Welcome to the 20th episode of the CROSSED CHANNELS podcast — a.k.a. the podcast in which music journalists/obsessives Dan Epstein (the Yank) and Tony Fletcher (the Brit) clash and connect over music from either side of the pond.
For our big 2-0, we’re back on American shores — the Jersey Shore, to be specific. Bruce Springsteen has been on both of our minds a lot lately, both because of the recent 50th anniversary of his breakthrough album Born To Run, and because Dan is in the midst of penning a multi-part series about his Bruce-obsessed teenage years. (His first two installments, which include catching the second US leg of The River tour and recording an a cappella-with-kazoo rendition of “Jungleland,” can be be found below.)
Unlike some of the artists we’ve previously covered here at CROSSED CHANNELS, Bruce Springsteen is someone whose work is extremely dear to both of us — though because of our slight difference in age and the fact that we grew up on opposite sides of the Atlantic, our experiences were quite different when it came to discovering his music. We compare notes on the “origin stories” of our Bruce fandom in this episode, while also taking a closer look at a Springsteen album that didn’t chart in either the US or the UK at the time of its release: 1973’s The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle.
Released just 11 months after the acoustic-oriented Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., Springsteen’s ambitious second album found him plugging in his electric guitar to record seven songs — four of which ran seven minutes or longer — with a full band, while drawing upon a much wider range of musical styles and influences. Though the album received some positive notices in the press around the time of its release (including in the January 31, 1974 issue of Rolling Stone), it wouldn’t actually debut on the Billboard 200 until July 1975, and wouldn’t even make the UK charts until June 1985.
Still, The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle was an incredibly important stepping stone in Springsteen’s career, one which put him and the E Street Band on course to create Born to Run and to play their first shows in the UK and Europe, including their now-legendary appearance at London’s Hammersmith Odeon on November 18, 1975.
We talk about that incredible performance in this episode, along with why Wild/Innocent is still such a compelling listen, Bruce’s knack for myth-making, the time Tony interviewed Bruce for his book with Eddie Floyd, Knock! Knock! Knock! on Wood: My Life in Soul, and a whole lot more!
We also have new theme music for the show: “Put It Down” by Tony’s transatlantic band THE DEAR BOYS, out this Friday Sept 12 on Bandcamp and all good streaming services.
As always, this full CROSSED CHANNELS episode is only available to paid subscribers of Jagged Time Lapse and/or Tony Fletcher, Wordsmith, though a short preview of the episode is available above for all to listen to. To hear this episode in full, along with all of our previous CROSSED CHANNELS episodes, just sign up for a paid subscription to one of our Substacks — or, better yet, sign up for both of them!
CROSSED CHANNELS can be heard both here on our Substack pages or via your preferred podcast app: just follow the links and instructions on the right. In addition to the podcast, Jagged Time Lapse and Tony Fletcher, Wordsmith regularly serve up previously unpublished interviews and other exclusive content to our paid subscribers.
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