2009 – The official Roadrunner Records web site has been updated with top-album picks for 2008 from a number of artists that are signed to the label, including members of MACHINE HEAD, MEGADETH, DEVILDRIVER, KILLSWITCH ENGAGE and TRIVIUM. A few of the selections follow below. The entire list can be found at this location.
Shawn Drover (MEGADETH)
01. CYNIC – Traced in Air
02. TESTAMENT – The Information Damnation
03. MESHUGGAH – Obzen
04. CHILDREN OF BODOM – Blooddrunk
05. OPETH – Watershed
06. EVERGREY – Torn
07. BLOTTED SCIENCE – The Machinations of Dementia
08. AIRBOURNE – Runnin’ Wild
09. INTO ETERNITY – The Incurable Tragedy
10. BRAIN DRILL – Apocalyptic Feasting
Frédéric Leclercq (DRAGONFORCE)
01. GUNS N’ ROSES – Chinese Democracy
02. DISTURBED – Indestructible
03. SLIPKNOT – All Hope Is Gone
04. CYNIC – Traced in Air
05. CRADLE OF FILTH – Godspeed on the Devil’s Thunder
06. ULTRA VOMIT – Objectif Thunes
07. SEBASTIEN TELLIER – Sexuality
08. ALICE COOPER – Along Came a Spider
09. MOTLEY CRUE – Saints of Los Angeles
10. METALLICA – Death Magnetic
Matt Heafy (TRIVIUM)
01. COLDPLAY – Viva La Vida
02. COLDPLAY – Prospekt’s March
03. MAXIMUM THE HORMONE – Tsume Tsume Tsume
04. LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA – Mozart’s Requiem
05. GOJIRA – The Way Of All Flesh
06. AMON AMARTH – Twilight of the Thunder God
07. SLIPKNOT – All Hope Is Gone
08. OPETH – Watershed
09. METALLICA – Death Magnetic
10. TRIVIUM – Shogun
Robb Flynn (MACHINE HEAD)
01. ALL SHALL PERISH – Awaken The Dreamers
02. METALLICA – Death Magnetic
03. TRIVIUM – Shogun
04. WINDS OF PLAGUE – Decimate The Weak
05. LIL WAYNE – The Carter III
06. LA COKA NOSTRA – A Brand You Can Trust
07. SLIPKNOT – All Hope Is Gone
08. WHITECHAPEL – This Is Exile
09. MESHUGGAH – Bleed
10. BLEEDING THROUGH – Sister Charlatan
Joel Stroetzel (KILLSWITCH ENGAGE)
01. KINGS OF LEON – Only by the Night
02. RYAN ADAMS AND THE CARDINALS – Cardinology
03. RADIOHEAD – In Rainbows
04. TOMMY EMMANUEL – Center Stage
05. ALL THAT REMAINS – Overcome
06. NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS – Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
07. Augustana – Can’t Love (Can’t Hurt
08. IN FLAMES – A Sense of Purpose
09. NADA SURF – Lucky
10. RAY LAMONTAGNE – Gossip in the Grain
Paolo Gregoletto (TRIVIUM)
01. METALLICA – Death Magnetic
02. MACHINE HEAD – The Blackening Special Edition
03. COLDPLAY – Viva La Vida
04. GOJIRA – The Way of All Flesh
05. SLIPKNOT – All Hope Is Gone
06. AMON AMARTH – Twilight of the Thunder God
07. PROTEST THE HERO – Fortress
08. AC/DC – Black Ice
09. OPETH – Watershed
10. TRIVIUM – Shogun
Max Cavalera (SOULFLY; CAVALERA CONSPIRACY; SEPULTURA)
01. BAD BRAINS – Build a Nation
02. DISFEAR – Live the Storm
03. GOJIRA – The Way of All Flesh
04. GOGOL BORDELLO – Gypsy Punks
05. TURBO TRIO – Turbo Trio
06. INCITE – Divided We Fail
07. AGNOSTIC FRONT – Warriors
08. AMON AMARTH – Twilight of the Thunder God
09. AGORAPHOBIC NOSEBLEED – Insect Warfare
10. HIRAX – The New Age of Terror
Justin Foley (KILLSWITCH ENGAGE)
01. CYNIC – Traced in Air
02. MESHUGGAH – Obzen
03. CULT OF LUNA – Eternal Kingdom
04. SIGUR ROS – Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust
05. GOJIRA – The Way Of All Flesh
06. MOGWAI – The Hawk Is Howling
07. NINE INCH NAILS – The Slip
08. UNDEROATH – Lost In The Sound Of Separation
Michael Spretizer (DEVILDRIVER)
01. THE BIRTHDAY MASSACRE – Walking With Strangers
02. AMON AMARTH – Twilight of the Thunder God
03. MINDLESS SELF INDULGENCE – If
04. ALL THAT REMAINS – Overcome
05. GOJIRA – The Way of All Flesh
06. IN FLAMES – A Sense of Purpose
07. CHILDREN OF BODOM – Blood Drunk
08. OPETH – Watershed
09. RAUNCHY – Wasteland Discotheque
10. TESTAMENT – The Formation of Damnation
Jonathan Miller (DEVILDRIVER)
01. IN THIS MOMENT – Dream
02. GUNS N’ ROSES – Chinese Democracy
03. SLIPKNOT – All Hope Is Gone
04. SHINY TOY GUNS – Seasons of Poison
05. ENYA – …And Winter Came
06. ALL THAT REMAINS – Overcome
07. METALLICA – Death Magnetic
08. ALL SHALL PERISH – Awaken The Dreamers
09. MUDVAYNE – The New Game
10. TRIVIUM – Shogun
Appearing at a news conference at the Venice Film Festival in September to promote the Bob Dylan biopic “I’m Not There,” Heath Ledger, who died on Tuesday, spoke of his “obsession with an artist by the name of Nick Drake,” an English-born singer/songwriter whom he characterized as a “very mysterious figure.”
“I was obsessed with his story and his music and I pursued it for a while and still have hopes to kind of tell his story one day,” a soft-spoken and fidgety Ledger told the assembled media, though he also said that any such aspirations had “faded away.”
But in an eerie postscript to the actor’s own death on Tuesday, MTV News has learned that Ledger recently shot and edited a music video for a Drake song called “Black Eyed Dog,” so titled because of a Winston Churchill quote describing depression as such. It is also reportedly the last song Drake recorded before overdosing on antidepression medication in 1974 at the age of 26.
A representative for Drake’s estate described the “gorgeous” and “extremely moving” clip as a stark black-and-white composition, consisting mainly of the director turning the camera on himself. In the end, Ledger is seen drowning himself in a bathtub.
The video, which has not been released commercially and has apparently not yet leaked to the Web, has been screened just twice, once last Labor Day weekend at the Bumbershoot festival in Seattle and a second time in October at “A Place to Be,” an event honoring Drake held in Los Angeles.
Ledger also directed Ben Harper’s video for “Morning Yearning” and announced plans to start a label with the singer called Masses Music Co. last year. The label’s first signing was a singer from Ledger’s hometown of Perth, Australia, named Grace Woodroofe; Ledger also directed a video for her cover of David Bowie’s “Quicksand.”
While Drake garnered just a cult following during his life, his music has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years. In 2000, Volkswagen scored a ubiquitous television ad with the title track from his 1972 album, Pink Moon, after which Drake’s albums reportedly sold more in one month than they had in the previous 30 years. This past November, fans were treated to a limited-edition box set that included not only the three albums Drake recorded in his short career, but also a book and a DVD documentary about his life.
2005 – Singer/songwriter Chris LeDoux, who became a cult favorite on the rodeo circuit during the 1970s, dies in a Casper, Wy., hospital after a lengthy illness. He is 56.
2003 – Jim Morrison’s parents sue the Doors 21st Century – made up of Ray Manzarek and Robbie Krieger and The Cult’s Ian Astbury – claiming their U.S. tour “maliciously misappropriated” the name and logo of the original Doors lineup.
2001 – Megadeth release their tenth album The World Needs a Hero, their first on new label Sanctuary. It reaches No. 16 in the Billboard charts, confirming the aging thrash band’s move from arena-fillers to cult concern.
1973 – The Rocky Horror Picture Show, starring Tim Curry, opens at a London theater,. Also, making his first time ever appearance is Meatloaf.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a 1975 musical comedy film that parodies science fiction and horror films. With a screenplay written by Richard O’Brien and Jim Sharman, the film features Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick. The film is based on the British musical stage production The Rocky Horror Show.
The film is considered a cult classic and a midnight movie, although it is widely known by mainstream audiences and has a large international following. RHPS was the first movie from a major film studio — 20th Century Fox — in the midnight-movie market. The movie is one of the most well known and financially successful midnight movies. It is the longest running theatrical release in film history. More than 30 years later it is still in limited release in cinemas around the world. In 2005, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
The story, narrated by a criminologist (Charles Gray), is that of a newly engaged young couple, Brad Majors (Barry Bostwick) and Janet Weiss (Susan Sarandon), who find themselves lost on a cold and rainy late November evening. Seeking a phone from which to call for help, the two find shelter at a nearby castle inhabited by strange and outlandish characters who are holding an Annual Transylvanian Convention. They watch, still wet from the rain, as the Transylvanians dance the Time Warp, the film’s signature song.
They are soon swept into the world of Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry), a self-proclaimed “sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania” and his servants, siblings Riff Raff (Richard O’Brien) and Magenta (Patricia Quinn), as well as groupie Columbia (Nell Campbell) and an ensemble of convention attendees. It is Furter’s intention to unveil the “secret to life itself”. In a scene inspired by Frankenstein movies, “Rocky Horror” (Peter Hinwood) is brought to life. After the disoriented Rocky is chased down by Frank, the party is interrupted by Eddie (Meat Loaf), an ex-delivery boy, who rides out of a deep freeze on a motorcycle. The scene ends with his bloody death at the hands of Furter.
Brad and Janet are shown to separate rooms where their host has his way with both. Janet, overcome with emotion, wanders off looking for Brad. She discovers a cowering Rocky, hiding in his birth tank from Riff Raff, who torments the creature much as Igor tormented Frankenstein’s monster. Janet, having discovered Brad’s infidelity, chooses to take advantage of the situation with Rocky. After discovering the “Creature” is missing, Frank, Brad, and Riff Raff return to the lab where they learn that an intruder has entered the building. Dr. Everett Scott (Jonathan Adams), Brad and Janet’s old high school science teacher, has come looking for Eddie, who is his nephew. It is at this point that Rocky and Janet are discovered hiding together. In a scene added specifically for the film version, the new guests are prepared a dinner consisting of Eddie’s remains. After they see what they have consumed, horror and disgust lead to a chase after Janet who runs screaming from the room. Frank captures all, temporarily turning them into statues and commanding them to participate in a cabaret-style floor show. The performance is disrupted by Riff Raff and Magenta, who kill Columbia, Frank, and Rocky. They release the earthlings—Brad, Janet, and Dr. Scott—as the castle takes off into space to return to the planet of Transsexual, in the galaxy of Transylvania.
Production
Based on the London stage production The Rocky Horror Show, by Richard O’Brien, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is slightly different from its original theatrical conception. In the production of the film, many of the original aspects from the Kings Road stage production changed, as did characters and dialogue, although many cast- and crew-members from its original production returned to work on the film. Director Jim Sharman, production designer Brian Thomson, and costume designer Sue Blane collaborated on the original London production with many of the cast that made it into the film version. Tim Curry reprised his role from the London and Los Angeles stage productions. After the film, Curry also did a short run on Broadway as Dr. Frank-N-Furter. Creator Richard O’Brien also returned for the film from the British stage team, as did Little Nell (Columbia) and Patricia Quinn (Magenta). Jonathan Adams, the narrator from the original cast, also returned for the film, instead playing Dr. Scott. The film was shot at Bray Studios and Oakley Court, a country house in Berkshire, England, UK from October 21, 1974 to December 19, 1974. Filming of Rocky’s birth occurred on October 30, 1974, the 81st anniversary of the birth of Charles Atlas.
Several ideas from the original conception of the film were dropped before production. During the opening theme, the film was supposed to include clips from all the movies mentioned in the song “Science Fiction Double Feature”. Producers discovered quickly that obtaining the rights to all the various film clips would be very costly, and cut the idea. Another idea was to parallel The Wizard of Oz (1939) by having the first 20 minutes of the film in black-and-white and Academy ratio until the doors burst open showing the Transylvanians in widescreen and then to full color at Frank’s entrance. This effect would have been prohibitively expensive, so the idea was discarded. The film was, however, shot in the narrower 1.66:1 aspect ratio.
Locations, sets, and props
Oakley Court refurbished and now a luxury hotel.
The film’s plot, setting, and style echoes that of the Hammer Horror films. Much like Universal Studios’ Horror films had their own style, Hammer productions did as well. Reuse of sets and props through many of their films, was money and time saving. Production designer Brian Thomson and director Jim Sharman chose locations, sets, and even props that were, in many cases, used in various old Hammer productions. The castle is known as the Hammer House for the number of films that it appeared in. A great deal of location shooting took place here. At the time, the manor was in very dilapidated condition. Filming took place during the fall, which made conditions harsh.
Today, the castle, Oakley Court, has been completely refurbished and is now a luxury hotel. It recently hosted a Rocky Horror picnic on its grounds. The classic “Creation” scene in Rocky Horror, so reminiscent of “Frankenstein” movies, has a good reason for that feel. The scene re-uses the tank and dummy from a Hammer production of “The Revenge of Frankenstein” starring Peter Cushing.[9] Other props and set pieces were used as well from stock that may be seen in many old British television shows and feature films.
Costumes
Perhaps the most unusual parts of this film are the costumes worn by the cast. Costume designer Sue Blane based all her designs on what little she knew of 1950′s America as well as a previous stage production she designed called “The Maids”. It is from this production that Tim Curry’s Victorian corset is borrowed.[10] Blane compared the relatively small ($400) costume budget of the stage show to the $1600 costume budget in 1974 for the film.
Nearly all the costume designs from the original stage production were transferred directly to the film, with a few exceptions. Some new designs appeared as well as a few that were discarded. In the London stage production, Tim Curry began the role of Frank-N-Furter as a blond, although it was short lived, the original design sketches by Blane do reflect that. Magenta gained a new maid costume to give the character more purpose and Columbia gained a sequined tuxedo and tails.
