Born to Run (26 page)

Adios, Perro Loco

Madman drummers bummers . . .

During the tour for
The Wild, the Innocent
, one thing became clear: we needed a steadier hand at the drums. Vini was a beautiful drummer in his own wigged-out way. He was all about his own style. You can hear it clearly on the first two albums. We actually developed
out of the jam band tradition of the Upstage Club. We all had grown up playing very busily. On our first two records Vini was all over the place but he knew how to make it work.
His hyperactive drumming was connected to Vini’s hyperactive self, and the combination of the thick recorded sound of the kit by Louis Lahav and Vini’s playing style made for very eccentric but excitingly unique rhythm
tracks.

Vini could be the warmest, most soulful guy in the world one minute, truly kind, and then go completely postal within seconds. As time passed this wore on some of the band members who bore the brunt of the Mad Dog’s wrath. Danny had taken his lumps. Steve Appel, Mike’s younger brother, who helped out on the road, took a pop in the eye, and so did countless strangers who’d stumbled across
the Dog’s intemperate side. Going out with Vini was risky business. One night we headed to a second-floor beach bar. As I was climbing the stairs to the entrance I saw a body tumbling by me on its way back to floor one. It was Vini. He was being thrown out before we even managed to get in! The accompaniment of Big Danny stepping in at the right moment and altering someone’s attitude occasionally
saved us from trouble. Vini showed up at a gig one night all bruised and scratched up. He had his enemies, and someone had found out Vini rode his bike home down the boardwalk to Bradley after the gig every night at three thirty a.m. Some vengeful soul had stretched a thin wire from the railing across the boards right at bicycle tire level. Mad Dog hit it at speed and got launched head over handlebars
into an ass full of splinters, cuts and bruises.

Then . . . he took it one step too far. One afternoon he managed to drive Clarence Clemons around the bend. C went off, strangling the hell out of Vini’s skinny neck, holding him down on the floor and smashing a heavy stereo speaker inches from his head in an attempt to bring the enlightenment. Vini got up, ran out of the house and made a beeline
to my garage apartment in Bradley Beach. He looked like he’d just escaped a hanging but had spent a few moments too long dangling, eyes popping, legs shaking, at the end of the rope. He showed me huge red welts around his neck, screamed that Clarence had tried to murder him and uttered the immortal ultimatum, “Brucie, it’s him or me.” Not the best way to sum up your
grievances on E Street, but
it was my band, my town, I was mayor, judge, jury and sheriff, so I calmed him down and told him I’d look into it.

Discussions were held, grievances aired. The fellows had had enough trouble, Mike too. Vini always felt he was let go because he’d been too outspoken about the way our business was being handled. He may have been right about that but everyone had their own reasons for wanting Vini
to depart. For me, it all came down to the fact that my music was changing and I needed someone with a more sophisticated palate, with clearer and better time, for the new music I was writing. I loved Vini and still do. He’s a great guy, distinctive drummer and singer, and loyal true-blue friend. We’d been through a lot; Vini’d thrown me plenty of hard-core support, he was tough ’n’ ready and it
was hard separating from someone I’d cared about and had so many adventures with. His drumming graces my first two albums with a beautiful soul and eccentricity that perfectly fit the eclectic spirit of those songs. He was a part of the E Street Band through its toughest times, when it was truly a folk band up from the streets of Asbury Park and filled with musicians whose styles had developed straight
out of the musical community we were born into.

