Song of the Day 6/19: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, “Kitty’s Back”
As an antidote to the new Bruce Springsteen album, a pleasant enough departure from his usual sound but about as energetic as a Perry Como record, here’s the song that might be the most rollicking rave-up in his catalog. There’s no debating that “The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle” represented the peak of Springsteen’s shambolic early sound, which changed once Jon Landau got his mitts on The Boss. He replaced his energetic but sloppy drummer Vini Lopez with the polished Max Weinberg, but settled for the competent rock and roll keyboards of Roy Bittan after the jazz-influenced David Sancious left for a solo career. Listen to the organ solo 3:34 to 4:08 to hear what was lost.
You can hear the difference on this version from the 1978 tour. Bittan and Danny Federici together can’t make up for what Sancious brought to the table by just playing finger exercises.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWJLhFpK2zk
This was by far my fave Springsteen album from beginning to end. He was completely unencumbered musically. His musical vision gradually became much more circumscribed as he moved on.
Probably in my fave top 10 albums list of all time.
Before Landau he specialized in organized chaos. He’d use any instrument — tuba, accordion, Suki’s violin — and favored long pieces with operatic arrangements that swelled and ebbed. All that went out the window once Landau arrived. Still resent him for that.