The introduction of new characters such as the Transylvanians presented Sue Blane with a challenge to costume a number of extras who reappear throughout the film. The outcome of their costuming did not satisfy Blane who stated that she wished she had more time for those particular costumes.
In the stage productions, actors generally did their own make-up, but for this film producers chose famed artist Pierre La Roche to redesign the make-up for each character. La Roche is also famous for designing make-up for David Bowie.[12] Production stills were taken by an artist famous for his 1970′s rock photographs, Mick Rock. The photographer has published many calendars and photo books from his Rocky Horror work.
Casting
The majority of the cast from The Rocky Horror Picture Show posing for the wedding photo at Ralph and Betty’s wedding in the movie’s opening scene.
The majority of the cast from The Rocky Horror Picture Show posing for the wedding photo at Ralph and Betty’s wedding in the movie’s opening scene.
* Tim Curry as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a Scientist. Auditioning for the part for the original stage production Tim Curry sang the song “Tutti Frutti”. He originated the role and recreated it in all productions except the Australian production up to filming. Frank is a flamboyant, well-meaning, often devious and sometimes evil transvestite, bisexual scientist.
* Susan Sarandon as Janet Weiss, a Heroine. Sarandon was not the first choice for the Production but Twentieth Century Fox insisted on American casting for the part of both Brad and Janet. Janet Weiss is the well-meaning, sweet and somewhat naive woman who was recently engaged to Brad, who gets tempted into bad ways.
* Barry Bostwick as Brad Majors, a Hero. Bostwick had previously had training in singing, juggling, trapeze, clown techniques, fencing, mime and ballet before his role in the film. Brad Majors is the clean-cut fiancé of Janet Weiss, to whom he recently proposed at a friend’s wedding.
* Richard O’Brien as Riff Raff, a Handyman. The author and song writer, Richard O’Brien had originally seen himself as Eddie. It was director Jim Sharman who cast him as Riff Raff.
* Patricia Quinn as Magenta, a Domestic. Quinn reprises her role from the original stage production, however she was not in any of the other productions. She almost did not return for the filming, as the part was drastically reduced from the stage play. Magenta is the sister of Riff Raff, and works as Frank’s domestic worker. Patricia Quinn’s lips are also used for the iconic opening number and movie poster.
Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry) in his most iconic role, as self proclaimed “Sweet Transvestite from Transexual, Transylvania.”
Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry) in his most iconic role, as self proclaimed “Sweet Transvestite from Transexual, Transylvania.”
* Nell Campbell as Columbia, a Groupie. Laura “Little Nell” Campbell recreates her character from the original stage production. Columbia is the groupie and friend of Frank, but also Eddie’s alleged lover.
* Jonathan Adams as Dr. Everett Von Scott, a Rival Scientist. He was Brad and Janet’s science teacher. He has come to the castle in search of his nephew Eddie, who has been murdered by Frank. Adams originally played the role of the Narrator in the London production.
* Peter Hinwood as Rocky Horror, a Creation. Muscle bound creation of Frank’s, with blond hair and a tan. Peter Hinwood has his own solo in “Sword of Damocles”, but does not speak throughout the show. This was changed from the stage show. Rocky’s songs are performed by Trevor White.
* Charles Gray as The Criminologist, an Expert. Narrator of the film. Gray accepted the role by saying, “Why not?” The character becomes a criminologist in the film, another change from the stage production.
* Meat Loaf as Eddie, an ex-delivery boy. Columbia’s boyfriend. Dr. Frank-N-Furter murders Eddie in the film version. In the stage version, Eddie merely pops out of a Coke machine and then jumps back in at the end of the scene.
Release
The film has found a major longevity in many venues throughout the years in the United States, as well as internationally. The movie is considered to be the longest running release in film history.[13] It has never been pulled by Twentieth Century Fox from its original 1975 release, and continues to play in cinemas more than thirty years later. Some cinemas showing the movie have run it for decades at a time.
The film was released on VHS during the home video boom of the 1980s, except for in the U.S., which had to wait for the 15th anniversary in 1990. The limited VHS edition release had a suggested retail price of $100. In 1993, a LaserDisc edition was released, and in 1995 a Special Edition LaserDisc was released. On the 25th anniversary in 2000, the DVD with all the special features from the LaserDisc, as well as new features and DVD-Rom games was released. Before the mainstream use of home video a Super 8 version of selected scenes of the film was available.
There are two versions of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the US and British releases. The British version contains the original ending which includes the full version of the musical number “Super Heroes”. The US version edits out the number, which was thought to be too depressing by the studio. Both versions are on the 25th Anniversary DVD.
Reception
Main article: The Rocky Horror Picture Show cult following
The film opened in the U.S. at the UA Theatre in Westwood, California on September 26, 1975. It did well at that location but not elsewhere.[16] The cult following did not begin until the movie began its midnight run at the Waverly Theatre in New York on April 1, 1976.[17] The film is still shown with audience members acting out the entire movie in front of the screen. The Clinton Street Theater in Portland, Oregon has also shown the movie weekly since its debut there in April, 1978.
Overall, critics were negative with their reviews of the movie. The overly sexual nature of this British rock comedy was not well received by the mainstream media of 1975, although there were positive reviews. The music was praised, as was Tim Curry’s performance. However, before the success of the midnight screenings, the film was withdrawn from its eight opening cities due to very small audiences, and its planned New York opening (on Halloween night) was cancelled.[18] Fox re-released it around college campuses on a double-bill with another rock music film parody, Paul Williams’ Phantom of the Paradise, but again it drew small audiences.[18] With Pink Flamingos (1972) and Reefer Madness (1936) making money in midnight showings nationwide, RHPS was eventually screened at midnight, starting in New York City on April Fools’ Day of 1976.[19] By that Halloween, people were attending in costume and talking back to the screen. By mid-1978, RHPS was playing in over fifty locations on Fridays and Saturdays at midnight, newsletters were published by local performance groups, and fans gathered for Rocky Horror conventions.[20] By the end of 1979, there were twice-weekly showings at over 230 theaters.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show has taken in $139,876,417 (USA) (sub-total) in box office receipts since its release. The length of its run in cinemas (weekly for over 30 years), combined with its considerable total box office gross, is unparalleled by any other film. The original budget for the movie was $1,200,000 (estimated). The audience participation made the film become a worldwide phenomenon. As the cult-audience grew, Rocky Horror fandom became the subject of news stories. Dori Hartley, a fan from the original New York shadow cast, went on to appear in “Paradise Garage”, a Tim Curry music video.
After the release, the original advertising campaign for screen and television was pulled by Twentieth Century Fox executives in the very early stage. The studio objected to the use of the red lipsticked lips uttering the words Twentieth Century Fox. The American television network Fox Broadcasting aired the film’s much-publicized world television premiere on October 25, 1993. The film’s popularity breathed new life to the stage production, which had had a 45-performance run on Broadway early in 1975 at the Belasco Theatre.[27] Rocky Horror sequels and other media have found their way into production, including merchandise ranging from prefabricated costumes, games, and soundtrack releases.
Soundtrack
Songlist in Film
Song Lead Singer(s) Other Singers Scene
Science Fiction/Double Feature Richard O’Brien (Patricia Quinn as lips) N/A Opening credits
Dammit Janet Brad, Janet Riff Raff, Magenta, Columbia Hapschatt wedding
Over at the Frankenstein Place Brad, Janet Riff Raff, Chorus A rainy night on the way to Dr. Scott’s
The Time Warp Riff Raff, Magenta, Columbia Criminologist, Transylvanians Ballroom of the castle
Sweet Transvestite Frank-N-Furter Riff Raff, Magenta, Columbia, Transylvanians Ballroom of the castle immediately after Time Warp
The Sword of Damocles Rocky Riff Raff, Magenta, Columbia, Transylvanians The “Lab”
I Can Make You a Man Frank-N-Furter Transylvanians The “Lab”
Hot Patootie – Bless My Soul Eddie Transylvanians The “Lab”
I Can Make You a Man (Reprise) Frank-N-Furter Janet, Transylvanians The “Lab”
Once in a While (deleted scene/song) Brad N/A Brad’s Bedroom (intercut with scenes of him and Janet from the first half of the movie)
Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a Touch Me Janet Rocky, Brad, Frank, Magenta, Riff Raff, Columbia Rocky’s birth tank in the lab
Eddie Dr. Scott, Columbia Full cast The dining room in the castle, Columbia’s bedroom
You’d Better Wise Up Frank-N-Furter Riff-Raff, Magenta, Brad, Janet, Dr. Scott Stairway and corridors of the castle then back to the lab
Rose Tint My World Columbia, Rocky, Brad, Janet N/A Floor show stage
Don’t Dream It, Be It Frank-N-Furter Brad, Janet, Columbia, Rocky, Dr. Scott Floor show pool
Wild And Untamed Thing Frank-N-Furter, Columbia, Rocky, Brad, Janet Riff Raff Floor show stage
I’m Going Home Frank-N-Furter Columbia, Rocky, Brad, Janet Floor show theater stage and aisle
Superheroes (deleted scene/song in US release) Brad, Janet Criminologist Exterior of the castle and the criminologist’s office
Science Fiction/Double Feature (Reprise) Richard O’Brien (no character) N/A Ending credits
The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Original Soundtrack (1989)
Track listing
* 1. Science Fiction/Double Feature
* 2. Dammit Janet
* 3. There’s a Light
* 4. Time Warp
* 5. Sweet Transvestite
* 6. I Can Make You A Man
* 7. Hot Patootie – Bless My Soul
* 8. I Can Make You A Man (reprise)
* 9. Touch-A, Touch-A, Touch Me
* 10. Eddie
* 11. Floor Show: Rose Tint My World/Fanfare/Don’t Dream It, Be It/Wild and Untamed Thing
* 12. I’m Going Home
* 13. Super Heroes
* 14. Science Fiction/Double Feature (reprise)
* 15. Time Warp (1989 remix – extended version)
* 16. Time Warp (music – 1 = background track = u mix)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show: 25 Years of Absolute Pleasure! (2000)
Track listing
# Title Lead Performer(s) Length Other Performer(s)
1 “Science Fiction/Double Feature” Richard O’Brien 4:27 -
2 “Dammit, Janet” Barry Bostwick (Brad), Susan Sarandon (Janet) 3:22 Richard O’brien, Patricia Quinn, Nell Campbell
3 “Over at the Frankenstein Place” Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, Richard O’Brien (Riff Raff) 3:59 Charles Gray (Criminologist), Chorous
4 “Time Warp” Richard O’Brien, Patricia Quinn (Magenta), Nell Campbell (Columbia) 4:29 Charles Gray, Transylvanians
5 “Sweet Transvestite” Tim Curry (Frank-N-Furter) 4:06 Barry Bostwick, Susan Sarandon, Richard O’Brien, Patricia Quinn, Nell Campbell, Transylvanians
6 “The Sword of Damocles” Trevor White (Rocky Horror: Voice) 3:38 Tim Curry, Transylvanians
7 “I Can Make You a Man” Tim Curry 3:15 Transylvanians
8 “Hot Patootie” Meat Loaf (Eddie) 3:21 Transylvanians
9 “I Can Make You a Man (Reprise)” Tim Curry 1:59 Susan Sarandon, Transylvanians
10 “Once in a While” Barry Bostwick 3:45 Charles Gray
11 “Toucha-Toucha-Touch Me” Susan Sarandon 2:59 Nell Campbell, Patricia Quinn, Barry Bostwick, Tim Curry, Richard O’Brien, Trevor White, Charles Gray
12 “Eddie” Jonathon Adams (Dr. Scott), Nell Campbell, Meat Loaf 2:47 Full Cast
13 “Planet, Schmanet, Janet” Tim Curry 2:36 Richard O’Brien, Patricia Quinn, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, Jonathon Adams
14 “Rose Tint My World” Nell Campbell, Trevor White, Barry Bostwick, Susan Sarandon 4:03 Charles Gray
15 “Don’t Dream It, Be It” Tim Curry 3:36 Barry Bostwick, Susan Sarandon, Nell Campbell, Trevor White, Jonathon Adams
16 “Wild and Untamed Thing” Nell Campbell, Trevor White, Barry Bostwick, Susan Sarandon 1:51 Richard O’Brien
17 “I’m Going Home” Tim Curry 2:57 -
18 “Super Heroes” Barry Bostwick, Susan Sarandon, Charles Gray 5:27 Patricia Quinn, Richard O’Brien, Jonathon Adams, Nell Campbell
19 “Science Fiction/Double Feature (Reprise)” Richard O’Brien 1:30 -
20 “Time Warp (1989 Remix – Extended Version”♦ Full Cast 5:36 -
21 “Rocky Horror Picture Show (Movie Trailer)”♦ – 2:58 -
1956 – Joseph “Satch” Satriani (born July 15, 1956 in Westbury, New York, U.S.) is an American guitarist and former guitar instructor. He is heavily influenced by Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck. He also has a signature series amplifier, the Peavey JSX.
In 1988, Satriani was recruited by the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger as lead guitarist for Jagger’s first solo tour.
Biography and playing history
Satriani during a recent concert at the Rijnhal, Arnhem (June 12. 2008)
Satriani during a recent concert at the Rijnhal, Arnhem (June 12. 2008)
Satriani was inspired to play guitar at age 14 after learning of the death of Jimi Hendrix. He reportedly heard the news during an American football training session, where he immediately confronted his coach and announced that he was quitting to become a guitarist.
In 1974, Satriani studied music with jazz guitarist Billy Bauer and with reclusive jazz pianist Lennie Tristano. The technically demanding Tristano greatly influenced Satriani’s playing. Satriani also began teaching guitar, with his most notable student at the time being fellow Long Island native Steve Vai. while he was Vai’s teacher, he was attending Five Towns College for studying in music.
In 1978 Satriani moved to Berkeley, California to pursue a music career. Not long after his arrival he resumed teaching. His students included Kirk Hammett (Metallica), David Bryson (Counting Crows), Kevin Cadogan (Third Eye Blind), Larry LaLonde (Primus, Possessed), Alex Skolnick (Testament), Rick Hunolt (Exodus), Phil Kettner (Lääz Rockit), Geoff Tyson, and Charlie Hunter.