TWENTY-EIGHT

THE SATELLITE LOUNGE

Telling Vini it was over was rough. I think Mike Appel did it. The weekend Vini was let go we were booked at the Satellite Lounge in Fort Dix. It was a cool club catering to locals and the South Jersey military personnel stationed at the fort. I’d seen Sam and Dave put on some great shows there. It was owned and operated by one of our “friends.” We played a few
clubs owned by the local boys and always had a great time. The problem was right now, we had no drummer and we would have to cancel. I told Mike and he called me back immediately and simply said, “We
have
to play.” There was a problem with the owner at the Satellite Lounge, so Mike had called some of our other “friends” at Uncle Al’s Erlton Lounge, a place we always did great and were treated
like kings, to intercede on our behalf. That made matters
much worse. Mike then gave me the short version of his conversation with the Satellite’s owner: “If you don’t play, we have your address and will break important digits. If you do play, we will love you.” I thought, “Who doesn’t want to be loved?” It was an offer I couldn’t refuse. So this is the story of how Ernest “Boom” Carter, a drummer
I’d barely heard of and only briefly met, ended up playing in the band that weekend, and on the most significant recording the E Street Band ever made and
only
that recording. Boom was Davey’s childhood friend. On Davey’s call he came to Tinker’s factory; rehearsed the entire night ’til dawn, learning our full live set; drove to Fort Dix, where it was not uncustomary to begin a set at one or two
a.m.; and played a great gig. Boom Carter, welcome to the E Street Band.

The Satellite’s impresario was as good as his word. We
were
loved! This was during the gas crisis, and on tour we’d spent hours rocking in the draft of eighteen-wheelers whizzing by inches from our Econoline van with our tank empty by the side of the road, gasless. We’d resorted to the illegality of the siphoning tube on
a few occasions but tonight, as we packed up our gear, our beneficent “friend” escorted us into the parking lot and stood smiling at our side as the police pulled up, fueled our tanks to the brim and wished us well.

Boom turned out to be a great addition. He was a jazzier drummer than I might have initially chosen but once he integrated himself into the band he brought a swing with his rock that
was really beautiful. The band was now three black guys and three white guys, and the mixture of musical influences was magic. Davey of course covered all the bases from rock to soul, but he had a deeply rooted jazz and gospel element in his playing that put him out in front of most rock keyboardists. With a mixture now of folk, rock, jazz and soul, we had everything we needed to go wherever we
wanted. Career-wise, however, things were still very bleak.

The Future Is Written

We’d been playing a lot of colleges, then by chance we hit one where Irwin Siegelstein, the new head of Columbia Records, brought over from the TV division, had a son in attendance. We played a great show, but frustrated by our record company’s lack of promotion, I slammed Columbia in an interview with the college
newspaper. Young Siegelstein had seen the show, read the newspaper and brought it home to his pop. Mr. Siegelstein, who to his credit did not pretend to know more about pop music than he did, listened to his son, and the next thing we knew, we got a call from Columbia Records with an invitation to dine with its new president. Mike, Mr. Siegelstein and I sat down to dinner and Mr. Siegelstein said,
“How can we fix this?” He was a straight-up honest broker who realized we were of value to his company and wanted to set things right.

Something else very auspicious occurred around this time. A man in Boston had “seen the future of rock ’n’ roll,” and it was . . .
me
. We’d played the Harvard Square Theatre opening for Bonnie Raitt (God bless her, she was one of the few acts who’d let us open
for her more than once in those days). The writer in attendance for the
Real Paper
, Jon Landau, flipped his critical lid and wrote one of the greatest lifesaving raves of all time.

It was a beautifully written music fan’s appreciation of the power and meaning of rock ’n’ roll, the sense of place and continuity it brings to our lives, the community it can’t help but strengthen and the loneliness
it assuages. That night in Boston our band led with our hearts, and that’s what Jon did. The famous quote came in reference to Jon’s thoughts on the past, present and future of the music he loved, on the power it once held over him and on its ability to renew itself and exert that power in his life once more. As helpful and burdensome (in the long run, more helpful I would say) as the “quote heard
round the world” was, it has always been taken somewhat out of context, its lovely subtleties lost . . . But who cares now! And if somebody had to be the future, why not me?

Light at the End of the Tunnel

After our dinner with Irwin and Mr. Landau’s “prophecy,” there were ads for
The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle
in the newspapers and in major music publications; they all shouted,
“I have seen the future . . . ,” and there I was, looking good. What a difference a day makes. The record company was back in our corner and record sales picked up for my two albums as we continued to tour, wrecking the house night after night. I was due for a new record. My third and last contractually guaranteed album for Columbia. All our cards were down. The question was, beyond critics,
and my small cult following, could I stir interest in that larger audience that lay at the end of the radio dial? Cult artists don’t last on Columbia Records. We miss this one, contract’s up and in all probability we’ll be sent back to the minors deep in the South Jersey pines. I had to make a record that was the embodiment of what I’d been slowly promising I could do. It had to be something epic
and extraordinary, something that hadn’t quite been heard before. It had already been a long haul but that blood I’d sniffed on that sunny morning in my grandma’s backyard so many years ago was once again in the air. For my new album I’d written one song. Its title was “Born to Run.”

