Exile from E Street
The Boss’s LA Years in a 10-disc vinyl box. By Keith Cameron.
Bruce Springsteen
★★★
The Album Collection Vol. 2, 1987-1996
COLUMBIA. LP
DURING THE summer of 1992, Bruce Springsteen played an amphitheatre in Germany. His new band were pumping, and 60,000 fans were loving it. Or most of them. From the stage, Springsteen spotted a lone figure high on the green hill at the arena’s edge, holding up a sign that said, simply: “E Street.” This box set is probably not for that guy. During 1987-1989, Bruce Springsteen first marginalised, then walked away from the E Street Band, the New Jersey misfits around which he’d woven so much of the mythology which sustained him through his early-’70s lean period and eventually powered him to superstardom. At this point, for many good reasons, Springsteen wanted to be elsewhere, be someone else – and to play with different people. And although the final element in this heavyweight package sees him reunited with his old comrades, suggesting a neat redemptive story arc, the reality was more complex. 1987’s Tunnel Of Love was the newly married Springsteen’s relationship crisis album – assuredly not what Columbia Records were hoping for after Born In The USA. Bruce recorded every part himself, then reluctantly invited each E Street Band member to improve on his efforts. They are barely present. Despite the sterile production, it’s a vivid portrayal of personal torment, with great songs: the title track, Tougher Than The Rest and Brilliant Disguise. Given what happened next – Springsteen got divorced, broke up the E Street Band, moved to California and started a family with new wife Patti Scialfa – 1992’s simultaneously released Human Touch and Lucky Town make sense: the work of a man focused on changing nappies or seeing his therapist, rather than playing with a succession of hi-calibre LA session cats. Who knows if the E Street Band could have improved on emotionally hollowed out fare like Man’s Job or Real World? On tour, the ‘Other Band’ breathed some life into the new material, but as In Concert/MTV Plugged confirms, the sacred texts were better served by E Street’s idiosyncrasies. The live album does at least feature Red Headed Woman, a frank account of down-time chez Scialfa-Springsteen. When it came to bands, however, maybe Bruce was coming around to the opinion of that German guy with the sign. In January 1995, he summoned the old gang and hashed out some new songs (four on 1996’s Blood Brothers EP, included here). The restored soul is palpable. Springsteen’s next album reasserted his status as moral compass for the soul of America: the austere acoustic songs of The Ghost Of Tom Joad lay bare the injustice suffered by migrant workers along the Mexico-US border. Bruce was back, and he would never leave home again.