Six legendary performances from Bruce Springsteen’s 1984-85 tour are now available in a limited edition, collectible CD box set.
The 18-CD factory-pressed set contains six of the finest recordings from the BITUSA tour, including 5 shows in East Rutherford, NJ. Rounding out the collection is night 1 of the final run of the tour at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. A limited number of empty boxes are also available to hold previously purchased CDs.
6 Complete Shows On 18 Factory-Pressed CDs.
1984/08/05 Brendan Byrne Arena, East Rutherford, NJ
1984/08/06 Brendan Byrne Arena, East Rutherford, NJ
1984/08/19 Brendan Byrne Arena, East Rutherford, NJ
1984/08/20 Brendan Byrne Arena, East Rutherford, NJ
1985/08/22 Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ
1985/09/27 Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles, CA
How Springsteen Recorded ‘Born In The U.S.A.’ Sound engineer play unreleased 1982 outtakes.
Ever wondered what a blues version of 'Born In The U.S.A.' sounds like?
Bruce Springsteen fans were treated to some of the rocker’s unreleased outtakes at a Mexican radio conference this weekend, thanks to his longtime engineer.
Toby Scott was a guest at this past weekend’s SoundCheck Xpo in Mexico City; during his presentation he offered up some snippets of a few old recordings that Springsteen recorded in the early 1980s.
During his 87-minute presentation, the engineer played a few different takes of the Boss recording ‘Born In The U.S.A.’. One of the versions was the solo-acoustic demo that Springsteen recorded in 1982, during the Nebraska era – this version ended up on his 1998 box set ‘Tracks’.
The book, Bruce Springsteen: The Stories Behind the Songs, tells the tales behind every officially released studio recording of Bruce Springsteen’s career -(This article appeared first on Rolling Stone)
Circa 1978, Springsteen read Born on the Fourth of July, Ron Kovic’s searing memoir of enlisting in the Marines as a blindly patriotic kid, only to come back from Vietnam paralyzed from the waist down and turn to antiwar activism.
Soon after Springsteen picked up the book in an Arizona drugstore, Kovic himself happened to roll up to Springsteen by the pool at the Sunset Marquis in Los Angeles. They became friendly, and Kovic connected him with activist Bobby Muller, cofounder of the struggling Vietnam Veterans of America. Jon Landau helped arrange for Springsteen and the E Street Band to play an arena benefit concert for that organization in August 1981, with a group of veterans, many of them disabled.
When Springsteen returned home the next month and began writing the songs that ended up on Nebraska, he also started something called “Vietnam,” perhaps taking some light inspiration from Jimmy Cliff’s protest classic of the same name. Soon after writing “Vietnam,” Springsteen nicked the title of the script and began to transform the song. The first chorus he wrote rhymed “born in the U.S.A.
Springsteen recorded “Born in the U.S.A.” on his four-track along with the rest of the Nebraskasongs, including it on the cassette he sent to his manager and co-producer, Jon Landau. In April 1982, Springsteen and the E Street Band returned to Studio A at the Power Station, intending to wade through the Nebraska songs.
Springsteen pulled out “Born in the U.S.A.” As Roy Bittan recalls, he played it on acoustic guitar and sang it for the band, rather than putting on the four-track demo.
By that point, the melody had evolved, and Bittan recalls pulling a six-note motif from the chorus Springsteen sang. “When I heard him sing it, I said, ‘That’s a riff,'” Bittan says. “A very succinct, simplistic riff.” He went over to his new Yamaha CS-80, a highly flexible analog synthesizer, and started shaping a sound. “I was always intensely listening to the lyrics to see what the hell the song was about,”
“So I heard what he was talking about, and what I tried to conjure up is a Southeast Asian sort of synthesized, strange sound. And I played the riff on that.” By the second time Bittan played the riff, Max Weinberg was slamming his snare drum along with it.
From there, with Danny Federici playing piano for once and Steve Van Zandt on acoustic guitar, they started recording the song. “Bruce heard Max and me, and he said, ‘Wait, wait, wait. Stop. Okay. Roll the tape,'” Bittan says. “‘Does everybody have the chords?’ Yes, everybody had the chords. ‘Okay, roll the tape.’ Boom. There it was.” To read the full article click here