When his friend and former student Steve Vai gained fame playing with David Lee Roth in 1986, Vai raved about Satriani in several interviews with guitar magazines. In 1987, Satriani’s second album Surfing with the Alien produced popular radio hits and was the first all-instrumental release to chart so highly in many years. In 1988 Satriani helped produce the EP The Eyes of Horror for the death metal band Possessed.
In 1989, Satriani released the album Flying in a Blue Dream. The album sold well, particularly in Texas. “One Big Rush” was featured on the soundtrack to the Cameron Crowe movie Say Anything. “The Forgotten Part II” was featured on a Labatt Blue commercial in Canada in 1993. “Big Bad Moon”, one of Satriani’s few songs to feature his vocals, was a minor hit in late 1989.
In 1992, Satriani released The Extremist, his most critically acclaimed and commercially successful album to date. Radio stations across the country were quick to pick up on “Summer Song”, while “Cryin’”, “Friends” and the title track were regional hits.
In late 1993, Satriani joined Deep Purple as a short-term replacement for departed guitarist Ritchie Blackmore during the band’s Japanese tour. The concerts were such a success that Satriani was asked to join the band permanently, but he declined, having just signed a multi-album solo deal with Sony, so Steve Morse took the guitarist slot in Deep Purple.
Satriani live with G3 in Milan in 2004
Satriani live with G3 in Milan in 2004
In 1996, he formed G3, a concert tour featuring three instrumental rock guitarists – originally Satriani, Vai, and Eric Johnson. The G3 tour has continued periodically since its inaugural version, where Satriani is the only permanent member, featured with a floating second and third member, including among others Eric Johnson, Yngwie Malmsteen, John Petrucci, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Robert Fripp, Andy Timmons, Uli Jon Roth, Michael Schenker, Adrian Legg and Paul Gilbert.
In 1998 Satriani recorded and released Crystal Planet, which went back to a sound more reminiscent of his late ’80s work. Planet was followed up with Engines of Creation, one of his more experimental works featuring the ‘Electronica’ genre of music. During the subsequent tour, a pair of shows at the Fillmore in San Francisco were recorded in December 2000 and released as Live in San Francisco, a two-disc live album and DVD.
Over the next several years, Satriani regularly recorded and released new music, including Strange Beautiful Music in 2002 and Is There Love in Space? in 2004.
In 2006 Satriani recorded and released Super Colossal and Satriani Live!, another two-disc live album and DVD recorded May 3, 2006 at the Grove in Anaheim, CA.
On August 7, 2007 Epic/Legacy Recordings re-released Surfing with the Alien to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its release. This was a two-disc set that includes a remastered album and a DVD of a previously never-before-seen live show filmed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1988.
Satriani’s newest album, titled Professor Satchafunkilus and the Musterion of Rock, was released on April 1, 2008.
It was revealed on May 29, 2008 that Satriani is involved in a new hard rock project with former Van Halen members Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith. The band, which will feature Hagar on vocals, Satriani on guitar, Anthony on bass and Smith on drums, is tentatively called “Chickenfoot”
On July 24, 2008 Satriani’s song ‘Surfing With the Alien’ was made available for download on Activision’s Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock over XBox Live or the Playstation Network, along with former student Steve Vai’s ‘For the Love of God’ and Buckethead’s ‘Soothsayer’.
Other work
Joe Satriani with Stu Hamm in concert, Rijnhal, Arnhem (June 12., 2008)
Joe Satriani with Stu Hamm in concert, Rijnhal, Arnhem (June 12., 2008)
Satriani is also credited on many other albums, including guitar duties on Alice Cooper’s 1991 album Hey Stoopid, Spinal Tap’s 1992 album Break Like the Wind, Blue Öyster Cult’s 1988 album Imaginos, band members Stu Hamm and Gregg Bissonette’s solo albums. Interestingly, he was credited with singing background vocals on the 1986 debut album by Crowded House. In 2003, he played lead guitar on The Yardbirds’s CD release Birdland. In 2006 he made appearances on several tracks for Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan’s solo CD/DVD dual disc Gillan’s Inn. On Dream Theater’s 2007 album, Systematic Chaos, Satriani contributed spoken lyrics to the song “Repentance”.
He is also featured in the Christopher Guest film, For Your Consideration, as the guitarist in the band that played for the late-night show.
Technique and influence
Satriani is widely recognized as a technically highly advanced rock guitarist, and has been described as a virtuoso During fast passages, Joe favors a technique known as legato (achieved primarily through hammer-ons and pull-offs) which yields smooth and flowing runs. He is also adept at other speed-related techniques such as speed picking (a rapid form of alternate picking) and sweep picking, but uses them relatively rarely.
His success is notable in a genre typically unfriendly to instrumental musicians. Satriani has received 14 Grammy nominations
An influential guitarist himself.
Gear
Satriani has endorsed Ibanez’s JS Series guitars, and Peavey’s JSX amplifier. Both lines were designed specifically as signature products for Satriani. However, Satriani uses a variety of gear. Many of his guitars are made by Ibanez, including the JS1000, and JS1200. These guitars typically feature the DiMarzio PAF Pro (which he used up until 1993 in both the neck and bridge positions), the DiMarzio Fred (which he used in the bridge position from 1993 to present day), and the Mo’ Joe and the Paf Joe (which he uses in the bridge and neck positions, respectively, from 2005 to present day). The JS line of guitars is his signature line, and they feature the Edge Pro, which is Ibanez’s exclusive vibrato system, although he’s always used the Original Edge unit on his guitars. The mirrored ‘chrome’ guitar he is primarily associated with and used on the Live in San Francisco DVD is called Chrome Boy. Satriani also uses a number of other JS models such as the JS double neck model, JS700 (primary axe on the self-titled CD and seen on the 1995 tour “Joe Satriani”, which features a fixed bridge, P-90 pickups, and a matching mahogany body and neck), JS600 (natural body) , JS1 (the original JS model), JS2000 (fixed bridge model), a variety of JS100s, JS1000s and JS1200s with custom paint work, and a large amount of prototype JSs. All double locking bridges have been the original Edge tremolo, not the newer models, which point to a more custom guitar than the “off the shelf” models. Joe has also played a red 7-string JS model, as seen in the “G3 Live in Tokyo” DVD from 2005.
Satriani and the band
Satriani and the band
Satriani has used a wide variety of guitar amps over the years, using Marshall Amplification for his main amplifier (notably the limited edition blue coloured 6100 LM model) up until 2001, and his Peavey signature series amps, the Peavey JSX, thereafter. The JSX began life as a prototype Peavey XXX and developed into the Joe Satriani signature Peavey model, now available for purchase in retail stores. Joe Satriani has used other amplifiers over the years in the studio, however. Those include the Peavey 5150 (used to record the song ‘Crystal Planet’), Cornford, and the Mesa/Boogie Mark IIC+ (used to record the song ‘Flying in a Blue Dream’), amongst others.
His effects pedals include the Vox wah, Dunlop Cry Baby wah, RMC Wizard Wah, Digitech Whammy, BOSS DS-1, BOSS CH-1, BOSS CE-2, BOSS DD-2 and a standard BOSS DD-3 (used together to emulate reverb effects), BOSS BF-3, BOSS OC-2, Barber Burn Drive Unit, Fulltone Deja Vibe, Fulltone Ultimate Octave, and Electro-Harmonix POG (Polyphonic Octave Generator), the latter being featured prominently on the title cut to his 2006 Super Colossal.
Satriani has also partnered recently with Planet Waves to create a signature line of guitar picks and guitar straps featuring his sketch art.
Although Satriani endorses the JSX, he has also used many different amps in the studio when recording, including the Peavey Classic. He is also known to have used Marshall heads and cabinets, including live, prior to his Peavey endorsement. Most recently Satriani used the JSX head through a Palmer Speaker Simulator. Joe Satriani has also released a Class-A 5-watt tube amp called the “Mini Colossal”.
He is currently working with Vox on his own line of signature effects pedals designed to deliver Satriani’s trademark tone plus a wide range of new sounds for guitarists of all playing styles and ability levels. The first being a signature distortion pedal titled the “Satchurator”, with more to follow in 2008.
Recurring themes
Satriani’s work frequently makes references to various science fiction stories and/or ideas. “Surfing with the Alien”, “Back to Shalla-Bal” and “The Power Cosmic 2000″ refer to the comic book character Silver Surfer, while “Ice 9″ refers to the secret government ice weapon in Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle. “Borg Sex” is a reference to Star Trek, which features a homogeneous cybernetic race known as the Borg. Additionally, his albums and songs often have other-worldly titles, such as Not of this Earth, Crystal Planet, Is There Love in Space?, and Engines of Creation.
On the album Super Colossal the song titled “Crowd Chant” was originally called “Party on the Enterprise”. “Party on the Enterprise” featured sampled sounds from the Starship Enterprise from the Star Trek TV show. But as Satriani explained in a podcast, legal issues regarding the samples could not be resolved and he was unable to get permission to use them. Satriani then removed the sounds from the song and called it “Crowd Chant.” This song is also used as the Minnesota Wild’s goal horn.
“Redshift Riders”, another song on the Super Colossal album, is “…based on the idea that in the future, when people can travel throughout space, they will theoretically take advantage of the cosmological redshift effect so they can be swung around large planetary objects and get across
On the album Professor Satchafunkilus and the Musterion of Rock the song “I Just Wanna Rock”, is about a giant robot on the run who happens upon a rock concert.
Discography
Solo albums
* 1986 – Not of This Earth
* 1987 – Surfing with the Alien
* 1989 – Flying in a Blue Dream
* 1992 – The Extremist
* 1993 – Time Machine
* 1995 – Joe Satriani
* 1998 – Crystal Planet
* 2000 – Engines of Creation
* 2002 – Strange Beautiful Music
* 2004 – Is There Love in Space?
* 2006 – Super Colossal
* 2008 – Professor Satchafunkilus and the Musterion of Rock
EPs
* Dreaming #11
* The Satch Ep
* Additional Creations
Compilations
* The Beautiful Guitar
* The Electric Joe Satriani: An Anthology
* Joe Satriani Original Album Classics
* One Big Rush
Live albums
* 1993 – Time Machine
* 2001 – Live in San Francisco
* 2006 – Satriani Live!
With other artists
Year Artist Album
1986 Greg Kihn Love And Rock And Roll
1987 Danny Gottleib Aquamarine
1988 Stuart Hamm Radio Free Albemuth
1991 Alice Cooper Hey Stoopid
1992 Spinal Tap Break Like the Wind
1997 Steve Vai / Eric Johnson G3: Live in Concert
1997 Steve Vai / Alex Lifeson / Joe Perry Merry Axemas Volume 1
2003 Steve Vai / Yngwie Malmsteen G3: Rockin’ in the Free World
2003 The Yardbirds Birdland
2005 Steve Vai / John Petrucci G3: Live in Tokyo
2006 Ian Gillan Gillan’s Inn
2007 John 5 The Devil Knows My Name
2007 Dream Theater (spoken voice only) Systematic Chaos
2009 Sammy Hagar, Chad Smith, Michael Anthony Tentatively titled “ChickenFoot” Untitled
Satriani has also composed many songs that are featured in the series of NASCAR based video games including NASCAR 06: Total Team Control.
Satriani’s “Summer Song” is included in the soundtrack for the video game Gran Turismo 4. “Summer Song” is also included on the Formula 1 game for the Sony PlayStation, along with “Back to Shalla-Bal.” “Summer Song” had also been briefly used during a 30 second advertising spots for both Pepsi, and the Sony Walkman.
Philanthropy
In 2006, Satriani signed on as an official supporter of Little Kids Rock, a non-profit organization that provides free musical instruments and free lessons to children in public schools throughout the U.S.A. Satriani has personally delivered instruments to children in the program through a charity raffle for the organization and, in common with Steve Vai, sits on its board of directors as an honorary member.
Awards and nominations
Nominations
Satriani now has the most Grammy Award nominations of anyone (14) without winning .
Nominations Year Album Category
1989 Surfing with the Alien Best Rock Instrumental Performance
1990 The Crush of Love Best Rock Instrumental Performance
1991 Flying in a Blue Dream Best Rock Instrumental Performance
1993 The Extremist Best Rock Instrumental Performance
1994 Speed of Light Best Rock Instrumental Performance
1995 All Alone Best Rock Instrumental Performance
1997 (You’re) My World Best Rock Instrumental Performance
1998 Summer Song (Live) Best Rock Instrumental Performance
1999 A Train of Angels Best Rock Instrumental Performance
2001 Until We Say Goodbye Best Rock Instrumental Performance
2002 Always With Me, Always With You Best Rock Instrumental Performance
2003 Starry Night Best Rock Instrumental Performance
2006 Super Colossal Best Rock Instrumental Performance
2008 Always with Me, Always with You (Live) Best Rock Instrumental Performance
1949 – Bruce Springsteen is born in Freehold, N.J., which last time we looked was indeed still in the U.S.A.
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949) is an American songwriter, singer and guitarist. He has recorded and toured with the E Street Band. Springsteen is widely known for his brand of heartland rock infused with pop hooks, poetic lyrics, and Americana sentiments centered around his native New Jersey. His eloquence in expressing ordinary, everyday problems has earned him numerous awards, including eighteen Grammy Awards and an Academy Award, along with a notoriously dedicated and devoted global fan base. His most famous albums, Born to Run and Born in the U.S.A., epitomize his penchant for finding grandeur in the struggles of daily life. He has sold over 65 million albums in the U.S, and 120 million worldwide.
Springsteen’s lyrics often concern men and women struggling to make ends meet. He has gradually become identified with progressive politics. Springsteen is also noted for his support of various relief and rebuilding efforts in New Jersey and elsewhere, and for his response to the September 11, 2001 attacks, on which his album The Rising reflects.
Springsteen’s recordings have tended to alternate between commercially accessible rock albums and somber folk-oriented works. Much of his status stems from the concerts and marathon shows in which he and the E Street Band present intense ballads, rousing anthems, and party rock and roll songs, amongst which Springsteen intersperses long, whimsical or deeply emotional stories.
Springsteen has long had the nickname “The Boss”, a term which he was initially reported to hate but now seems to have come to terms with, as he sometimes jokingly refers to himself as such on stage. The nickname originated when a young Springsteen, playing club gigs with a band in the 1960s, took on the task of collecting the band’s nightly pay and distributing it amongst his bandmates.
Life and career
Early years
Springsteen was born at Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch, New Jersey. He spent his childhood and high school years in Freehold Boro. He lived off South Street in Freehold Boro and attended Freehold Regional High School (today known as Freehold Borough High School). His father, Douglas Frederick Springsteen, was a bus driver of Dutch and Irish ancestry. His mother, Adele Ann Zirilli, was a legal secretary of Italian ancestry. He has an older sister, Virginia, and a younger sister, Pamela. Pamela Springsteen had a brief film career, but left acting to pursue still photography full time.
Raised a Roman Catholic,
In ninth grade he transferred to the public Freehold Regional High School, but did not fit in there either. He completed high school but felt so uncomfortable that he skipped his own graduation ceremony.
Springsteen had been inspired to take up music at the age of seven after seeing Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show. At 13, he bought his first guitar for $18; later, his mother took out a loan to buy the 16-year-old Springsteen a $60 Kent guitar, an event he later memorialized in his song “The Wish”.
In 1965, he went to the house of Tex and Marion Vinyard, who sponsored young bands in town. They helped him become the lead guitarist of The Castiles, and later lead singer of the group. The Castiles recorded two original songs at a public recording studio in Brick Township, New Jersey and played a variety of venues, including Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village. Marion Vinyard said that she believed Springsteen when, as a young man, he said he was going to make it big.
Cities such as Asbury Park, New Jersey inspired the themes of ordinary life in Bruce Springsteen’s music.
Cities such as Asbury Park, New Jersey inspired the themes of ordinary life in Bruce Springsteen’s music.
In the late 1960s, Springsteen performed briefly in a power trio known as Earth, playing in clubs in New Jersey. From 1969 through early 1971, Springsteen performed around New Jersey with guitarist Steve Van Zandt, organist Danny Federici, drummer Vini Lopez, and later bassist Vinnie Roslin, in a band called Child, subsequently renamed Steel Mill (with the addition of guitarist Robbin Thompson). They went on to play the mid-Atlantic college circuit, and also briefly in California. During this time Springsteen also performed regularly at small clubs in Asbury Park and along the Jersey Shore, quickly gathering a cult following. Other acts followed over the next two years, as Springsteen sought to shape a unique and genuine musical and songwriting style: Dr Zoom & the Sonic Boom (early-mid 1971), Sundance Blues Band (mid 1971), and The Bruce Springsteen Band (mid 1971-mid 1972). With the addition of pianist David Sancious, the core of what would later become the E Street Band was formed, with occasional temporary additions such as horns sections, “The Zoomettes” (a group of female backing vocalists for “Dr Zoom”) and Southside Johnny Lyon on harmonica. Musical genres explored included blues, R&B, jazz, church music, early rock’n'roll, and soul. His prolific songwriting ability, with more words in some individual songs than other artists had in whole albums, brought his skill to the attention of several people who were about to change his life: new managers Mike Appel and Jim Cretecos, and legendary Columbia Records talent scout John Hammond, who, under Appel’s pressure, auditioned Springsteen in May 1972.
Even after gaining international acclaim, Springsteen’s New Jersey roots reverberated in his music, and he routinely praised “the great state of New Jersey” in his live shows. Drawing on his extensive local appeal, he routinely sold out consecutive nights in major New Jersey and Philadelphia venues and, much like the Grateful Dead, had song lists that varied significantly from one night to the next. He also made many surprise appearances at The Stone Pony and other shore nightclubs over the years, becoming the foremost exponent of the Jersey Shore sound.
1972–1974
Springsteen signed a record deal with Columbia Records in 1972, with the help of John Hammond, who had signed Bob Dylan to the same record label a decade earlier. Springsteen brought many of his New Jersey-based colleagues into the studio with him, thus forming the E Street Band (although it would not be formally named as such for a couple more years). His debut album, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., released in January 1973, established him as a critical favorite, The track “Spirit in the Night” especially showed Morrison’s influence, while “Lost in the Flood” was the first of many portraits of Vietnam veterans and “Growin’ Up” his first take on the recurring theme of adolescence.
In September 1973 his second album, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle was released, again to critical acclaim but no commercial success. Springsteen’s songs became grander in form and scope, with the E Street Band providing a less folky, more R&B vibe and the lyrics often romanticizing teenage street life. “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)” and “Incident on 57th Street” would become fan favorites, and the long, rousing “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” would rank among Springsteen’s most beloved concert numbers.
In the May 22, 1974 issue of Boston’s The Real Paper, music critic Jon Landau wrote after seeing a performance at the Harvard Square Theater, “I saw rock and roll future, and its name is Bruce Springsteen. And on a night when I needed to feel young, he made me feel like I was hearing music for the very first time.” head” that he couldn’t explain to the others in the studio. It was during these recording sessions that “Miami” Steve Van Zandt would stumble into the studio just in time to help Springsteen organize the horns section on “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” (it is his only contribution written on the album,) and eventually led to his joining of the E Street Band. Van Zandt had been a long time friend of Springsteen and understood where he was coming from, which helped him to translate some of the sounds Springsteen was hearing. Still, by the end of the grueling recording sessions, Springsteen was not satisfied, and, upon first hearing the finished album, threw the record into the alley and told Jon Landau he would rather just cut the album live at The Bottom Line, a place he often played.
The woman in his life during this time was part-time live-in 20-year-old girlfriend Karen Darvin of Dallas, Texas who was in New York City pursuing a career in dancing.
1975–1981
On August 13, 1975, Springsteen and the E Street Band began a five-night, 10-show stand at New York’s Bottom Line club; it attracted major media attention, was broadcast live on WNEW-FM, and convinced many skeptics that Springsteen was for real. (Decades later, Rolling Stone magazine would name the stand as one of the 50 Moments That Changed Rock and Roll.) With the release of Born to Run on August 25, 1975, Springsteen finally found success: while there were no real hit singles, “Born to Run”, “Thunder Road”, “Tenth Avenue Freeze-out” and “Jungleland” all received massive FM radio airplay and remain perennial favorites on many classic rock stations to this day. With its panoramic imagery, thundering production and desperate optimism, some fans consider this among the best rock and roll albums of all time and Springsteen’s finest work. It established him as a sincere and dynamic rock and roll personality who spoke for and in the voice of a large part of the rock audience. To cap off the triumph, Springsteen appeared on the covers of both Time and Newsweek in the same week, on October 27 of that year. So great did the wave of publicity become that Springsteen eventually rebelled against it during his first venture overseas, tearing down promotional posters before a concert appearance in London.
A legal battle with former manager Mike Appel kept Springsteen out of the studio for over two years, during which time he kept The E Street Band together through extensive touring across the U.S. Despite the optimistic fervor with which he often performed, the new songs he was writing and often debuting on stage had taken a more somber tone than much of his previous work. Reaching settlement with Appel in 1977, Springsteen finally returned to the studio, and the subsequent sessions produced Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978). Musically, this album was a turning point of Springsteen’s career. Gone were the rapid-fire lyrics, outsized characters and long, multi-part musical compositions of the first three albums; now the songs were leaner and more carefully drawn and began to reflect Springsteen’s growing intellectual and political awareness. Some fans consider Darkness Springsteen’s best and most consistent record; tracks such as “Badlands” and “The Promised Land” became concert staples for decades to come, while the track “Prove It All Night” received a significant amount of radio airplay (#33, Billboard Hot 100). Other fans would prefer the work of the adventurous early Springsteen. The cross-country 1978 tour to promote the album would become legendary for the intensity of its shows.
By the late 1970s, Springsteen had earned a reputation in the pop world as a songwriter whose material could provide hits for other bands. Manfred Mann’s Earth Band had achieved a U.S. number one pop hit with a heavily rearranged version of Greetings’ “Blinded by the Light” in early 1977. Patti Smith reached number 13 with her take on Springsteen’s unreleased “Because the Night” (which Smith co-wrote) in 1978, while The Pointer Sisters hit number two in 1979 with Springsteen’s also-unreleased “Fire”.
Springsteen in concert on The River Tour. Drammenshallen, Drammen, Norway, May 5, 1981.
Springsteen in concert on The River Tour. Drammenshallen, Drammen, Norway, May 5, 1981.
In September 1979, Springsteen and the E Street Band joined the Musicians United for Safe Energy anti-nuclear power collective at Madison Square Garden for two nights, playing an abbreviated setlist while premiering two songs from his upcoming album. The subsequent No Nukes live album, as well as the following summer’s No Nukes documentary film, represented the first official recordings and filmings of Springsteen’s fabled live act, as well as Springsteen’s first tentative dip into political involvement.
Springsteen continued to consolidate his thematic focus on working-class life with the 20-song double album The River in 1980, which finally yielded his first hit Top Ten single as a performer, “Hungry Heart”, but also included an intentionally paradoxical range of material from good-time party rockers to emotionally intense ballads. The album sold well, and a long tour in 1980 and 1981 followed, featuring Springsteen’s first extended playing of Europe and ending with a series of multi-night arena stands in major cities in the U.S.
1982–1989
The River was followed in 1982 by the stark solo acoustic Nebraska. According to the Marsh biographies, Springsteen was in a depressed state when he wrote this material, and the result is a brutal depiction of American life. The title track on this album is about the murder spree of Charles Starkweather. The album actually started (according to Marsh) as a demo tape for new songs to be played with the E Street Band – but during the recording process, Springsteen and producer Landau realized they worked better as solo acoustic numbers; several attempts at re-recording the songs in the studio with the E Street Band led them to realize that the original recording, made on a simple, low-tech four-track tape deck in Springsteen’s home, were the best versions they were going to get. However, the sessions with the E Street Band were not all for naught, as the band recorded several new songs that Springsteen had written in addition to the Nebraska material, including Born in the U.S.A. and Glory Days. These new songs would not see release until 2 years later, forming the basis of Springsteen’s next album.
While Nebraska did not sell especially well, it garnered widespread critical praise (including being named “Album of the Year” by Rolling Stone magazine’s critics) and influenced later significant works by other major artists, including U2′s album, The Joshua Tree. It helped inspire the musical genre known as lo-fi music, becoming a cult favorite among indie-rockers. Springsteen did not tour in conjunction with Nebraska’s release.
Springsteen probably is best known for his album Born in the U.S.A. (1984), which sold 15 million copies in the U.S. alone and became one of the best-selling albums of all time with seven singles hitting the top 10, and the massively successful world tour that followed it. The title track was a bitter commentary on the treatment of Vietnam veterans, some of whom were Springsteen’s friends and bandmates. The song was widely misinterpreted as jingoistic, and in connection with the 1984 presidential campaign became the subject of considerable folklore. Springsteen also turned down several million dollars offered by Chrysler Corporation for using the song in a car commercial. (In later years, Springsteen performed the song accompanied only with acoustic guitar to make the song’s original meaning more explicitly clear. An acoustic version also appeared on Tracks, a later album.) “Dancing in the Dark” was the biggest of seven hit singles from Born in the U.S.A., peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard music charts. The music video for the song featured a young Courteney Cox dancing on stage with Springsteen, an appearance which helped kickstart the actress’s career. The song Cover Me was written by Springsteen for Donna Summer, but his record company persuaded him to keep it for the new album. A big fan of Summer’s work, Springsteen wrote another one for her, “Protection.” A number of the videos for the album were made by noted film directors Brian De Palma or John Sayles.
During the Born in the U.S.A. Tour he met actress Julianne Phillips. They were married in Lake Oswego, Oregon, on May 13, 1985 surrounded by intense media attention. Opposites in background, their marriage was not to be long-lived. Springsteen’s 1987 album Tunnel of Love described some of his unhappinesses in the relationship and during the subsequent Tunnel of Love Express tour, Springsteen took up with backup singer Patti Scialfa, as reported by many tabloids. Subsequently, Phillips and Springsteen filed for divorce in 1988. The divorce was finalized in 1989.
The Born in the U.S.A. period represented the height of Springsteen’s visibility in popular culture and the broadest audience demographic he would ever reach (this was further helped by releasing Arthur Baker dance mixes of three of the singles). Live/1975–85, a five-record box set (also released on three cassettes or three CDs), was released near the end of 1986 and also became a huge success, selling 13 million units in the U.S. and becoming the first box set to debut at No. 1 on the U.S. album charts. It is one of the best selling live albums of all time. It summed up Springsteen’s career to that point and displayed some of the elements that made his shows so powerful to his fans: the switching from mournful dirges to party rockers and back; the communal sense of purpose between artist and audience; the long, intense spoken passages before songs, including those describing Springsteen’s difficult relationship with his father; and the instrumental prowess of the E Street Band, such as in the long coda to “Racing in the Street”. Despite its popularity, some fans and critics felt the album’s song selection could have been better. Springsteen concerts are the subjects of frequent bootleg recording and trading among fans.
After this commercial peak, Springsteen released the much more sedate and contemplative Tunnel of Love (1987), a mature reflection on the many faces of love found, lost and squandered, which only selectively used the E Street Band. It presaged the breakup of his first marriage, to Julianne Phillips. Reflecting the challenges of love in Brilliant Disguise, Springsteen sang:
I heard somebody call your name, from underneath our willow. I saw something tucked in shame, underneath your pillow. Well I’ve tried so hard baby, but I just can’t see. What a woman like you is doing with me.
The subsequent Tunnel of Love Express tour shook up fans with changes to the stage layout, favorites dropped from the set list, and horn-based arrangements; during the European leg in 1988, Springsteen’s relationship with E Street Band backup singer Patti Scialfa became public. Later in 1988, Springsteen headlined the truly worldwide Human Rights Now! tour for Amnesty International. In the fall of 1989, he dissolved the E Street Band, and he and Scialfa relocated to California.
1990s
Springsteen married Scialfa in 1991; they have three children Evan James (b.1990), Jessica Rae (b.1991) and Sam Ryan (b.1994).
In 1992, after risking charges of “going Hollywood” by moving to Los Angeles (a radical move for someone so linked to the blue-collar life of the Jersey Shore) and working with session musicians, Springsteen released two albums at once. Human Touch and Lucky Town were even more introspective than any of his previous work. Also different about these albums was the confidence he displayed. As opposed to his first two albums, which dreamed of happiness, and his next four, which showed him growing to fear it, at points during the Lucky Town album, Springsteen actually claims happiness for himself.
Some E Street Band fans voiced (and continue to voice) a low opinion of these albums, (especially Human Touch), and did not follow the subsequent “Other Band” Tour. For other fans, however, who had only come to know Springsteen after the 1975 consolidation of the E Street Band, the “Other Band” Tour was an exciting opportunity to see Springsteen develop a working onstage relationship with a different group of musicians, and to see him explore the Asbury Park soul-and-gospel base in some of his classic material.
An electric band appearance on the acoustic MTV Unplugged television program (that was later released as In Concert/MTV Plugged) was poorly received and further cemented fan dissatisfaction. Springsteen seemed to realize this a few years hence when he spoke humorously of his late father during his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame acceptance speech:
“ I’ve gotta thank him because — what would I conceivably have written about without him? I mean, you can imagine that if everything had gone great between us, we would have had disaster. I would have written just happy songs – and I tried it in the early ’90s and it didn’t work; the public didn’t like it. ”
A multiple Grammy Award winner, Springsteen also won an Academy Award in 1994 for his song “Streets of Philadelphia”, which appeared in the soundtrack to the film Philadelphia. The song, along with the film, was applauded by many for its sympathetic portrayal of a gay man dying of AIDS. The music video for the song shows Springsteen’s actual vocal performance, recorded using a hidden microphone, to a prerecorded instrumental track. This was a technique developed on the “Brilliant Disguise” video.
In 1995, after temporarily re-organizing the E Street Band for a few new songs recorded for his first Greatest Hits album (a recording session that was chronicled in the documentary Blood Brothers), he released his second (mostly) solo guitar album, The Ghost of Tom Joad, inspired by “Journey to Nowhere: The Saga of the New Underclass,” a book by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Dale Maharidge. This was generally less well-received than the similar Nebraska, due to the minimal melody, twangy vocals, and political nature of most of the songs, although some praised it for giving voice to immigrants and others who rarely have one in American culture. The lengthy, worldwide, small-venue solo acoustic Ghost of Tom Joad Tour that followed successfully featured many of his older songs in drastically reshaped acoustic form, although Springsteen had to explicitly remind his audiences to be quiet during the performances.
Following the tour, Springsteen moved back to New Jersey with his family. In 1998, another precursor to the E Street Band’s upcoming re-birth appeared in the form of a sprawling, four-disc box set of out-takes, Tracks. In 1999, Springsteen and the E Street Band officially came together again and went on the extensive Reunion Tour, lasting over a year. Highlights included a record sold-out, 15-show run at Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey to kick off the American leg of the tour.
2000s
Springsteen’s Reunion Tour with the E Street Band ended with a triumphant ten-night, sold-out engagement at New York City’s Madison Square Garden in mid-2000 and controversy over a new song, “American Skin (41 Shots)”, about the police shooting of Amadou Diallo. The final shows at Madison Square Garden were recorded and resulted in an HBO Concert, with corresponding DVD and album releases as Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band: Live in New York City.
In 2002, Springsteen released his first studio effort with the full band in 18 years, The Rising, produced by Brendan O’Brien. The album, mostly a reflection on the September 11 attacks, was a critical and popular success. The title track gained airplay in several radio formats, and the record became Springsteen’s best-selling album of new material in 15 years. Kicked off by an early-morning Asbury Park appearance on The Today Show, The Rising Tour commenced, barnstorming through a series of single-night arena stands in the U.S. and Europe to promote the album in 2002, then returning for large-scale, multiple-night stadium shows in 2003. While Springsteen had maintained a loyal hardcore fan base everywhere (and particularly in Europe), his general popularity had dipped over the years in some southern and midwestern regions of the U.S. But it was still strong in Europe and along the U.S. coasts, and he played an unprecedented 10 nights in Giants Stadium in New Jersey, a ticket-selling feat to which no other musical act has come close. During these shows Springsteen thanked those fans who were attending multiple shows and those who were coming from long distances or another country; the advent of robust Bruce-oriented online communities had made such practices more common. The Rising Tour came to a final conclusion with three nights in Shea Stadium, highlighted by renewed controversy over “American Skin” and a guest appearance by Bob Dylan.
During the 2000s, Springsteen became a visible advocate for the revitalization of Asbury Park, and he’s played an annual series of winter holiday concerts there to benefit various local businesses, organizations and causes. These shows are explicitly intended for the devoted fans, featuring numbers such as the unreleased (until Tracks) E Street Shuffle outtake “Thundercrack”, a rollicking group-participation song that would mystify casual Springsteen fans. He also frequently rehearses for tours in Asbury Park; some of his most devoted followers even go so far as to stand outside the building to hear what fragments they can of the upcoming shows. The song “My City of Ruins” was originally written about Asbury Park, in honor of the attempts to revitalize the city. Looking for an appropriate song for a post-Sept. 11 benefit concert honoring New York City, he selected “My City of Ruins,” which was immediately recognized as an emotional highlight of the concert, with its gospel themes and its heartfelt exhortations to “Rise up!” The song became associated with post-9/11 New York, and he chose it to close “The Rising” album and as an encore on the subsequent tour.
At the Grammy Awards of 2003, Springsteen performed The Clash’s “London Calling” along with Elvis Costello, Dave Grohl, and E Street Band member Steven Van Zandt in tribute to Joe Strummer; Springsteen and the Clash had once been considered multiple-album-dueling rivals at the time of the double The River and the triple Sandinista!.
Springsteen and the Sessions Band performing in Milan in 2006
Springsteen and the Sessions Band performing in Milan in 2006
In 2004, Springsteen announced that he and the E Street Band would participate in a politically motivated “Vote for Change” tour, in conjunction with John Mellencamp, John Fogerty, the Dixie Chicks, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., Bright Eyes, Dave Matthews Band, Jackson Browne and other musicians. All concerts were to be held in swing states, to benefit America Coming Together and to encourage people to register and vote. A finale was held in Washington, D.C., bringing many of the artists together. Several days later, Springsteen held one more such concert in New Jersey, when polls showed that state surprisingly close. While in past years Springsteen had played benefits for causes in which he believed – against nuclear energy, for Vietnam veterans, Amnesty International and the Christic Institute – he had always refrained from explicitly endorsing candidates for political office (indeed he had rejected the efforts of Walter Mondale to attract an endorsement during the 1984 Reagan “Born in the U.S.A.” flap). This new stance led to criticism and praise from the expected partisan sources. Springsteen’s “No Surrender” became the main campaign theme song for John Kerry’s unsuccessful presidential campaign; in the last days of the campaign, he performed acoustic versions of the song and some of his other old songs at Kerry rallies.
Devils & Dust was released on April 26, 2005, and was recorded without the E Street Band. It is a low-key, mostly acoustic album, in the same vein as Nebraska and The Ghost of Tom Joad although with a little more instrumentation. Some of the material was written almost 10 years earlier during, or shortly after, the Ghost of Tom Joad Tour, a couple of them being performed then but never released. The title track concerns an ordinary soldier’s feelings and fears during the Iraq War. Starbucks rejected a co-branding deal for the album, due in part to some sexually explicit content but also because of Springsteen’s anti-corporate politics. The album entered the album charts at No. 1 in 10 countries (United States, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Ireland). Springsteen began the solo Devils & Dust Tour at the same time as the album’s release, playing both small and large venues. Attendance was disappointing in a few regions, and everywhere (other than in Europe) tickets were easier to get than in the past. Unlike his mid-1990s solo tour, he performed on piano, electric piano, pump organ, autoharp, ukulele, banjo, electric guitar and stomping board, as well as acoustic guitar and harmonica, adding variety to the solo sound. (Offstage synthesizer, guitar and percussion also are used for some songs.) Unearthly renditions of “Reason to Believe”, “The Promised Land”, and Suicide’s “Dream Baby Dream” jolted audiences to attention, while rarities, frequent set list changes, and a willingness to keep trying even through audible piano mistakes kept most of his loyal audiences happy.
In November 2005, New Jersey Senators Frank Lautenberg and Jon Corzine sponsored a U.S. Senate resolution to honor Springsteen on the 30th anniversary of the release of his Born to Run album. In general, resolutions honoring native sons are passed with a simple voice vote. For unstated reasons, this resolution was killed in committee. Also in November 2005, Sirius Satellite Radio started a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week radio station on Channel 10 called “E Street Radio.” This channel featured commercial-free Bruce Springsteen music, including rare tracks, interviews and daily concerts of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band recorded throughout their career.
In April 2006, Springsteen released We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, an American roots music project focused around a big folk sound treatment of 15 songs popularized by the radical musical activism of Pete Seeger. It was recorded with a large ensemble of musicians, including only Patti Scialfa, Soozie Tyrell, and The Miami Horns from past efforts. In contrast to previous albums, this was recorded in only three one-day sessions, and frequently one can hear Springsteen calling out key changes live as the band explores its way through the tracks. The Bruce Springsteen with The Seeger Sessions Band Tour began the same month, featuring the 18-strong ensemble of musicians dubbed the Seeger Sessions Band (and later shortened to the Sessions Band). Seeger Sessions material was heavily featured, as well as a handful of (usually drastically rearranged) Springsteen numbers. The tour proved very popular in Europe, selling out everywhere and receiving some excellent reviews, By the end of 2006, the Seeger Sessions tour toured Europe twice and toured America for only a short span. Bruce Springsteen with The Sessions Band: Live in Dublin, containing selections from three nights of November 2006 shows at the The Point Theatre in Dublin, Ireland, was released the following June.
Springsteen’s most recent album, titled Magic, was released on October 2, 2007. Recorded with the E Street Band, it featured 10 new Springsteen songs plus “Long Walk Home,” performed once with the Sessions band, and a hidden track (the first included on a Springsteen studio release), “Terry’s Song,” a tribute to Springsteen’s long-time assistant Terry Magovern who died on July 30, 2007.
An accompanying tour with the E Street Band began at the Hartford Civic Center with the album’s release and was routed through North America and Europe. Springsteen and the band performed live on NBC’s Today Show in advance of the opener.
Longtime E Street Band organist Danny Federici had taken a leave of absence from touring in November 2007 due to melanoma.
In April 2008, Springsteen announced his endorsement of U.S. Senator Barack Obama in his 2008 presidential campaign.
On June 18, 2008 Springsteen appeared live from Europe at the Tim Russert tribute at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. to play one of Russert’s favorite songs, “Thunder Road,” at which Springsteen dedicated the song to Russert, who was “one of Springsteen’s biggest fans.”
Springsteen will reportedly serve as the halftime performance at Super Bowl XLIII on February 1, 2009.
Personal life
Bruce Springsteen
Born September 23, 1949 (1949-09-23) (age 59)
Long Branch, New Jersey
Spouse(s) Julianne Phillips (1985-1989)
Patti Scialfa (1991-present)
Bruce was the second of three children born to Douglas Frederick Springsteen (1925-1998) and Adele Ann Zirilli (born 1925). He has an older sister named Virginia (born ca. 1948) and a younger sister Pamela Springsteen (born February 8, 1962) a former actress and photographer. He grew up as the youngest child up until the age of 12, when Pamela was born.
Springsteen was a bachelor until the age of 35, when he married Julianne Phillips (born May 6, 1960). They married on May 13, 1985 the groom was nearly 36 and the bride had just turned 25 one week prior. The marriage helped her acting career flourish. They were opposites in background and his traveling took its toll on the marriage. The final blow came when Bruce began an affair with Patti Scialfa (born July 29, 1953). Phillips and Springsteen separated in September 1988 and on August 30, 1988 Julianne filed for divorce. The Springsteen/Phillips divorce was finalized on March 1, 1989.
Patti Scialfa (born July 29, 1953) and Springsteen had dated briefly in 1984 shortly after she joined the band, but the relationship ended shortly thereafter. The couple started an affair in the late-1980s, around 1987-1988; the affair was the final blow to Springsteen’s already troubled marriage. After his wife filed for divorce he began living with Scialfa in 1988. They had a son, Evan James Springsteen (born July 25, 1990). Bruce and Patti married June 8, 1991 when she was pregnant with their second child, daughter Jessica Rae (born December 30, 1991). The couple had their youngest child Sam Ryan (born January 5, 1994). The family lives in Colts Neck, New Jersey.
E Street Band
The E Street Band is considered to have started in October 1972, even though it was not officially known as such until September 1974. The E Street Band was inactive from the end of 1988 through early 1999, except for a brief reunion in 1995. The Magic tour came to a close at Milwaukee’s Roadhouse at the Lakefront on August 30, 2008, the tour’s 100th show.
Current members
* Bruce Springsteen – lead vocals, guitar, harmonica, piano
* Garry Tallent – bass guitar, tuba
* Clarence “Big Man” Clemons – saxophone, percussion, backing vocals, larger-than-life persona and Springsteen foil
* Max Weinberg – drums, percussion (joined September 1974)
* Roy Bittan – piano, synthesizer (joined September 1974)
* Steven Van Zandt – lead guitar, backing vocals, mandolin (officially joined July 1975 after playing in previous bands; left in 1984 to go solo; rejoined in early 1995, however made appearances during the “Other Band” Tour).
* Nils Lofgren – guitar, pedal steel guitar, backing vocals (replaced Steven Van Zandt in June 1984; remained in group after Van Zandt returned)
* Patti Scialfa – backing and duet vocals, acoustic guitar, percussion (joined June 1984; became Springsteen’s wife in 1991; they have a daughter and two sons)
* Soozie Tyrell – violin, acoustic guitar, percussion, backing vocals (joined 2002, occasional appearances before that)
* Charles Giordano – organ, accordion Giordano, originally a Sessions Band member, joined the E-Street Band on a temporary basis in late 2007 during the illness of Danny Federici. He continued playing with The E-Street Band after Federici died in April 2008.
Former members
* Vinnie “Mad Dog” Lopez – drums (inception through February 1974, when asked to resign)
* David Sancious – keyboards (June 1973 to August 1974)
* Ernest “Boom” Carter – drums (February to August 1974)
* Suki Lahav – violin, backing vocals (September 1974 to March 1975)
* Danny Federici – organ, accordion, glockenspiel (died April 17, 2008 after a struggle with melanoma)
Film connections
Springsteen’s music has long been intertwined with film. It made its first appearance in the 1983 John Sayles’ film Baby, It’s You, which featured several songs from Born to Run. The relationship Springsteen established with Sayles would re-surface in later years, with Sayles directing videos for songs from Born in the U.S.A. and Tunnel of Love. The song “(Just Around the Corner to the) Light of Day” was written for the early Michael J. Fox/Joan Jett vehicle Light of Day. His work has been used in films (winning him an Oscar for his song “Streets of Philadelphia”). Additionally his 1995 song “Secret Garden” appeared on the soundtrack for the Tom Cruise film Jerry Maguire, the song “My City of Ruins”, from the 2002 album The Rising, appeared in the film Jersey Girl, and “The Fuse” (also from The Rising) was featured during the closing credits of The 25th Hour (2002).
