Harpswell Hoot '11 redux, part 1: Springsteen/ E. Street Band

Direct link for Appleheads, etc: http://www.box.com/s/us26se7acjuhp4339gig

Well, after additional recording in Lexington and Harpswell and Florence, and tweaking and re-tweaking, and incineration of my old laptop, and 3 months as houseguest of the Kindly FitzGeralds, and vacation and work and such, and them some more rearranging of deck chairs.... I think I finally done finished with the last two songs from the Harpswell Hootenanny 2011. This week is the '73-era E-Street goodness part of that.

I prefer not to think of Bruce Springsteen as having recorded much of anything after "Nebraska". At some point, the songs tended towards meathandedness, the production became too clean. Synthesizers appeared. For us diehard fans of '70s Bruce, it was about the crazy and sprawling, character-driven songs, and the rough-and-tumble bar-band onslaught of the E Street Band, with the Hammond organ, loosey-goosey drumming, squawling Telecaster riffs and all that. "The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle" has a little something that the other albums don't quite feature.

I'd been hoping to record this one for a long, long time, and my only regrets are that I wasn't able to get Roger to record a lead guitar track, or to to get Paul B to overdub vocals. Damn shame, especially as this cut was fully built upon Mr. Bonanos' shoulders. Matter of fact, it was a few years back that I determined to nail down a version of this tune, during a visit to Bonanos HQ, way out in San Fran's Outer Richmond. Paulie let fly a great version on the Lefferts' pianner, and I saw the goddarned future.

That future didn't exactly include the number of takes we needed on this one, nor the nearly full-blown mutiny it may have led to But hopefully the wait is worth it. Paul B is on the Wurlitzer, Roadkill on the drums, Roger on lead and harmony vocals.

Incident on 57th Street: