Bruce Springsteen Live! Grammy Museum Traveling Exhibit Launches in Downtown Los Angeles October 15th through April 2, 2023; 

Harvey Kubernik: Travels and Expeditions with Bruce Springsteen, Steven Van Zandt, and the E Street Band in the Seventies   

By Harvey Kubernik Copyright 2022 

   For nearly half a century, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band have exemplified the crowd-pleasing, soul-shaking, energy-exploding excitement of rock and roll onstage. 

    From an intimate look into Springsteen’s creative process to shedding light on how he became – and remains – one of the best live performers in rock and roll history, the GRAMMY Museum®’s Bruce Springsteen Live! explores the evolution of Springsteen through the decades and grants exclusive backstage access to Springsteen and the E Street Band’s legendary performances. 

   Bruce Springsteen Live! is a partnership with The Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music at Monmouth University. 

     A press release from the Grammy Museum announced the event.  

     
   “The GRAMMY Museum is excited to bring Bruce Springsteen Live! to Los Angeles,” said Jasen Emmons, Chief Curator and Vice President of Curatorial Affairs at the GRAMMY Museum. “We’re also thrilled to offer a special, expanded exhibit with the help of Springsteen fans for a one-of-a-kind immersive experience.”
 
   “From Springsteen’s earliest days on the Jersey Shore, performing in dingy clubs and boardwalk bars, to performing sold-out superstar stadium shows, his aim was to always exceed the loftiest expectations. Bruce Springsteen Live! will feature 49 years of iconic artifacts, live performance footage, instruments and stage costumes, exclusive interviews, concert posters and photography, as well as unique interactive displays to immerse fans into the minds of Springsteen and the E Street Band’s prolific process and how they prepare for concerts and tours.
 
    “Few performers embody the soul and excitement of live rock and roll like Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band,” said co-curator Robert Santelli. “This exhibit will give fresh insight into how they’ve been able to remain one of the greatest live acts for five decades.”
 
    “We are honored to work with the GRAMMY Museum on this unique Bruce Springsteen exhibit,” said co-curator Eileen Chapman, Director of The Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music.  “Since his first west coast show as a touring musician at the Troubadour in 1973 to the present day, Bruce has performed over 100 shows in the Los Angeles area and has thrilled millions of fans with his electrifying performances. This extensive exhibit provides a peek behind the curtain and a stirring trip down memory lane.”
 
Exhibit highlights include: 

• Born to Run Esquire Guitar: A staple of Springsteen’s career, the modified Fender guitar was featured most famously on the album cover of Born to Run (1975), as well as Live 1975/85 (1986), Human Touch (1992), and Wrecking Ball (2012)

• Clarence Clemons Saxophone: Nicknamed “The Big Man,” the legendary saxophonist played alongside Springsteen for 40 years. Upon Clarence’s death in 2011, the iconic instrument was passed on to his nephew Jake Clemons who, since 2012, continues to use it in performance as the newest member of the E Street Band.

• Stage Clothing: Outfits and accessories from Springsteen and members of the E Street Band.

• Tunnel of Love Ticket Booth Stage Prop: From the 1988 Tunnel of Love Tour, this iconic ticket booth symbolized the audience’s admittance to the onstage narrative of the rollercoaster of love, loyalty, commitment, and faith.

• Max Weinberg’s Tunnel of Love drum kit, plus a drum interactive with tips from Weinberg.

• Danny Federici Accordion

    Create Your Encore Interactive: Springsteen is known for his encores! This interactive kiosk will allow visitors to view his handwritten setlists and create their own encores to compare against Springsteen’s original.”    

    This upcoming Bruce Springsteen Live! 2022-2023 exhibit in Los Angeles made me re-visit a handful of my Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band concert moments during the seventies.

     Guitarist, songwriter, record producer, and radio deejay Steven Van Zandt has known Springsteen since he was 16 and put him up at his pad in New Jersey when Bruce’s parents moved to California. 

    In my 2004 book, This Is Rebel Music, Van Zandt explained the bond Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band have with their devoted throng. 

     This also extends to his own Little Steven’s Underground Garage channel heard on the SiriusXM satellite radio network.        

    “I know it sounds a bit silly but I do believe rock ‘n’ roll can change the world. It’s about bands, and that for me suggests brotherhood, family, friendship, and community. 

     “I don’t mean to be blasphemes but I look at rock and roll as a religion. For me it is that kind of thing. People become part of this religion regardless of their age, or what a certain common ground with this type or that I can’t explain but I know exists. 

    “Because that’s what we do, that’s the job description with a performing artist; you have to be that thing that helps to heal in times of suffering. Sometimes it’s there to celebrate…but you are sort of the ‘voice of the community’, or the sounding board or whatever. In a funny way, I think that rock ‘n’ roll became the church of the community. I know it has been for me…” 

    In very late April and early May of 1973, Columbia Records President Clive Davis hosted a week of label acts in downtown Los Angeles at The Ahmanson Theater billed as A Week to Remember. Judy Paynter, Director of Press Information at Columbia Records in their Sunset Blvd. office in Hollywood invited me. 

    I saw Johnny Cash, Miles Davis, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Charlie Rich, Earth, Wind & Fire, and Billy Paul. Richard Pryor was an emcee one night.

     On May 1, 1973 at the venue, Davis showcased Bruce Springsteen alongside Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show and New Riders of the Purple Sage. Springsteen’s played tunes from his just issued January 5th ’73 debut LP Greetings From Asbury Park N.J.: “Spirit in the Night, “Wild Billy’s Circus Story, “Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street,” and something called “Thundercrack.” I think he did an encore of “Twist and Shout.”  

    I had just interviewed a couple of disco acts, and man, did I need a shot of rock ‘n’ roll which Bruce supplied.   

    In the lobby I spotted scene-maker, record producer/songwriter Kim Fowley. I was introduced to the tall and lanky Fowley by a Columbia record executive. The promo man asked Kim “What do you think of this guy? Some of these words are from Mars.” Kim, who was writing songs with the Byrds’ Skip Battin for the New Riders of the Purple Sage, replied, “I wish I had his music publishing on any planet. 

     I next saw Springsteen at Doug Weston’s Troubadour club in West Hollywood in 1973. Maybe in February. Perhaps on my birthday, February 26th. Photographer Richard Creamer was with me. A short set. Maybe before or after the Ahmanson appearance. Bruce meant every word that came out of his mouth.         

    During 2007 I interviewed record business icon Clive Davis about the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival. He was a guest of co-producer Lou Adler. After the landmark Monterey gathering, Davis signed Big Brother & the Holding Company, the Electric Flag, and eventually Al Kooper’s new band, Blood, Sweat & Tears. Kooper was an assistant stage manager at Monterey.  

    It was on the initial suggestion of legendary A&R man and record producer, John Henry Hammond II, that Davis signed Bruce Springsteen to the label on January 9, 1972, the same day I saw the Rolling Stones at the Hollywood Palladium. 

    It was a determined Mike Appel, serving as Springsteen’s manager/record producer/music publisher of Laurel Canyon, Ltd., who initiated an audition for Bruce in a studio with Hammond.    

         “At Monterey I was really just getting my feet wet. I was in the business side of it for a year,” reminisced Davis in an interview I did with him for MOJO magazine. 

    “I was working with Andy Williams, the young Barbra Streisand and Bob Dylan, and signed Donovan to Epic in 1966. I was observing.

    “I was seeing the business change,” Clive remarked. “I was seeing music change, but I was waiting for the A&R staff to lead into these changes that were showing evidence in becoming important in music.  So, when I really came to Monterey not knowing what to expect, but seeing a revolution before my eyes. I had no idea what awaited me. 

   “All of a sudden seeing Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company, and the Electric Flag, and the artists that were there, there no was no question that the predominance there was a change in contemporary music. A definite hardening, edgier, rockier amplification that was taking place that truly was signaling a major revolution in rock music.   

   “The success of the artists I signed at Monterey gave me confidence that I had good ears.”  

    I have a faint memory of a March 1973 Springsteen booking at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium show where Bruce and the E Street Band opened for Dr. John and blew the headliner off the stage. What I do remember from that night was holding hands with the girl I was with during “Lost in the Flood.” The run up to that achievement took an entire college semester but well worth it…    

     On July 30, 1974 I went to the Troubadour with my brother Kenneth. It was another Columbia Records-themed evening. The Byrds’ Roger McGuinn played a short set. McGuinn was embarking on a solo career. That day Charlie Coplen, a Columbia publicist arranged an interview with Roger and I at his house in Malibu for Sounds magazine in the UK. 

   The word was out:  Bruce and the E Street Band were going to play.  

    I knew the club manager, Robert Marchese, who had produced a Grammy winning live album on Richard Pryor. Paul Body was the doorman. Kenneth and I were seated right on the floor. 

   Bruce and the boys came just after midnight. It was a translucent experience as they delivered songs from The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle.  Just Marvelous. 

    The numbers on their LP became ten times larger in the room. “Incident on 57th Street,” “Spirit in the Night,” “New York City Serenade,” “Jungleland,” “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight),” and “Kitty’s Back,” plus a cover of the Crystals’ “Then He Kissed Me.” Ken raved about pianist David Sancious. 

   Near 2:00 am, Marchese grabbed the club P.A. system microphone and announced over the speakers, “They can play longer. But we need to take all the glasses and liquor off the tables. No drinking! We don’t want any hassles with the city who can bust us for violating our liquor license.” 

    The band stopped and the tables were wiped clean. The outfit reloaded and did another hour. Bruce ended the night diving onto a table top.  

    Afterwards, Bruce thanked Marchese and his staff for the support. Robert, who had seen everyone perform from Elvis Presley to Otis Redding, said to Bruce, “I haven’t seen rock ‘n’ roll like this since I saw Jimi burn his guitar at Monterey. You’re the next great one.” 

    The dye was cast. 

    During October of 1975, I attended the string of Roxy Theater nights Bruce and the E Street Band booked on Sunset Blvd. KWST-FM broadcast the evening of October 15th. 

   The Columbia Records staff lauded my ongoing coverage of Springsteen’s recordings and comped me out. I was phoned the minute the first promotional copies of Born to Run arrived in the office. I received one with the coveted rare front cover. 

   Before one gig at the Roxy, I saw Bruce in Tower Records. He bought an album by the Byrds and that night did “Goin’ Back,” reading the lyrics on stage. I covered the engagement for Melody Maker, and interviewed his manager Mike Appel and engineer, Jimmy Iovine.   

   I sat with Jackie DeShannon and Tom Waits one evening.  Jack Nicholson, was nearby. He was from New Jersey and knew the actor Rupert Cross, a close friend of Robert Marchese. I had met Jack on the set of The Monkees in 1967.  

     I first encountered guitarist and Springsteen co-conspirator Miami Steve Van Zandt at a soundcheck, and again inside the Sunset Marquis Hotel. He joined the band in 1975. 

    I reminded Steve that in 1974 Bruce and the E Street Band did the Crystals “Then He Kissed Me” at the Troubadour. And, that I was planning to go the Gold Star Recording Studios on Santa Monica and Vine for a Dion DiMucci recording session Phil Spector was producing. I had just interviewed Phil and Dion for Melody Maker. Steve started talking about the Ronettes and the Spector groups. He was a record collector! 

     Steve loved the Rascals, Bob Dylan, the Who, the Electric Prunes, Kinks, Manfred Mann, the Youngbloods and Donovan.  I realized why I had heard “Pretty Flamingo” and Jackie DeShannon’s “Walk in the Room” at the Roxy. I later learned that bassist Garry Tallent was the real record geek with a jones for rockabilly.   

      I asked Steve, “Would you like to come along to Gold Star with me?” “Yes, and can Bruce join us?” “Sure.” We took a cab. 

     Steven had gigged on the Las Vegas circuit in the early 1970s when Dion and the Coasters were on marquees. Steven marveled being in the room where singer Darlene Love had logged a lot of recording sessions with Phil. 

    The most inspirational Springsteen recital I caught in the seventies was probably November 1st 1975 on the campus of U.C. Santa Barbara inside the Robertson Gymnasium. It was seismic. “Saint in the City” stuck in my head the entire 90-minute road trip back to Los Angeles. 

    Afterwards, I went to one of my favorite spots on La Cienega called Ollie Hammond’s Steak House for a hamburger. They had 24-hour service. 

    I look at the next table and there was Bruce. He was staying down the street with the band at the Sunset Marquis. I had a copy of the first pressing of Born to Run with the different lettering front cover. He later autographed it for me. 

   Next time Steve, Bruce and the E Street Band were in town in 1976, they packed the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium for two nights on September 29th-30th. I slept outside the box office for ducats. I had to see both nights and only had a press ticket for one of them. I met two new friends at 5:00 am, David Leaf and Michael Hacker. I still talk to them.  

    On October 5th, I schlepped up to the Santa Barbara Bowl with a high school pal, Robert Sherman, for another Bruce-induced musical booster shot. I managed to buy some orchestra pit seats and a local surfer girl in Isla Vista turned us on to McConnell’s Ice Cream.   

  After these power-packed dates, I interviewed Van Zandt for the November 6, 1976 issue of Melody Maker.    

Steve Van Zandt: Miami, Bruce, and Roots

     Steve smiles when asked about the outstanding version of 'It's My Life', the Animals classic which has been worked up into a 20-minute mini-drama in Bruce's act.

    "That was at a soundcheck," he remembers. "When we do a soundcheck we jam and mess around on songs by the Four Tops, Marvin Gaye and the Sixties English things. 'It's My Life' started there. Bein' the brilliant cat he is, Bruce put that rap in which was so revealing.

    "We learned a lot on the Southern tour we Just did. We learned that Time and Newsweek cover stories are meaningless to people. These magazines make sense to the people who already know you or the small portion in big cities who respond to that. Down there it was very much Bruce who? It was especially rewarding when they were standing at the end."

   Some people were turned off by the hard-sell presentation of Bruce and the E Street gang as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Did Steve think the deserved hype turned off some potential fans?

    "I don't think it did anything except for the people who never saw the band live. Like Steve Stills, He said some pretty heavy things against us, and I know he never saw us in action. I ran into him and invited him down, and he didn't show.

   "Once somebody sees the band, they can't possibly not like it. There's a difference between recording and the live situation. The albums give you a chance to know the songs and lyrics, and then that's expanded playing live.

    "It gives you a broader sense of who he is," he argues. "It would be kinda boring to see an identical record.

    "Bruce is the best possible boss," he says, munching over a kosher dill. "He's hip enough to let everybody do their own thing, to express in other ways. All that does is make your gig better. When you go back to playing in the band it's like comin' home to foundation and security.

    "We look like we have fun on stage 'cause we do. Ninety-nine out of 100 shows I enjoy as much as the audience. I think it shows up there. We're not playing baseball stadiums.

   "People aren't spectators, they're friends. The people stay with us. We have a real loyal following. In anybody else's case two years between albums would have been a disaster because Bruce Springsteen isn't a household word.

    "The people we play to don't like us – they love us. It comes from playing clubs and small theatres two years longer than the business would have suggested.

    "Small places have created this thing other bands seem to miss when they go for the bread and the 50,000-seaters. That's cool. It doesn't matter to me."

   Springsteen and the E Street Band are one of the few groups around today carrying on traditional rock and roll. "I don't wake up in the morning feeling I'm carrying on a tradition," Van Zandt suggests. 

    "We're a roots rock group. We're conscious of it. I'm doing things not innovative, but we're always modernizing the situation as much as possible. That's one of the reasons we use Jimmy Iovine as engineer. He's the best. A contemporary cat. We get a balance between us. If I had it my way we'd do the records in mono," he laughs.

   "I think it's a prerequisite that it's derivative. It's obvious where it comes from. I just worry it will be considered a throwback or an oldie. These words scare me.

    "I go home and someone puts on the new Peter Frampton album, and I then put Sam & Dave's Greatest Hits on the turntable and I feel it was released yesterday. In Bruce's case, he's cool. He's innovative, and creative, and lyrically beyond any problems.

   "Every night I hear him change the rap between songs. That's gotta happen. We're not robots or actors. Why write a song or play one if it doesn't change or no-one is getting off? That's why I never understood the top 40 trip.

   "Every night you respond to something different. Tonight he mentioned Kingsley and Ocean Avenue in 'It's My Life'. I know where he's comin' from, but only 15 people in the crowd know where the f – those streets are.

   "But there's universal street corners, and no-one feels isolated or left out. The Stones used to talk about places in England (Knightsbridge in 'Play With Fire') and everyone could relate. Maybe it even added to it, not being a common place.” 

    In 1976 Columbia Records held their yearly convention in Century City at the Century Plaza Hotel. Gail Roberts, a Director of Press Information invited a few reporters to a company picnic on the beach in Santa Monica. Members of the band Chicago were there. Bruce mentioned he had opened for Chicago at a couple of 1973 shows [in New York at Madison Square Garden]. I devoured plenty of lobster and shrimp. And now I’m allergic to shell fish.   

   Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes performed inside the Century City ballroom doing songs from their debut album I Don’t Want to Go Home produced by Van Zandt and engineered by Jimmy Iovine. Steve and Bruce then joined Johnny on stage.  I watched the action with singer/songwriter Elliot Murphy and shared a meal with members of the Isley Brothers. I had interviewed Ernie Isley for Melody Maker in 1975.     

    Steven had produced a four-song demo that was heard by a Steve Popovich an executive at Epic Records which resulted in a series of terrific albums incorporating tunes from Van Zandt and Springsteen along with R&B cover versions. Later that year I flew to New Jersey and interviewed Southside Johnny for Melody Maker. Steven thanked me on the back cover sleeve of the second Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes LP, This Time It’s For Real.  

    At the Century City venue, I was introduced to John Hammond. I complimented him on his earlier music critic work, journalism, civil rights activism, and A&R acumen. Hammond was highly instrumental in bringing us the recorded music of Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Mike Bloomfield, Benny Goodman, George Benson, Leonard Cohen, Babatunde Olatunji, and Bruce Springsteen.     

     John was delighted I wrote for Melody Maker. He had been a U.S. correspondent for the British music weekly. He gave me some advice about scouting talent. “It’s all about being natural, their repertoire, having originality in the studio, and collaboration.”   

   In one of my interviews with Leonard Cohen in 1976, published in my 2015 book, Leonard Cohen Everybody Knows, I asked Leonard about Hammond, who inked him to Columbia Records in 1966.  

     “He was extremely hospitable and decent. He took me out for lunch at a place called White’s on Twenty-Third Street. It was a very pleasant lunch, and he said, ‘Let’s go back to your hotel room, and maybe you can play me some songs.’ So, he sat in a chair and I played him a dozen songs. [They included “Suzanne,” ‘The Stranger Song,’ and “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye.”] He seemed happy and said that he had to consult with his colleagues but that he’d like to offer me a contract.”        

    In 1978 I was appointed West Coast Director of A&R for MCA Records. In my tenure, I worked on the Denny Bruce-produced John Hiatt album Slug Line, and secured some musicians for his touring band. I also suggested and lobbied hard for the pairing of engineer-turned record producer Jimmy Iovine with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers to team for Damn the Torpedoes. In 2014, Tom penned the forward to my book Turn Up the Radio! Pop, Rock and Roll in Los Angeles 1956-1972.  I initiated the Del Shannon album Drop Down and Get Me which Petty produced, and helped oversee MCA’s acquisition of ABC Records. 

     I interviewed saxophonist Clarence Clemons, “the Big Man” in the E Street Band in 1977 for Melody Maker in Culver City. Clemons was cast in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio musical drama, New York, New York, directed by Scorsese. 

   Clarence portrayed Cecil Powell. The movie starred Liza Minnelli as Francine Evans and Robert De Niro as Jimmy Doyle. Dick Miller had a part as a club owner, and my soon to be friend, Harry E. Northup, played Alabama. Harry had pivotal roles in previous Scorsese movies Mean Streets and Taxi Driver. 

           In spring of 1978 I flew to Philadelphia to report on a Bruce Springsteen tour for the June 10, 1978 issue of Melody Maker. 

Bruce Springsteen: Reborn and Running Again

  EVEN BEFORE the two brilliant concerts at the Spectrum earlier in the week, Bruce Springsteen could have been the Mayor of Philadelphia if he had ever decided to campaign.

      Another impressive addition to the Springsteen sound is organist Danny Federici. His playing reminds me of Stevie Winwood and it's logical to find out from bassist Garry Tallent that before Federici joined the band, they used to do a live rendition of “Gimme Some Lovin',” the Spencer Davis song.

     Danny does very few solos in the show, but is a functional player who offers well-defined passages and, like the rest of the band, doesn't fall into the trap of egotism. This is team work on display. Danny was also quite pleased by the Philadelphia fan reaction "Bruce has always been popular here, even before I joined the band. He dedicated 'For You' to the audience tonight. They have been with him from the start."

    My brother Kenneth and I also checked out a stellar Springsteen concert on June 29, 1978 in San Jose at The Center for the Performing Arts. Bruce’s road manager put me on the guest list. Backstage, Ken and Bruce shared a bottle of Canada Dry Ginger Ale and discussed David Sancious’ remarkable musical abilities for 15 minutes.       

    What followed were two early July 1978 Springsteen and Co. Southern California appearances at the Inglewood Forum and Roxy Theater, the second which was broadcast live on KMET-FM. 

     “Prove It All Night” further spotlighted Bruce’s lead guitar prowess, while the churchy “Adam Raised the Cain” underscored a biblical expedition I hadn’t heard on Darkness on the Edge of Town.       

    Bruce had cited guitarist Michael Bloomfield as an influence to me in a conversation one night at The Starwood club where we saw the Ramones, but Steven was the big Bloomfield fan. 

    “I’ve played Dylan’s songs with Bruce and in top 40 bands earlier,” enthused Van Zandt. “Dylan was an extremely good folk guitarist as far as the folk style he played on his first few albums. Extremely adept at that. I talk a lot about Bloomfield. Oh my God…One of the greats. The single most unsung guitar hero. Really, right there alongside the holy trinity of (Eric) Clapton, (Jeff) Beck and (Jimmy) Page. Probably next in line as far as influence and importance would be Mike Bloomfield in our early youth growing up. Extremely important.”  

      I went to the San Diego Sports Arena on August 18th. Actor/musician Gary Busey, fresh off his success in The Buddy Holly Story, joined the E Streeters for “Rave On” and “Quarter to Three.”  

    On November 1, 1978 I sat with Ian Hunter, the bandleader of Mott the Hoople at a Springsteen concert held in New Jersey at Princeton University’s Jadwin Gymnasium.  I interviewed Hunter and asked about Springsteen and the E Street Band. Our conversation was published in Music Connection magazine.    

     “I liked the band,” offered Hunter. “I wasn’t too sure about Springsteen because - it wasn’t his fault, but clean rock ‘n’ roll came in about that time, and he seemed to be the cigarette.  (laughs.)  I was very angry, and I don’t know why, because I saw him again in June 2000 at Madison Square Garden, and I said to him afterwards, ‘Some people are rock ‘n’ roll, a lot of people run around it, but I said I saw a forest tonight.’  I mean, they were great!  The first five songs were mind-blowing. 

    “That’s what I said to him.  He’s for real.  And also, he tries to change people, he tries to make people better, ya know.  That whole kinda quasi-evangelist thing that he does.  He’s trying to get a point across there.  And it’s funny, but he’s trying to get the point across.  And I think he’s a man of the people.  I think he’s genuine.  The feeling with him I get is genuine.  And of course, that band on them middle speeds, there's nobody better.  That band is the finest band there is. 

   “There’s an element of corn there, but people love corn,” emphasized Hunter. “And he knows that.  I know that too.  Some of the things he does wouldn’t be classed as cool, but then cool is a very overrated thing.  There’s a lot of cool people about that I think are absolute idiots.”  

    And then there was Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band unhinged for two nights in mid-December 1978 at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco promoted by Bill Graham.  

     Kenneth and I drove up there in Bruce Gary’s van, who was enjoying long-deserved record business success as the drummer of the Knack. Bruce had jammed with the Knack at The Troubadour. 

   I was introduced to Bruce’s mother, Adele.  I recall his father Douglas was in attendance. Bruce’s sister Pam was there. 

    Go take a listen to the KSAN-FM radio broadcast of that monumental event that’s been in circulation for decades. 

    Nothing else needs to be written about that weekend I witnessed.  

    The Bruce Springsteen Archives is comprised of nearly 35,000 items from 47 countries, ranging from books and concert memorabilia to articles and promotional materials. The collection serves the research and informational needs of music fans, scholars, authors, and others with a serious interest in the life and career of Bruce Springsteen.
 
    The Bruce Springsteen Archives serves as the archival repository for Bruce Springsteen’s written works, photographs, periodicals, and artifacts. The Center also preserves and promotes the legacy of Bruce Springsteen and his role in American music, while creating exhibits, public programs and education initiatives that explore the works of American music giants like Woody Guthrie, Robert Johnson, Hank Williams, Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin, Frank Sinatra, and others.
 
    In addition to its archival mission The Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music creates traveling exhibits, educational conferences, public programs, teacher workshops, and scholastic field trips, all aimed at exploring the American music tradition and providing for academic discourse in various fields of American music.
 
For more information, visit https://springsteenarchives.org/.  

(Harvey Kubernik is the author of 20 books, including 2009’s Canyon Of Dreams: The Magic And The Music Of Laurel Canyon and 2014’s Turn Up The Radio! Rock, Pop and Roll In Los Angeles 1956-1972.   Sterling/Barnes and Noble in 2018 published Harvey and Kenneth Kubernik’s The Story Of The Band: From Big Pink To The Last Waltz. In 2021 they wrote Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child for Sterling/Barnes and Noble. 

    Otherworld Cottage Industries in 2020 published Harvey’s Docs That Rock, Music That Matters.  

Kubernik’s writings are in several book anthologies, including, The Rolling Stone Book of The Beats and Drinking With Bukowski. Harvey wrote the liner notes to the CD re-releases of Carole King’s Tapestry, The Essential Carole King, Allen Ginsberg’s Kaddish, Elvis Presley The ’68 Comeback Special, The Ramones’ End of the Century and Big Brother & the Holding Company Captured Live at The Monterey International Pop Festival.   

   In November 2006, Kubernik was invited to address audiotape preservation and archiving at special hearings called by The Library of Congress held in Hollywood, California. 

     In 2020, Harvey served as a consultant on the 2-part music documentary Laurel Canyon: A Place in Time directed by Alison Ellwood that debuted on the M-G-M/EPIX television channel).