In turn, films have been inspired by his music, including The Indian Runner, written and directed by Sean Penn, which Penn has specifically noted as being inspired by Springsteen’s song “Highway Patrolman”. He was nominated for a second Oscar for “Dead Man Walkin’”, from the movie Dead Man Walking. In addition, “Lift Me Up” ran over the credits for the John Sayles film Limbo.
Springsteen also made a cameo appearance in the John Cusack film High Fidelity. In the film, Cusack’s character, Rob, imagines Springsteen giving him advice on his fractured love life.
In the 1997 film The Wedding Singer “Hungry Heart” is used.
In the 1999 Adam Sandler film Big Daddy, Growin’ Up is used.
In the 2000 Japanese film Battle Royale, main character Shuya Nanahara styles his hair to look like Springsteen’s. His favorite song is “Born To Run”, which plays in his mind throughout the 1999 novel Battle Royale upon which the film is based.
Discography
Main article: Bruce Springsteen discography
Major studio albums:
* 1973: Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.
* 1973: The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle
* 1975: Born to Run
* 1978: Darkness on the Edge of Town
* 1980: The River
* 1982: Nebraska
* 1984: Born in the U.S.A.
* 1987: Tunnel of Love
* 1992: Human Touch
* 1992: Lucky Town
* 1995: The Ghost of Tom Joad
* 2002: The Rising
* 2005: Devils & Dust
* 2006: We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
* 2007: Magic
Samples
* Download sample of “Thunder Road” from Born to Run.
* Download sample of “Dancing in the Dark” from Born in the U.S.A.
Awards and recognition
Grammy Awards
Springsteen has won 18 Grammy Awards, as follows (years shown are the year the award was given for, not the year in which the ceremony was held):
* Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male, 1984, “Dancing in the Dark”
* Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male, 1987, “Tunnel of Love”
* Song of the Year, 1994, “Streets of Philadelphia”
* Best Rock Song, 1994, “Streets of Philadelphia”
* Best Rock Vocal Performance, Solo, 1994, “Streets of Philadelphia”
* Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television, 1994, “Streets of Philadelphia”
* Best Contemporary Folk Album, 1996, The Ghost of Tom Joad
* Best Rock Album, 2002, The Rising
* Best Rock Song, 2002, “The Rising”
* Best Male Rock Vocal Performance, 2002, “The Rising”
* Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, 2003, “Disorder in the House” (with Warren Zevon)
* Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance, 2004, “Code of Silence”
* Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance, 2005, “Devils & Dust”
* Best Traditional Folk Album, 2006, The Seeger Sessions: We Shall Overcome
* Best Long Form Music Video, 2006, “Wings For Wheels: The Making Of Born to Run”
* Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance, 2007, “Radio Nowhere”
* Best Rock Song, 2007, “Radio Nowhere”
* Best Rock Instrumental Performance, 2007, “Once Upon A Time In The West”
Only one of these awards has been one of the cross-genre “major” ones (Song, Record, or Album of the Year); he has been nominated a number of other times for the majors, but failed to win.
Academy Awards
* Academy Award for Best Song, 1993, “Streets of Philadelphia” from Philadelphia
Emmy Awards
* The Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band: Live In New York City HBO special won two technical Emmy Awards in 2001.
Other recognition
* Polar Music Prize in 1997.
* Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1999
* Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, 1999
* Inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame. 2007
* “Born to Run” named “The unofficial youth anthem of New Jersey” by the New Jersey state legislature (something Springsteen always found to be ironic, considering that the song “is about leaving New Jersey”)
* The minor planet 23990, discovered Sept. 4 1999 by I. P. Griffin at Auckland, New Zealand, was officially named in his honor
* Banner hung from the rafters of New Jersey’s Izod Center, honoring his 15 nights of sold-out shows there in one stand in 1999
* Banner hung from the rafters of Philadelphia’s Wachovia Center in the colors of the Philadelphia Flyers, honoring Springsteen’s 45 Philadelphia sold-out shows.
* Ranked #23 on Rolling Stone Magazine’s list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, 2004.
* In October 2007, Eye Weekly ran a cover-story that dubbed Springsteen ‘Indie-Rock Icon of the Year’.
* In May of 2008, Springsteen was 1 of 15 of the first class to be inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.
* Made TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People Of The Year 2008 list.
Web domain dispute
In November 2000, Springsteen filed legal action against Jeff Burgar which accused him of registering the domain brucespringsteen.com (along with several other celebrity domains) in bad faith to funnel web users to his Celebrity 1000 portal site. Once the legal complaint was filed, Burgar pointed the domain to a Springsteen biography and message board. Burgar claims to be running a Springsteen fan club.
In February 2001, Springsteen lost his dispute with Burgar. A WIPO panel ruled 2 to 1 in favor of Burgar.
Sirius Radio
The E Street Band currently has their own channel on Sirius Satellite Radio.
1947 – David Bowie (David Robert Jones) is born in London. He first records with the King Bees, Lower Third and the Mannish Boys in 1963 before going solo. His two No. 1 songs are “Fame” and “Let’s Dance.”
David Bowie (IPA:
Although he released an album and numerous singles earlier, David Bowie first caught the eye and ear of the public in the autumn of 1969, when the Apollo program-inspired “Space Oddity” reached the top five of the UK singles chart. After a three-year period of experimentation he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era as the flamboyant, androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust, spearheaded by the hit single “Starman” and the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The relatively short-lived Ziggy persona epitomised a career often marked by musical innovation, reinvention and striking visual presentation.
In 1975, Bowie achieved his first major American crossover success with the number-one single “Fame” and the hit album Young Americans, which the singer identified as “plastic soul”. The sound constituted a radical shift in style that initially alienated many of his UK devotees. He then confounded the expectations of both his record label and his American audiences by recording the minimalist album Low – the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno over the next two years. Arguably his most experimental works to date, the so-called “Berlin Trilogy” albums all reached the UK Top Five.
After uneven commercial success in the late 1970s, Bowie had UK number ones with the 1980 single “Ashes to Ashes” and its parent album, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps). He paired with Queen for the 1981 UK chart-topper “Under Pressure”, but consolidated his commercial – and, until then, most profitable – sound in 1983 with the album Let’s Dance, which yielded the hit singles “Let’s Dance”, “China Girl”, and “Modern Love”.
In the BBC’s 2002 poll of the 100 Greatest Britons, Bowie ranked 29. Throughout his career he has sold an estimated 136 million albums, and ranks among the ten best-selling acts in UK pop history. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him 39th on their list of the 100 Greatest Rock Artists of All Time
Biography
1947 to 1967: Early years
David Bowie (then David Jones) was born in Brixton, London. Bowie’s parents, Margaret Mary “Peggy” (née Burns) and Hayward Stenton “John” Jones, were married shortly after his birth.
When Bowie was fifteen years old, his friend, George Underwood, wearing a ring on his finger, punched him in the left eye during a fight over a girl. Bowie was forced to stay out of school for eight months so that doctors could conduct operations to repair his potentially blinded eye.
Bowie’s interest in music was sparked at the age of nine when his father brought home a collection of American 45s, including Fats Domino, Chuck Berry and, most particularly, Little Richard. Upon listening to “Tutti Frutti”, Bowie would later say, “I had heard God”. His half-brother Terry introduced him to modern jazz and Bowie’s enthusiasm for players like Charles Mingus and John Coltrane led his mother to give him a plastic saxophone for Christmas in 1959. Graduating to a real instrument, he formed his first band in 1962, the Konrads. He then played and sang in various blues/beat groups, such as The King Bees, The Manish Boys, The Lower Third and The Riot Squad in the mid-1960s, releasing his first record, the single “Liza Jane”, with the King Bees in 1964. His early work shifted through the blues and Elvis-inspired music while working with many British pop styles.
During the early 1960s, Bowie was performing either under his own name or the stage name “Davie Jones”, and briefly even as “Davy Jones”, creating confusion with Davy Jones of The Monkees. To avoid this, in 1966 he chose “Bowie” for his stage name, after the Alamo hero Jim Bowie and his famous Bowie knife. During this time, he recorded singles for Parlophone under the name of The Manish Boys and Davy Jones and for Pye under the name David Bowie (and The Lower Third), all without success.
Bowie released his first album in 1967 for the Decca Records offshoot Deram, simply called David Bowie. It was an amalgam of pop, psychedelia, and music hall. Around the same time he issued a novelty single, “The Laughing Gnome”, which utilised sped-up Chipmunk-style vocals. None of these releases managed to chart, and he would not cut another record for two years. His Deram material from the album and various singles was later recycled in a multitude of compilations.
Influenced by the dramatic arts, he studied with Lindsay Kemp — from avant-garde theatre and mime to Commedia dell’arte — and much of his work would involve the creation of characters or personae to present to the world. During 1967, Bowie sold his first song to another artist, “Oscar” (an early stage name of actor-musician Paul Nicholas). Bowie wrote Oscar’s third single, “Over the Wall We Go”, which satirised life in a British prison. In late 1968, his then-manager, Kenneth Pitt, produced a half-hour promotional film called Love You Till Tuesday featuring Bowie performing a number of songs, but it went unreleased until 1984.
1969 to 1973: Psychedelic folk to glam rock
Bowie’s first flirtation with fame came in 1969 with his single “Space Oddity,” written the previous year but recorded and released to coincide with the first moon landing. It became a Top 5 UK hit. The corresponding album, his second, was originally titled David Bowie, which caused some confusion as both of Bowie’s first and second albums were released with that name in the UK (in the U.S. the second album bore the title Man of Words, Man of Music). In 1972, this album was re-released by RCA Records as Space Oddity.
Bowie put the finishing touches to “Space Oddity” (the track) while living with Mary Finnigan as her lodger. Finnigan and Bowie joined forces with Christina Ostrom and the late Barrie Jackson to run a Folk Club on Sunday nights at The Three Tuns pub in Beckenham High Street, south London. In 1969 and 1970, “Space Oddity” was used by the BBC during both its Apollo 11 moon landing coverage and its coverage of Apollo 13.
In 1970, Bowie released his third album, The Man Who Sold the World, rejecting the acoustic guitar sound of the previous album and replacing it with the heavy rock backing provided by Mick Ronson, who would be a major collaborator through to 1973. Much of the album resembles British heavy metal music of the period, but the album provided some unusual musical detours, such as the title track’s use of Latin sounds and rhythms. The original UK cover of the album showed Bowie in a dress, an early example of his androgynous appearance. In the U.S., the album was originally released in a cartoonish cover that did not feature Bowie.
His next record, Hunky Dory in 1971, saw the partial return of the fey pop singer of “Space Oddity”, with light fare such as the droll “Kooks”. Elsewhere, the album explored more serious themes on tracks such as “Oh! You Pretty Things” (a song taken to UK #12 by Herman’s Hermits’ Peter Noone in 1971), the semi-autobiographical “The Bewlay Brothers”, and the Buddhist-influenced “Quicksand”. Lyrically, the young songwriter also paid unusually direct homage to his influences with “Song for Bob Dylan”, “Andy Warhol”, and “Queen Bitch”, which Bowie’s somewhat cryptic liner notes indicate as a Velvet Underground pastiche. As with the single “Changes”, Hunky Dory was not a big hit but it laid the groundwork for the move that would shortly lift Bowie into the first rank of stars, giving him four top-ten albums and eight top ten singles in the UK in eighteen months between 1972 and 1973.
Bowie further explored his androgynous persona in June 1972 with the seminal concept album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, which presents a world destined to end in five years and tells the story of the ultimate rock star, Ziggy Stardust. The album’s sound combined the hard rock elements of The Man Who Sold the World with the lighter experimental rock of Hunky Dory and the fast-paced glam rock pioneered by Marc Bolan’s T.Rex. Many of the album’s songs have become rock classics, including “Ziggy Stardust,” “Moonage Daydream,” “Hang on to Yourself,” and “Suffragette City.”
The Ziggy Stardust character became the basis for Bowie’s first large-scale tour beginning in 1972, where he donned his famous flaming red hair and wild outfits. The tour featured a three-piece band representing the “Spiders from Mars”: Ronson on guitar, Trevor Bolder on bass, and Mick Woodmansey on drums. The album made #5 in the UK on the strength of the #10 placing of the single “Starman”. Their success made Bowie a star, and soon the six-month-old Hunky Dory eclipsed Ziggy Stardust, when it peaked at #3 on the UK chart. At the same time the non-album single “John, I’m Only Dancing” (not released in the U.S. until 1979) peaked at UK #12, and “All the Young Dudes”, a song he had given to, and produced for, Mott the Hoople, made UK #3.
Around the same time Bowie began promoting and producing his rock and roll heroes, two of whom he met at the popular New York hangout Max’s Kansas City Bowie sang back-up vocals on both Reed’s Transformer, and Iggy’s The Idiot.
The Spiders From Mars came together again on Aladdin Sane, released in April 1973 and his first #1 album in the UK. Described by Bowie as “Ziggy goes to America”,
Bowie’s later Ziggy shows, which included songs from both Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane, as well as a few earlier tracks like “Changes” and “The Width of a Circle”, were ultra-theatrical affairs filled with shocking stage moments, such as Bowie stripping down to a sumo wrestling loincloth or simulating oral sex with Ronson’s guitar.
Pin Ups, a collection of covers of his 1960s favourites, was released in October 1973, spawning a UK #3 hit in “Sorrow” and itself peaking at #1, making David Bowie the best-selling act of 1973 in the UK. By this time, Bowie had broken up the Spiders from Mars and was attempting to move on from his Ziggy persona. Bowie’s own back catalogue was now highly sought: The Man Who Sold the World had been re-released in 1972 along with the second David Bowie album (Space Oddity). Hunky Dory’s “Life on Mars?” was released as a single in 1973 and made #3 in the UK, the same year Bowie’s novelty record from 1967, “The Laughing Gnome”, hit #6.
