The Promise of Bruce Springsteen by Eric Alterman Reviewed By Steve Rudd

Brucie, we need you - and more than ever! A true rock 'n' roll star in every sense and then some, Bruce has had a truly staggering career in the music business, and even as we maniacally rush headlong into the 21st Century he is more popular than ever. This biography of Bruce is a fabulously insightful affair. Charting all the highs (coupled with the odd low) of his thirty-odd-year career, Eric perfectly captures his own passion for Bruce's music.

Indeed, Eric openly admits that he has held a long-standing obsession/ fascination for the man, and has spent much money over the years and in the process of buying his records and flying cross-country to a grand multitude of gigs. Alterman re-iterates how important Bruce's music has been in so many respects. First and foremost, Bruce has never dumbed down his working class background and to this day he remains a staunch supporter of human rights and sticking up for what one believes in - whether such belief is in the name of love, in the throes of retaining one's integrity whilst working hard to pay the rent and put food on the table, or in living life as a moral-bound and modest man. 1975 proved to be a defining year for Bruce and his music, as his Born To Run album made a superstar of him and stars of his backing band: The E-Street Band. Whilst many fans of his will argue forever and an eternity that his earliest work - that spans the seventies - is his greatest material, all of his post-Born In The USA music (i.e., from the album's 1984 release date onwards) is still truly wondrous and always thoroughly interesting and captivating - despite being far more commercial and aimed at the masses.

Still, Bruce has never really sold out to any desperately ridiculous degree, and albums such as the brooding and introspective Ghost of Tom Joad often spring up and surprise even his most loyal fans. As author Alterman says, Tom Joad is perhaps Bruce Springsteen's most uncompromising album. It demands that we meditate, however briefly, on the lives of people most of us attempt to keep out of sight: male hustlers, homeless people, Mexican migrants. One of the most bootlegged artists of all time, Bruce - following three decades of hard graft - is worth more than many small countries.

Obviously he's a very rich self-made man. He's also an icon of our times on which his fans peg their hopes and dreams, due to Bruce's eloquent sense of real-life drama that dominates many of his classic songs. Ever the poet, Bruce once suggested that maybe our salvation lay not in what we accomplish individually, but rather as a collective society. Similarly, his timeless quip that 'It ain't no sin to be glad you're alive' proves that he tends to whimsically look on the bright side even if storm clouds are realistically brewing. Likewise, it ain't no sin to sing along with his songs… in fact, it's impossible not to! ISBN 0-316-03917-9 (Back Bay Books; first published in 1999)

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