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Blood Brothers - The E-Street Band

The brilliance of Springsteen's work would have been impossible without the greatest backing band in the history of rock: the E-Street Band.
By David Lifton

Within the great tragedy known as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is another great tragedy: when Bruce Springsteen was inducted/abducted into the museum on March 15, 1999, he went in alone, and not with the E Street Band, with whom Springsteen and his music are synonymous.

Originally formed out of the many musicians populating the Jersey Shore, the E Street Band have proven, over the past 25 years, to be the quintessential American rock n' roll band. While none of the musicians are technical virtuosos (with the possible exception of pianist Roy Bittan and his predecessor, David Sancious), they possess an instinctive grasp of the characters Springsteen sings about, and can translate those emotions into musical notes which make us laugh, cry, dance, and everything in between.

Springsteen was signed to Columbia Records by renowned scout John Hammond, who had signed such musical legends as Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, and, post-Bruce, Stevie Ray Vaughan. When Bruce sat down in Columbia's New York studio in 1972 with an acoustic guitar and proceeded to play songs with surreal verbal imagery and a hipster attitude, Hammond naturally saw the Second Coming of Bob Dylan, and signed him as a folk artist. But Bruce, who had been playing in various bands since the mid-60s, didn't want to be a folk singer. He wanted full accompaniment and a rock sound. A compromise was reached, and a band would be brought in to back him up, but the dominant instrument of the album would be either Springsteen's acoustic guitar or piano.

Rather than work with studio pros, Springsteen opted to bring in some of his buddies who had made up many of those local bands. He decided on pianist David Sancious, drummer Vini "Mad Dog" Lopez, bassist Garry Tallent, and last but not least?Do I have to say his name??Master of the Universe?King of the World?The Big Man?Clarence Clemons! Bringing Clarence on board was probably Springsteen's greatest vision. Not only did he serve as Bruce's onstage foil throughout all those concerts, his tenor saxophone served as the most vital link between Springsteen's music and the 60's R+B that dominated AM radio in their youth.

One night after a gig, the band realized that they should have a name, and started calling out names. As their van drove down the street where Sancious lived, someone suggested "The E Street Band," and it made perfect sense. Just as Springsteen's songs were glorifying the lives of everyday people, the name reflected that attitude perfectly. We're just a bunch of guys from the neighborhood, it says, not a bunch of rock stars. That's why "Glory Days" sounded like such a throwaway cut, because the guys were simply telling their life stories.

By the time of his second album, Bruce had added organist Danny Federici, further tightening the connection to soul music. But Springsteen felt a change was needed. The verbosity and imagery in Springsteen's early lyrics fit in with the band's loose rhythms and extended soloing. He was now sharpening his lyrical focus, and wanted a more muscular, and steady beat. So Lopez, whose jazzy rhythms were highly influenced by Cream's Ginger Baker, was fired and replaced by a friend of Sancious: Ernest "Boom" Carter.

Carter only recorded one song with the E Street Band, but what a performance it was. It is his drumroll that opens up "Born To Run," perhaps Springsteen's most celebrated song, and he deftly alternates between swinging and driving throughout the song until the coda, where his bass drum pounds out eighth notes confirming Bruce's Ultimate Declaration. When Bruce belts that final "Baby we were Bor-orn to Ruhhh - hhhhuuuuuunnnnn" and Carter responds with a resounding drumroll, anybody who does not get goosebumps should check their pulse.

But it was not to be. Sancious, whose training was in classical and jazz, signed a deal with CBS and formed a short-lived jazz fusion group called Tone, and took Carter with him. Springsteen, who had finally scored a hit with "Born To Run," needed replacements quickly. An ad was placed in the Village Voice looking for a classically-trained pianist and a pure rock drummer (the ad specifically stated "No Jr. Ginger Bakers"). They found Bittan and drummer Max Weinberg, both of whom had been playing in orchestra pits on Broadway, and continued work on the Born To Run album. During the sessions, Springsteen's friend Steve Van Zandt came in to do some production work and wound up joining the band as a second guitarist. The band was now complete.