1974 to 1976: Soul, R&B, and The Thin White Duke
1974 saw the release of another ambitious album, Diamond Dogs, with a spoken word introduction and a multi-part song suite (“Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing (reprise)”). Diamond Dogs was the product of two distinct ideas: a musical based on a wild future in a post-apocalyptic city, and setting George Orwell’s 1984 to music. Bowie also made plans to develop a Diamond Dogs movie, but didn’t get very far. Bowie had originally planned on writing a musical to 1984, but his interest waned after encountering difficulties in licensing the novel. He used some of the songs he had written for the project on Diamond Dogs. The album—and an NBC television special, The 1980 Floor Show, broadcast at around the same time—demonstrated Bowie headed toward the genre of soul/funk music, the track “1984″ being a prime example. The album spawned the hits “Rebel Rebel” (UK #5) and “Diamond Dogs” (UK #21), and itself went to #1 in the UK, making him the best-selling act of that country for the second year in a row. In the US, Bowie achieved his first major commercial success as the album went to #5.
To follow on the release of the album, Bowie launched a massive Diamond Dogs tour in North America from June to December 1974. Choreographed by Toni Basil, and lavishly produced with theatrical special effects, the high-budget stage production broke with contemporary standard practice for rock concerts by featuring no encores. It was filmed by Alan Yentob for the documentary Cracked Actor. The documentary seemed to confirm the rumours of his cocaine abuse, featuring a pasty and emaciated Bowie nervously sniffing in the backseat of a car and claiming that there was a fly in his milk. Bowie commented that the resulting live album, David Live, ought to have been called “David Bowie Is Alive and Well and Living Only In Theory,” presumably in reference to his addled and frenetic psychological state during this period. Nevertheless the album solidified his status as a superstar, going #2 in the UK and #8 in the US. It also spawned a UK #10 hit in a cover of “Knock on Wood”. After the opening leg of the tour, Bowie mostly jettisoned the elaborate sets. Then, when the tour resumed after a summer break in Philadelphia for recording new material, the Diamond Dogs sound no longer seemed apt. Bowie cancelled seven dates and made changes to the band, which returned to the road in October as the Philly Dogs tour.
For Ziggy Stardust fans who had not discerned the soul and funk strains already apparent in Bowie’s recent work, the “new” sound was considered a sudden and jolting step. 1975′s Young Americans was Bowie’s definitive exploration of Philly soul—though he himself referred to the sound ironically as “plastic soul.” It contained his first #1 hit in the US, “Fame”, co-written with Carlos Alomar and John Lennon (who also contributed backing vocals). It was based on a riff Alomar had developed while covering The Flares’ 1961 doo-wop classic “Foot Stompin’”, which Bowie’s band had taken to playing live during the Philly Dogs period. One of the backing vocalists on the album is a young Luther Vandross, who also co-wrote some of the material for Young Americans. The song “Win” featured a hypnotic guitar riff later taken by Beck for the track/live staple “Debra” off his Midnite Vultures album. Despite Bowie’s unashamed recognition of the shallowness of his “plastic soul,” he did earn the bona fide distinction of being one of the few white artists to be invited to appear on the popular “Soul Train.” Another violently paranoid appearance on ABC’s The Dick Cavett Show (1974 5 December) seemed to confirm rumours of Bowie’s heavy cocaine use at this time. Young Americans was the album that cemented Bowie’s stardom in the U.S.; though only peaking there at #9, as opposed to the #5 placing of Diamond Dogs, the album stayed on the charts almost twice as long. At the same time, the album achieved #2 in the UK while a re-issue of his old single “Space Oddity” became his first #1 hit in the UK, only a few months after “Fame” had achieved the same in the US.
Station to Station (1976) featured a darker version of this soul persona, called “The Thin White Duke”. Visually the figure was an extension of Thomas Jerome Newton, the character Bowie portrayed in The Man Who Fell to Earth. Station to Station was a transitional album, prefiguring the Krautrock and synthesizer music of his next releases, while further developing the funk and soul music of Young Americans. By this time, Bowie had become heavily dependent on drugs, particularly cocaine; many critics have attributed the chopped rhythms and emotional detachment of the record to the influence of the drug, to which Bowie claimed to have been introduced in America. His emotional disturbance and megalomania at this time reached such a fever pitch that Bowie refused to relinquish control of a satellite, booked for a worldwide broadcast of a live appearance preceding the release of Station to Station, at the request of the Spanish Government, who wished to put out a live feed regarding the death of Spanish Dictator Francisco Franco. His sanity—by his own later admission—became twisted from cocaine: he overdosed several times during the year. Additionally, Bowie was withering physically after having lost an alarming amount of weight.
Nonetheless, there was another large tour, The 1976 World Tour, which featured a starkly lit set and highlighted new songs such as the dramatic and lengthy title track, the ballads “Wild Is the Wind” and “Word on a Wing”, and the funkier “TVC 15″ and “Stay”. The core band that coalesced around this album and tour—rhythm guitarist Alomar, bassist George Murray, and drummer Dennis Davis—would remain a stable unit through the 1970s. The tour was highly successful but also entrenched in controversy, as the media claimed that Bowie was advocating fascism, an issue later shown to have arisen from the misunderstanding of an anti-fascist message.
1976 to 1979: The Berlin era
Bowie’s interest in the growing German music scene, as well as his drug addiction, prompted him to move to West Berlin to dry out and rejuvenate his career. Sharing an apartment in Schöneberg with his friend Iggy Pop, he co-produced three more of his own classic albums with Tony Visconti, while aiding Pop with his career. With Bowie as a co-writer and musician, Pop completed his first two solo albums, The Idiot and Lust for Life. Bowie joined Pop’s touring band in the spring, simply playing keyboard and singing backing vocals. The group performed in the UK, Europe, and the US from March to April 1977.
The brittle sound of Station to Station proved a precursor to Low, the first of three albums that became known as the “Berlin Trilogy”. Low was recorded with Brian Eno as an integral collaborator but, despite widespread belief, not the album’s producer. Journalists often mistakenly give Eno production credits on the trilogy but, in fact, Bowie and Tony Visconti co-produced, with Eno co-writing some of the music, playing keyboards, and developing strategies. Bowie stressed in 2000: “Over the years not enough credit has gone to Tony Visconti on those particular albums. The actual sound and texture, the feel of everything from the drums to the way that my voice is recorded is Tony Visconti.”
Partly influenced by the Krautrock sound of Kraftwerk and Neu! and the minimalist work of Steve Reich, Bowie journeyed to Neunkirchen near Cologne to meet the famed German producer Conny Plank. Plank was considered a revolutionary producer in German rock in the era, but had no interest in working with Bowie and refused him entry to the studio. The album was produced in 1976 and released in early 1977.
The Low sessions also formalised Bowie’s three-phase approach to making albums. Much of the band were present for the first five days only, after which Eno, Alomar and Gardiner remained to play overdubs. By the time Bowie wrote and recorded the lyrics everybody but Visconti and studio engineers had departed. The next record, “Heroes”, was similar in sound to Low, though slightly more accessible. The mood of these records fit the zeitgeist of the Cold War, symbolised by the divided city that provided its inspiration. The title track, a story of two lovers who met at the Berlin Wall, is one of Bowie’s most-covered songs.
Also in 1977, Bowie appeared on the Granada music show Marc, hosted by his friend and fellow glam pioneer Marc Bolan of T.Rex, with whom he had regularly socialised and jammed before either achieved fame. He turned out to be the show’s final guest, as Bolan was killed in a car crash shortly afterward.
For Christmas 1977, Bowie joined Bing Crosby, of whom he was an ardent admirer, at the ATV Television Studio in Herts England to do “Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy”, a version of “Little Drummer Boy” with a new lyric.
Bowie and his band embarked on an extensive world tour in 1978 (including his first concerts in Australia and New Zealand) which featured music from both Low and Heroes. A live album from the tour was released as Stage the same year. Songs from both Low and Heroes were later converted to symphonies by minimalist composer Phillip Glass. 1978 was also the year that saw Bowie narrating Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf.
1979′s Lodger was the final album in Bowie’s so-called “Berlin Trilogy”, or “triptych” as Bowie calls it. This was Bowie’s last album with Eno until 1. Outside in 1995.
1980 to 1989: Bowie the superstar
In 1980, Bowie did an about-face, integrating the lessons learnt on Low, Heroes, and Lodger while expanding upon them with chart success.
While Scary Monsters utilised principles that Bowie had learned in the Berlin era, it was considered by critics to be far more direct musically and lyrically, reflecting the transformation Bowie had gone through during his time in Germany and Europe. By 1980 Bowie had divorced his wife Angie, curbed the drug abuse of the “Thin White Duke” era, and radically changed his concept of the way music should be written. The album had a hard rock edge that included conspicuous guitar contributions from King Crimson’s Robert Fripp, The Who’s Pete Townshend, and Television’s Tom Verlaine.
In 1981, Queen released “Under Pressure”, co-written and performed with Bowie. The song was a hit and became Bowie’s third UK #1 single. In the same year Bowie made a cameo appearance in the German movie Christiane F. Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo, the real-life story of a 13 year-old girl in Berlin who becomes addicted to heroin and ends up prostituting herself. Bowie is credited with “special cooperation” in the credits and his music features prominently in the movie. The soundtrack was released in 1982 and contained a version of “Heroes” sung partially in German that had previously been included on the German pressing of its parent album. The same year Bowie appeared in the BBC’s adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s play Baal. Coinciding with transmission of the film, a five-track EP of songs from the play was released as David Bowie in Bertolt Brecht’s Baal, recorded at Hansa by the Wall the previous September. It would mark Bowie’s final new release on RCA, as 1983 saw him change record labels from RCA to EMI America. In April 1982, Bowie released “Cat People (Putting Out Fire)” with Giorgio Moroder, for director Paul Schrader’s film Cat People.
Bowie scored his first truly commercial blockbuster with Let’s Dance in 1983, a slick dance album co-produced by Chic’s Nile Rodgers. The title track went to #1 in the United States and United Kingdom. The album also featured the singles “Modern Love” and “China Girl”, the latter causing something of a stir due to its suggestive promotional video. “China Girl” was a remake of a song which Bowie co-wrote several years earlier with Iggy Pop, who recorded it for The Idiot. In an interview by Kurt Loder, Bowie revealed that the motivation for recording “China Girl” was to help out his friend Iggy Pop financially, contributing to Bowie’s history of support for musicians he admired. Let’s Dance was also notable as a stepping stone for the career of the late Texan guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan, who played on the album and was to have supported Bowie on the consequent Serious Moonlight Tour. Vaughan, however, never joined the tour after various disputes with Bowie. Vaughan was replaced by the Bowie tour veteran Earl Slick. Frank and George Simms from The Simms Brothers Band appeared as backing vocalists for the tour. The Serious Moonlight Tour was a huge success, and a single performance at the US Festival actually earned Bowie a million dollars on its own.
Bowie’s next album was originally planned to be a live album recorded on the Serious Moonlight Tour, but EMI demanded another studio album instead. The resulting album, 1984′s Tonight, was also dance-oriented, featuring collaborations with Tina Turner and Iggy Pop, as well as various covers, including one of The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows”. Critics Yet the album bore the transatlantic Top Ten hit “Blue Jean” whose complete video – the 21-minute short film “Jazzin’ for Blue Jean” – reflected Bowie’s long-standing interest in combining music with drama. This video would win Bowie his only Grammy to date, for Best Short Form Music Video. It also featured “Loving the Alien”, a remix of which was a minor hit in 1985. The album also has a pair of dance rewrites of “Neighborhood Threat” and “Tonight”, old songs Bowie wrote with Iggy Pop which had originally appeared on Lust for Life.
In 1985, Bowie performed several of his greatest hits at Wembley for Live Aid. At the end of his set, which comprised “Rebel Rebel”, “TVC 15″, “Modern Love” and ‘Heroes’, he introduced a film of the Ethiopian famine, for which the event was raising funds, which was set to the song “Drive” by The Cars. At the event, the video to a fundraising single was premièred – Bowie performing a duet with Mick Jagger on a version of “Dancing in the Street”, which quickly went to #1 on release. In the same year Bowie worked with the Pat Metheny Group on the song “This Is Not America”, which was featured in the film The Falcon and the Snowman. This song was the centrepiece of the album, a collaboration intended to underline the espionage thriller’s central themes of alienation and disaffection.
Bowie performing in 1987
In 1986, Bowie contributed several songs to as well as acted in the film Absolute Beginners. The movie was not well reviewed but Bowie’s theme song rose to #2 in the UK charts. He also took a role in the 1986 Jim Henson film Labyrinth, as Jareth, the Goblin King who steals the baby brother of a girl named Sarah (played by Jennifer Connelly), in order to turn him into a goblin. Bowie wrote five songs for the film, the script of which was partially written by Monty Python’s Terry Jones.
Bowie’s final solo album of the 80s was 1987′s Never Let Me Down, where he ditched the light sound of his two earlier albums, instead offering harder rock with an industrial/techno dance edge. The album, which peaked at #6 in the UK, contained hit singles “Day In, Day Out”, “Time Will Crawl”, and “Never Let Me Down”. Although a commercial success, it drew some of the harshest criticism of Bowie’s career, condemned by some critics as a “faceless” piece of product.
Bowie decided to tour again in 1987, supporting the Never Let Me Down album. The Glass Spider Tour was preceded by nine promotional press shows before the 86-concert tour actually started on 30 May 1987. In addition to the actual band, that included Peter Frampton on lead guitar, five dancers appeared on stage for almost the entire duration of each concert. Taped pieces of dialogue were also performed by Bowie and the dancers in the middle of songs, creating an overtly theatrical effect. Several visual gimmicks were also recreated from Bowie’s earlier tours. Critics of the tour described it as overproduced and claimed it pandered to then-current stadium rock trends in its special effects and dancing. However, fans that saw the shows from the Glass Spider Tour were treated to many of Bowie’s classics and rarities, in addition to the newer material.
In August 1988, Bowie portrayed Pontius Pilate in the Martin Scorsese film The Last Temptation of Christ.
