Orel Family

Bruce Springsteen with Robert Santelli, October 28, 2023 On Saturday, The Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music held an all day symposium to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Springsteen's 2nd album, " The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle," at the  Pollak Theater on the campus of Monmouth College . Previously this year, the Center held a successful event to commemorate Springsteen's first Columbia record, "Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J." Released in November, 1973, "The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle" moved sharply away from the "singer-songwriter" approach that had been championed by John Hammond at Columbia, and to showcase Springsteen as a rock and soul songwriter, instrumentalist and band leader. The album was not a commercial success at the time, but it remains at or near the top of many fans' favorites. The main body of the program consisted of nine panel sessions, progressing...

Lori and I went to see "Blinded by the Light" this evening, in a "Springsteen Fan Event" at a local theater. There were maybe 40 people there, but that was hardly the point of it all: It was validation night! A motion picture, distributed by Warner Brothers, that gets it. The fist and most obvious question to ask is, "if I'm not a big Springsteen fan, will I like this movie?" To which the only answer I can give is, "how the hell would I know?" With that out of the way, I'll add, " go see it." This coming-of-age movie through the words and music of Bruce Springsteen is overstuffed with set pieces, is unabashed in its hero worship, and yet it still mostly works. It's based on Sarfraz Manzoor's book Greetings from Bury Park: A Memoir and directed by Gurinder Chadha ( Bend It Like Beckham ), and we can sum it up as: boy lives a miserable lonely life (read: no girlfriend) with an overbearing father, has little m...