It is this lineup that most people think of when the E Street Band is mentioned. From 1975 to 1984 these men made a name for themselves as the best rock and roll band in the world. On record, they complimented the tales spun by their leader with equal parts pathos and joy, restraint and abandon. Despite the size of the band, there is never any clutter on their records. Even on Bruce's Phil Spector pastiches, their parts are always discernable in the mix.

On stage, they were incomparable. It's interesting to note that while no studio album is credited to "Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band," their concerts were always advertised as such. In the studio Springsteen might have been the Boss, but in performance he was an equal among men. Concerts lasting four hours became the norm, without any noticeable drop in energy from night to night. Nobody ever left a Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band show thinking that they didn't get their money's worth. I could go on for hours talking about Springsteen in concert, but I do have a limited amount of space here, and it still wouldn't do justice. I recommend finding a bootleg of any show and you'll quickly understand what I'm talking about.

But they also added another dimension to his characters: hope. No matter how bad things get, the band said, you can always find enough comfort in Clarence's sax or Roy's piano to believe that everything would soon be all right. That's why the famed "Electric Nebraska" sessions didn't work, because Bruce was creating scenarios that left the protagonists with no other option but to continue down the dark path of the soul. The songs reached their logical conclusion without the optimism that the band provided.

Van Zandt left in 1984 to pursue his own musical interests ("Bobby Jean" was directly about him), and was replaced by Nils Lofgren, who had previously worked with Neil Young, and fronted his own band, Grin. Patty Scialfa also joined at this time as a backup vocalist and eventually worked her way up the ladder to become Mrs. Springsteen, a position she holds to this day.

This lineup was there throughout the two-year Born In The U.S.A. tour, which saw them graduated from sports arenas to mammoth stadiums. But Bruce, ever the searcher, felt he needed a change. For the Tunnel Of Love album, he used the E Street Band sparingly, recording most of it solo. The subsequent tour showed the band, as well as Bruce himself, acting out the role of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, as opposed to inhabiting the characters in the songs. A lot of this was due to the turmoil in Bruce's personal life (his marriage to model/actress Julianne Phillips was breaking up over his exposed relationship with Scialfa), but the band was also tired. After their participation in Amnesty International's Human Rights, Now! Tour, Bruce fired the E Street Band, ending professional relationships that had extended, for some members, nearly twenty years.

Bruce's next two albums were recorded mostly with top L.A. session musicians and released on the same day in 1992. While the performances on those were solid, they lacked in spades the distinctive touch that only the E Street Band could provide. Roy Bittan did some production and keyboard work, and also appeared on the accompanying tour. When it came time for Bruce to put together his first greatest hits package, he called the band back to record a few new songs, and allowed his relationship with the E Street Band to come full circle. The recording of these songs, as well as the still-present-after-all-these-years dynamic between the Boss and his band, is captured in the fascinating video documentary Blood Brothers.

During the layoff, the members of their band went their separate ways. Bittan and Tallent have become respected producers, Lofgren has resumed his solo career, Clemons recorded an acclaimed jazz instrumental album a few years back, and Federici is an in-demand session musician. Max Weinberg originally wanted to go to law school, but realized that he belonged on stage, and can be seen nightly as the leader of the Max Weinberg 7 on NBC's Late Night With Conan O'Brien. But he's currently on a temporary leave of absence because Bruce has called his old friends (including Van Zandt, who came back for "Blood Brothers") back together for another world tour to begin this summer.

Here are the past and present members of the E Street Band and their greatest recorded moments:

David Sancious: The Gershwinesque introduction to "New York City Serenade"
Vini "Mad Dog" Lopez: The extended jam of "Kitty's Back"
Ernest "Boom" Carter: "Born To Run" (obviously)
Garry Tallent: The Motown-inspired bass that underpins "The Ties That Bind"
"Miami" Steve Van Zandt: The mandolin part of "Glory Days"
"Mighty" Max Weinberg: The surging, desperate drums throughout "Candy's Room"
"Professor" Roy Bittan: The glockenspiel mirroring Bruce's vocal on "Thunder Road"
"Phantom" Danny Federici: The outro solo to "Racing In The Street"
Nils Lofgren: The wild circuitous solo on "Tunnel Of Love"
Patti Scialfa: The call-and-response on the fade of "One Step Up"
Clarence "Big Man" Clemons: The majestic solo on "Jungleland"