1979-80 SOLO “WORK-IN-PROGRESS” HOME CASSETTE RECORDINGS

The following solo acoustic practice recordings span about a 12-month period, from early 1979 to early 1980. They can be broken down into three general groupings:

1) Recordings made Jan 1979 to Jun 1979 that loosely served as a basis for the Mar 1979 – Aug 1979 “1st leg” studio sessions for The River album.

2) Recordings made Sep to Dec 1979 that loosely served as a basis for the Oct 1979 – May 1980 “2nd leg” of studio sessions for The River album.

3) Recordings made Jan to Feb 1980 that loosely served as a basis for the Jan 1980 – Jun 1980 “2nd leg” of studio sessions for The River album.

These are not professionally made recordings. They were never intended to be. It seems Springsteen only used a common, run-of-the-mill cassette recorder. None of these songs exhibit a finished songwriting product. These are song fragments, both musically and lyrically. There is much stopping and starting heard, as Springsteen records bits and pieces, manually stops the recorder then returns sometime later to add more ideas…and so on and so forth. Probably the most fascinating things heard on these tapes are Bruce’s attempts to write in a reggae style – these attempts can be found amongst the audio from late 1979 and early 1980.

These recordings can provide an interesting, though often monotonous, glimpse into how Bruce goes about his creative writing process. But very little of this material is listener-friendly and is probably not worth obtaining unless you’re a die-hard completist. Springsteen definitely progressed some of these song fragments and ideas to completion – we have studio end product to attest to that. However most of these titles are likely to have gone little further than what one hears on these tapes.

1) Recorded at Springsteen’s home in Holmdel, NJ, Jan 1979 to Jun 1979.

2) Recorded at Springsteen’s home in Holmdel, NJ, Sep 1979 to Dec 1979.

3) Recorded at Springsteen’s home in Holmdel, NJ during Jan-Feb 1980.

Page updated January 3, 2006