BOOK TWO

BORN TO RUN

TWENTY-NINE

BORN TO RUN

I wrote “Born to Run” sitting on the edge of my bed in a cottage I’d newly rented at 7
¹
/
₂
West End Court in West Long Branch, New Jersey. I was in the midst of giving myself a crash tutorial in fifties and sixties rock ’n’ roll. I had a small table holding a record player at the side of my cot, so I was just one drowsy roll away from dropping the needle onto my favorite
album of the moment. At night, I’d switch off the lights and drift away with Roy Orbison, Phil Spector or Duane Eddy lullabying me to dreamland. These records now spoke to me in a way most late-sixties and early-seventies rock music failed to. Love, work, sex and fun. The darkly romantic visions of both Spector and Orbison felt in tune with my own sense of romance, with love itself as a risky proposition.
These were well-crafted, inspired recordings, powered by great songs, great voices, great arrangements and excellent musicianship. They were filled with real studio genius, breathless passion . . . AND . . .
they were hits! There was little self-indulgence in them. They didn’t waste your time with sprawling guitar solos or endless monolithic drumming. There was opera and a lush grandness, but
there was also restraint. This aesthetic appealed to me as I moved into the early stages of writing for “Born to Run.” From Duane Eddy came the guitar sound, “Tramps like us . . . ,” then “ba BA . . . BA ba,” the twanging guitar lick. From Roy Orbison came the round operatic vocal tone of a young aspirant with limited range attempting to emulate his hero. From Phil Spector came the ambition to make
a world-shaking mighty noise. I wanted to craft a record that sounded like the last record on Earth, like the last record you might hear . . . the last one you’d ever NEED to hear. One glorious noise . . . then the apocalypse. From Elvis came the record’s physical thrust; Dylan, of course, threaded through the imagery and the idea of not just writing about SOMETHING but writing about EVERYTHING.

I started with the guitar riff. Get yourself a great riff and you’re on your way. Then I’d chug along chording randomly while I’d mumble, mumble, mumble . . . then, “Tramps like us, baby we were born to run . . .” That was all I had. The title “Born to Run” I was sure I’d seen somewhere before. It might have been written in silver metal flake on the hood of a car cruising the Asbury circuit,
or I may have seen it somewhere in one of the hot-rod B pictures I’d gorged myself on during the early sixties. Maybe it was just out there in the air, floating along on the salt water/carbon monoxide mix of Kingsley and Ocean Avenue on a “circuit” Saturday night. Wherever it came from it held the essential ingredients of a hit record, familiarity and newness, inspiring in the listener surprise
and recognition. A smash feels like it was always there and as if you’ve never heard anything like it before.

It wasn’t an easy piece to write. I started my title song that afternoon but I didn’t finish it until six months of trial and tribulation later. I wanted to use the classic rock ’n’ roll images, the road, the car, the girl . . . what else is there? It was a language enshrined by Chuck
Berry, the Beach Boys,
Hank Williams and every lost highwayman going back to the invention of the wheel. But to make these images matter, I would have to shape them into something fresh, something that transcended nostalgia, sentiment and familiarity.

I was a child of Vietnam-era America, of the Kennedy, King and Malcolm X assassinations. The country no longer felt like the innocent place it
was said to be in the Eisenhower fifties. Political murder, economic injustice and institutionalized racism were all powerfully and brutally present. These were issues that had previously been relegated to the margins of American life. Dread—the sense that things might not work out, that the moral high ground had been swept out from underneath us, that the dream we had of ourselves had somehow been
tainted and the future would forever be uninsured—was in the air. This was the new lay of the land, and if I was going to put my characters out on
that
highway, I was going to have to put all these things in the car with them. That’s what was due, what the times demanded.