Bruce Springsteen and Robbie Robertson, onstage together in 1993.
It was announced this week that at this year’s edition of The Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music’s American Music Honors show, at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, The E Street Band will be honored, and that The Band, whose original members are all deceased, will receive a special tribute. I started thinking about all the connections between the two groups, through the years, and came up with 13 of them.
_____________________________
1. The Band’s Levon Helm died on April 19, 2012, and in tribute to him, Springsteen performed The Band’s “The Weight” with The E Street Band at The Prudential Center in Newark, on May 2, 2012. Introducing the song, Springsteen said that Helm was “one of the greatest, greatest voices in country, rockabilly and rock ‘n’ roll” and said that “both his voice and his drumming were so incredibly personal. He just had a feel on the drums that … just comes out of a certain place in the past and you can’t replicate it.”
_____________________________
2. The Band covered Springsteen’s “Atlantic City” on their 1993 Jericho album and often performed it live.
_____________________________
3. Springsteen and The Seeger Sessions Band performed The Band’s “Rag Mama Rag” at 13 of their 2006 shows, including Feb. 10 of that year in Turin, Italy.
_____________________________
4. The first version of Ringo Starr’s All Starr Band, in 1989, had two members of The E Street Band (Clarence Clemons and Nils Lofgren) and two members of The Band (Levon Helm and Rick Danko). Here they are performing The Band’s “Up on Cripple Creek.”
_____________________________
5. When Creedence Clearwater Revival entered The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, Springsteen gave the induction speech, and he, The Band’s Robbie Robertson and The E Street Band’s Roy Bittan were among the musicians who backed CCR frontman John Fogerty when he performed.
_____________________________
6. Levon Helm sang “Rag Mama Rag” — with backing by The E Street Band’s Max Weinberg and Garry Tallent, and others — at a Jimmie Rodgers tribute concert presented by The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at Severance Hall in Cleveland in 1997.
_____________________________
7. “There is no band that emphasizes coming together and becoming greater than the sum of their parts (more) than The Band,” said Springsteen in the 2019 documentary, “Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band.” “Simply their name: The Band. That was it.”
_____________________________
8. Springsteen has acknowledged that his lines “Hazy Davy got really hurt/He ran into the lake in just his socks and a shirt,” from “Spirit in the Night,” were influenced by some lines from The Band’s 1971 song “The Moon Struck One” (from their Cahoots album): “Little John was stung by a snake/Over by the lake/And it looked like he’s really, really hurt/He was lying in the dirt.”
_____________________________
9. Here is a clip of Stevie Van Zandt and Robbie Robertson, in conversation at The New York Public Library in 2016.
_____________________________
10. Max Weinberg’s Jukebox performs The Band’s “Up on Cripple Creek” in 2023.
_____________________________
11. Here is audio of a show Levon Helm and Max Weinberg did together at The Lone Star Cafe in New York in 1987.
_____________________________
12. Springsteen, Robertson, Weinberg and Bittan were among those who backed Paul McCartney and Billy Joel on “Let It Be” at the 1999 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
_____________________________
13. David Sancious was an original E Street Band member. Jim Weider replaced Robbie Robertson when The Band re-formed in 1985. Both have strong connections to the Woodstock, New York, music scene, and here they are performing together at The Delaware River Bluesfest in 2010.
_____________________________
CONTRIBUTE TO NJARTS.NET
Since launching in September 2014, NJArts.net, a 501(c)(3) organization, has become one of the most important media outlets for the Garden State arts scene. And it has always offered its content without a subscription fee, or a paywall. Its continued existence depends on support from members of that scene, and the state’s arts lovers. Please consider making a contribution of any amount to NJArts.net via PayPal, or by sending a check made out to NJArts.net to 11 Skytop Terrace, Montclair, NJ 07043.
