.

Jon Landau (review of Harvard Square gig in The Real Paper) : I saw my rock’n'roll past flash before my eyes. And I saw something else: I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen. And on a night when I needed to feel young, he made me feel like I was hearing music for the very first time.

Bruce Springsteen : Landau’s quote helped reaffirm a belief in myself. The band and I were making fifty dollars a week. It helped me go on.

Mike Appel : Bruce was having trouble with Columbia at the time, they were thinking of dropping him. Columbia’s President, Clive Davis, who was Bruce’s champion, got fired. The next guy that comes in (as Vice-President) was Charles Koppelman, and he was touting Billy Joel, which was bad for us. Charles couldn’t care less about Bruce.

Bruce had spent a lot of that summer recording Born To Run, but nobody at Columbia was interested in releasing it, or letting us record any other tracks for the album.

So, anyway, when Jon Landau’s review appeared, I capitalised on it immediately by sticking it under the noses of everybody at CBS Records, and they ended up using the 'rock’n’roll future' quote in their ads. We were happy with that. Two and a half years later, of course, Jon Landau got on board with Bruce as his new producer and manager.

So, there was an extensive period when things were not good between us, and Jon Landau played centre-stage on that. All of us took a whooping from the litigation that came out that. I try to see it simply one of life’s experiences … but not one that I’d ever want to do again.

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Don Carrico (lighting engineer) : I did the lighting for Bonnie Raitt for a while. One night she performed at the Harvard Square Theatre. The Harvard Square Theatre was amazing.

That is where Bruce Springsteen started and I was lighting him the night that he opened for Bonnie Raitt. So this unknown band from NJ opens for her, and Bonnie allowed Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band to perform the entire set.

He drove the crowd nuts! Jon Landau was in the audience and wrote that he had "seen the next Bob Dylan". Six months later Bruce Springsteen was on the covers of Newsweek and Time - the same week.

I have a whole story on the Boss... I told you about the concert at the Harvard Square theatre/ well he came to us for lights for his tour. I got a friend of mine a job at Tom Field. He (Rick Segusso) gets the job to drive Springsteen on the tour in a small motor home and, after the tour, Rick becomes The Boss' tour manager!
(Source : http://feeds.feedburner.com/progrocktv1000blogspot)