Springsteen's Late Career Renaissance Unlike Any Other

Since Rick Rubin’s resurrection of Johnny Cash with the stark, superb American Recordings in the mid-1900s, everyone has been chasing the latest wayward star in need of a second act.

The trend really began in the late 1980s. Roy Orbison was the first rock resurrection project, as his place in the Traveling Wilburys and his stellar final works would have given him a similar lift. But his sudden death ended the comeback.

Cash and Rubin partnered for nearly a decade before various ailments claimed Cash in 2003, producing five albums and a boxed set. After spending the 1980s in the musical wilderness, The Man in Black truly went out on top.

Not all see similar success. In 2008, Glen Campbell’s album came and went. Al Green continued his successful second act by partnering with Questlove of the Roots.

The most captivating examples treat their subject with reverence –- Jack White hit the jackpot with Loretta Lynn. Van Lear Rose served as a shining example of why Lynn once sat at country music's pinnacle. Levon Helm’s 2007 Dirt Farmer worked due to the former Band member returning to his roots and by revealing that his voice had triumphed over throat cancer.

Some of the latter-day releases by blues legend R. L. Burnside felt half-baked at times, but his albums gave him a necessary boost after decades as a sharecropper. Jon Spencer might annoy blues purists to no end, but his collaboration with Burnside gave credibility to the careers of both.

Bob Dylan and Neil Young went through rough patches, but have rebounded time after time to unveil a classic record. With the amazing material both let drip out of their vaults, they could drop unreleased material at will into their 90s.

But what Bruce Springsteen has done this decade is even more spectacular.

His 1990s studio output consisted of the same-day release of Lucky Town and Human Touch, an Oscar-wining song (Streets of Philadelphia) and the triumphant folk of The Ghost of Tom Joad.

Granted, he took time off to spend with his children, but who would have predicted such a prodigious output from The Boss after a quiet decade? Springsteen supposedly shelved albums from '90s, but we’ll have to wait for a second run of Tracks for them to see the light.

There was no hot producer eager to bring Springsteen back. Given his popularity, he never really went away, and could sell out every show without writing another new note of music.

What amazes is his ability to create relevant, diverse music - his theme for the new film The Wrestler perfectly illustrates his prowess.

The degree to which his catalog has swelled since 2002 is almost staggering –- two E Street albums (The Rising and Magic) with a third due at month’s end, a solo record (Devils + Dust), the folk standards on We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions and a live album from that tour.

That's not shabby by anyone’s standards, especially in the era of three- to five-year turnarounds for most big names. With all the money in touring, more bands opt for time on the road than hours in the studio.

Producer Brendan O’Brien told Rolling Stone that Springsteen wanted to keep working on new material after Magic wrapped, the results of which lie in Working on a Dream, out at month’s end. Working on Dream, his latest, will drop only 16 months after Magic, a turnaround time almost every artist should envy.

Perhaps Springsteen’s prolific decade owes something to the workmanlike image of him and the E Streeters. Yet somehow, I can’t envision Green Day or the Foo Fighters spitting out albums at that pace after they hit the big 5-0.

Comments

[JR]

Great Points....Bruce's new stuff isn't ignored like Elton John or the Rolling Stones!