Hancher Auditorium Iowa City, Iowa in the fall of 1975.
Not a big fan of most of his stuff, but it was a good concert.
DeKay
Where were you when you first heard ""Born To Run"?
It was 1975. I was on the floor of my childhood home listening to Syracuse University college radio station, WAER, on my Pioneer Sx-737 tuner. I was blown away from start to finish.
Prior to that release, music critic Jon Landau was quoted, "I saw rock and roll future, and its name is Bruce Springsteen".
Where were you when you first heard it?
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At the Banana Records shop in downtown San Francisco where I was working when it was released. One of the other people there was a big Bruce fan from his first two albums, so you can bet we heard 'Born To Run' a lot. I got to see him 3 times, the last on the 'Darkness at the Edge of Town' tour in '78; never owned any of his records. @rar1 - did you know that 'EJ Korvettes' stood for the 'Eight Jewish Korea Veterans' who created it? We had one in Maryland where I'm from (though we'd go to S Klein's more often). |
i heard the title track on am radio upon its release and was immediately struck by the four-note opening riff--it's one of the very few songs that embedded in my memory the first time i heard it (a couple of credence and byrds songs had the same effect). i've never been as over-the-moon about the whole album--"jungleland" is kind of a slog and the production always sounded over-compressed to me. @larsma, never knew that about korvettes. |
@thecarpathian - yeah, if you ever want to know anything useless that nobody cares about, I'm a great source! |
That is a common misnomer. ... "E. J. Korvette" was coined as a combination of the initials of its founders (Eugene and Joe) and a re-spelling of the naval term corvette, a nimble sailing warship and later World War II sub-destroyer. The company's founding in 1948 (two years before the Korean War) disproves the urban legend that the name was an acronym for "Eight (or Eleven) Jewish Korean War Veterans". |
@larsman Here are the facts about EJ Korvetts. The "E.J." in E.J. Korvette stands for the first names of the founders, Eugene and Joe. The "Korvette" part of the name is a deliberate misspelling of "corvette," referencing the naval ship, according to the King of Prussia Historical Society. An urban legend falsely claimed the name was an acronym for "Eight Jewish Korean War Veterans". The company was actually founded in 1948, two years before the Korean War. |
@foggyus91 - wow, thanks for hipping me to that - I always like to learn something new every day. It was a pretty cool 'urban legend', though. |
In a friend's apartment in Glendale, CA. At that time, I was mostly a fan of The Allmans, Neil Young, Hendrix, Stones, Clapton, The Who, etc. and Springsteen's sound and the world he described were new to me. What caught my attention right away were the lyrics. I'd been writing poems for several years at that time and his wordsmithing sounded very fresh and vivid to me. I never became what I'd call a fan but I respect his talent. Perhaps if I'd been still living back east in '75, I would've related more to his music. Hard to say. |
@larsman My Mother worked at a Korvetts in the Record Department to make ends meet while my Dad was in Vietnam. She heard that story and thought it was true too! |
Grand Rapids, MI. A good friend who was a year ahead and in college pulled up in his car, held up the album, and said, “you gotta hear these guys!” I was attracted to the hard hitting, no BS, upbeat sound of the band, The Big Man’s” horn, and the working man’s lyrics. They sounded exactly like what they intended to be, everybody’s favorite hard working bar band from Jersey, and a guaranteed good time if you rolled up on their show with a hot date in your hot rod. Unfortunately, at least for me, the stuff that came after just didn’t have the same appeal. |
Have a great weekend....