1989 to 1991: Tin Machine
In 1989, for the first time since the early 1970s, Bowie formed a regular band, Tin Machine, a hard-rocking quartet, along with Reeves Gabrels, Tony Sales, and Hunt Sales. Tin Machine released two studio albums and a live record. The band received mixed reviews and a somewhat lukewarm reception from the public, but Tin Machine heralded the beginning of a long-lasting collaboration between Bowie and Gabrels.
The original album, Tin Machine (1989), was a success, holding the number three spot on the charts of the UK. Tin Machine launched its first world tour, featuring a now unshaven David Bowie and additional guitarist Eric Schermerhorn, that year. Despite the success of the Tin Machine venture, Bowie was mildly frustrated that many of his ideas were either rejected or changed by the band.
David Bowie performing at Rock In Chile Festival, 27 September 1990
Bowie began the 1990s with a stadium tour, in which he played mostly his biggest hits. The Sound + Vision Tour (named after the Low single) was conceived and directed by choreographer Edouard Lock of the Quebec contemporary dance troupe La La La Human Steps, with whom Bowie collaborated and performed on stage and in his videos. Bowie vowed during the tour that he would never play his early hits again.
Though he surprised no one when he later reneged on that promise and also on the promise that his set in each country would be focused on the favourite hits voted by phone poll in that country – an idea quickly jettisoned when a campaign by the British magazine NME resulted in a landslide in favour of The Laughing Gnome, it is true that his later tours generally featured few of those hits, and when they appeared, they were often radically reworked in their arrangement and delivery.
Bowie’s negative press-image continued when the cover of Tin Machine’s second album became unusually controversial, due to the presence of naked statues as its cover art. The coverage only seemed to invite unrelated negative commentary about Bowie to further permeate the public discourse.
After the less successful second album Tin Machine II and the complete failure of live album Tin Machine Live: Oy Vey, Baby, Bowie tired of having to work in a group setting where his creativity was limited, and finally disbanded Tin Machine to work on his own. But the Tin Machine venture did show that Bowie had learned some harsh lessons from the previous decade, and was determined to get serious about concentrating on music more than commercial success.
1992 to 1999: Electronica
In 1992 he performed his hits “Heroes” and “Under Pressure” (with Annie Lennox) at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert. 1993 saw the release of the soul, jazz and hip-hop influenced Black Tie White Noise, which reunited Bowie with Let’s Dance producer Nile Rodgers. The album hit the number one spot on the UK charts with singles such as “Jump They Say” (a top 10 hit) and “Miracle Goodnight”.
Bowie explored new directions on The Buddha of Suburbia (1993), based on incidental music composed for a TV series. It contained some of the new elements introduced in Black Tie White Noise, and also signalled a move towards alternative rock. The album was a critical success but received a low-key release and only made number 87 in the UK charts.
The ambitious, quasi-industrial release Outside (1995), conceived as the first volume in a subsequently abandoned non-linear narrative of art and murder, reunited him with Brian Eno. The album introduced the characters of one of Bowie’s short stories, and achieved chart success in both the UK and US.
Receiving some of the strongest critical response since Let’s Dance was Earthling (1997),
1999 to present: Neoclassicist Bowie
In 1998, David Bowie had reunited with Tony Visconti to record a song for The Rugrats Movie called “(Safe in This) Sky Life”. Although the track was edited out of the final cut, and did not feature on the film’s soundtrack album, the reunion led to the pair pursuing a new collaborative effort. “(Safe In This) Sky Life” was later re-recorded and released as a single b-side in 2002 where it was retitled “Safe”. Amongst their earliest work together in this period, was a reworking of Placebo’s track “Without You I’m Nothing”, from the album of the same name – Visconti overseeing the additional production required when Bowie’s harmonised vocal was added to the original version for a strictly limited edition single release.
1999 found Bowie composing the soundtrack for a computer game called “Omikron: The Nomad Soul”. Bowie and his wife, Iman, made appearances as characters in the game. That same year, re-recorded tracks from the game and new music was released in the album ‘hours…’ featured “What’s Really Happening”, the lyrics for which were written by Alex Grant, the winner of Bowie’s “Cyber Song Contest” Internet competition. This album presented Bowie’s exit from heavy electronica, with an emphasis on more live instruments, and, through songs like “Thursday’s Child” and “Survive”, a thematic move into Bowie’s sense of his own aging and sentimentality. After this album, Bowie’s guitarist, Reeves Gabrels, quit working with Bowie, feeling that the music was becoming “too soft”.
Plans surfaced after the release of ‘hours…’ for an album titled Toy, which would feature new versions of some of Bowie’s earliest pieces as well as three new songs. Sessions for the album commenced in 2000, but the album was never released, leaving a number of tracks, some as yet unheard, on the editing floor. Bowie and Visconti continued collaboration with the production of a new album of completely original songs instead. The result of the sessions was the 2002 album Heathen, which had a dark atmospheric sound, and was Bowie’s biggest chart success in recent years. 2002 also saw Bowie curate the annual Meltdown festival in London. Amongst the acts selected by Bowie to perform were Phillip Glass, Television and The Polyphonic Spree. Bowie himself played a show at the Royal Festival Hall which notably included a rare performance of his experimental opus Low in its entirety.
In 2003, a report in the Sunday Express named Bowie as the second-richest entertainer in the UK (behind Sir Paul McCartney), with an estimated fortune of £510 million. However, the 2005 Sunday Times Rich List credited him with a little over £100 million.
In September 2003, Bowie released a new album, Reality, and announced a world tour. ‘A Reality Tour’ was the best-selling tour of the following year. However, it was cut short after Bowie suffered chest pain while performing on stage at the Hurricane Festival in Scheeßel, Germany, on 25 June 2004. Originally thought to be a pinched nerve in his shoulder, the pain was later diagnosed as an acutely blocked artery; an emergency angioplasty was performed at St. Georg Hospital in Hamburg by Dr Karl Heinz Kuck.
He was discharged in early July 2004 and continued to spend time recovering. Bowie later admitted he had suffered a minor heart attack, resulting from years of heavy smoking and touring. The tour was cancelled for the time being, with hopes that he would go back on tour by August, though this did not materialise. He recuperated back in New York City.
In October 2004, Bowie released a live DVD of the tour, entitled A Reality Tour of his performances in Dublin on 22 November and 23 November 2003, which included songs spanning the full length of Bowie’s career, although mostly focusing on his more recent albums.
Still recuperating from his operation, Bowie worked off-stage and relaxed from studio work for the first time in several years. In 2004, a duet of his classic song “Changes” with Butterfly Boucher appeared in Shrek 2. The soundtrack for the film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou featured David Bowie songs performed in Portuguese by cast member Seu Jorge (who adapted the lyrics to make them relevant to the film’s story). Most of the David Bowie songs featured in the film were originally from David Bowie (debut album), Space Oddity, Hunky Dory, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars and Diamond Dogs. Bowie commented, “Had Seu Jorge not recorded my songs acoustically in Portuguese I would never have heard this new level of beauty which he has imbued them with”.
Despite hopes for a comeback, in 2005, Bowie announced that he had made no plans for any performances during the year. After a relatively quiet year, Bowie recorded the vocals for the song “(She Can) Do That”, co-written by Brian Transeau, for the movie Stealth. Rumours flew about the possibility of a new album, but no announcements were made.
David Bowie finally returned to the stage on 8 September 2005, alongside Arcade Fire, for the US nationally televised event Fashion Rocks, his first gig since the heart attack. Bowie has shown interest in the Montreal band since he was seen at one of their shows in New York City nearly a year earlier. Bowie had requested the band to perform at the show, and together they performed the Arcade Fire’s song “Wake Up” from their album Funeral, as well as Bowie’s own “Five Years” and “Life on Mars?”. He joined them again on 15 September 2005, singing “Queen Bitch” and “Wake Up” from Central Park’s Summerstage as part of the CMJ Music Marathon.
Bowie contributed back-up vocals for TV on the Radio’s song “Province” from their album Return to Cookie Mountain. He made other occasional appearances, as in his commercial with Snoop Dogg for XM Satellite Radio. He appeared on Danish alt-rockers Kashmir’s 2005 release, No Balance Palace, which was produced by Tony Visconti. The album also featured a spoken word performance by Lou Reed, making it the second project involving both Bowie and Reed in two years, since Reed’s 2003 The Raven.
On 8 February 2006, David Bowie was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In November, Bowie performed at the Black Ball in New York for the Keep a Child Alive Foundation alongside his wife, Iman, and Alicia Keys. He duetted with Keys on “Changes”, and also performed “Wild is the Wind” and “Fantastic Voyage”.
For 2006, Bowie once again announced a break from performance, but he made a surprise guest appearance at David Gilmour’s 29 May 2006 concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London. He sang “Arnold Layne” and “Comfortably Numb”, closing the concert. The former performance was released, on 26 December 2006, as a single.
In May 2007, it was announced that Bowie would curate the High Line Festival in the abandoned railway park in New York called the High Line where he would select various musicians and artists to perform.
Bowie contributed backing vocals to two tracks – “Falling Down” and “Fannin’ Street” – on Scarlett Johansson’s 2008 album of Tom Waits covers, Anywhere I Lay My Head.
On 29 June 2008, Bowie released a new compilation entitled iSELECT. This CD was a collection of personal favourites compiled by Bowie himself and was available exclusively as a free gift with the British newspaper The Mail On Sunday. The compilation is notable in that it only contained one major hit single, “Life on Mars?”, and concentrated on lesser-known album tracks.
Acting career
David Bowie filmography
Bowie’s first major film role in The Man Who Fell to Earth in 1976, earned acclaim. Bowie’s character Thomas Jerome Newton is an alien from a planet that is dying from a lack of water. In 1979′s Just a Gigolo, an Anglo-German co-production directed by David Hemmings, Bowie played the lead role of a Prussian officer Paul von Pryzgodski returning from World War I who is discovered by a Baroness (Marlene Dietrich) and put into her Gigolo Stable.
In the 1980s, Bowie continued with film roles and also starred in the Broadway production of The Elephant Man (1980-1981). In 1982, he made a cameo appearance as himself in Christiane F., focusing on a young girl’s drug addiction. Bowie also starred in The Hunger (1983), a revisionist vampire movie with Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon. In the film, Bowie and Deneuve are vampire lovers, with her having made him a vampire centuries ago. While she is truly ageless, he discovers to his horror that although immortal, he can still age and rapidly becomes a pathetic, monstrous husk as the film progresses. In Nagisa Oshima’s film Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), based on Laurens van der Post’s novel The Seed and the Sower, Bowie played Major Jack Celliers, a prisoner of war in a Japanese internment camp. Another famous musician, Ryuichi Sakamoto, played the camp commandant who begins to be undermined by Celliers’ bizarre behavior. Bowie had a cameo as The Shark in Yellowbeard, a 1983 pirate comedy made by some of the members of Monty Python, and a small part as Colin the hit man in the 1985 film Into the Night. During this time Bowie was also asked to play the villain Max Zorin in the James Bond film A View to a Kill (1985), but turned down the role, stating that “I didn’t want to spend five months watching my stunt double fall off mountains.”
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence impressed some critics. His next major film project, the rock musical Absolute Beginners (1986), was both a critical and box office disappointment. The same year he appeared in the Jim Henson cult classic, the dark fantasy Labyrinth (1986), playing Jareth, the king of the goblins. Jareth is a powerful, mysterious creature who has an antagonistic yet strangely flirtatious relationship with Sarah (Jennifer Connelly), the film’s teenage heroine. Appearing in heavy make-up and a mane-like wig, Bowie sang a variety of new songs specially composed for the film’s soundtrack. Bowie also played a sympathetic Pontius Pilate in Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988). He was briefly considered for the role of The Joker by Tim Burton and Sam Hamm for 1989′s Batman. Hamm recalls “David Bowie would be kind of neat because he’s very funny when he does sinister roles”. The role ended up going to Jack Nicholson.
Bowie portrayed a disgruntled restaurant employee opposite Rosanna Arquette in the 1991 film The Linguini Incident, and played mysterious FBI agent Phillip Jeffries in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992). He took the small but pivotal role of Andy Warhol in Basquiat, artist/director Julian Schnabel’s 1996 biopic of the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. In 1998 Bowie also co-starred in an Italian film called Gunslinger’s Revenge (renamed from the original Il Mio West).
Before appearing in The Hunger, a TV horror serial based on the 1983 movie, Bowie was invited by musician Goldie to play the aging gangster Bernie in Andrew Goth’s Brighton Rock inspired movie, Everybody Loves Sunshine. He played the title role in the 2000 film, Mr. Rice’s Secret, in which he played the neighbour of a terminally ill twelve year old. In 2001, Bowie appeared as himself in the film Zoolander, volunteering himself to be a walkoff judge between Ben Stiller’s character Zoolander, and Owen Wilson’s character, Hansel.
In 2006, Bowie portrayed Nikola Tesla alongside Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman in The Prestige, directed by Christopher Nolan. It follows the bitter competition between two magicians around the turn of the century. Bowie has voice-acted in the animated movie Arthur and the Minimoys (known as Arthur and the Invisibles in the U.S.) as the powerful villain Maltazard. He also appeared as himself in an episode of Extras. Bowie (in the context of the show) improvised and sang a song mocking the main character Andy Millman, played by Ricky Gervais. He also lent his voice to the character “Lord Royal Highness” in the SpongeBob SquarePants episode “SpongeBob’s Atlantis SquarePantis”. His latest project is a supporting role as Ogilvie in the new film, August,
Personal life
Romantic relationships
Bowie met his first wife Angela Bowie in 1969. According to Bowie, they were “fucking the same bloke” (record executive Calvin Mark Lee).
Bowie married his second wife, the Somali-born supermodel Iman Abdulmajid, in 1992. The couple have a daughter, Alexandria Zahra Jones (known as Lexi), born 15 August 2000, and live in Manhattan and London.
Sexual orientation
Bowie outed himself in an interview with Melody Maker in January 1972, a move coinciding with the first shots in his campaign for stardom as Ziggy Stardust.
In 1993, he made the claim that he had always been a “closet heterosexual”, and that his interest in homosexual and bisexual culture was more a product of the times and situation than his own feelings. Bowie stated, “It wasn’t something I was comfortable with at all.”
Bowie expressed a different view in a 2002 interview with Blender; where he was posed with this question: “You once said that saying you were bisexual was ‘the biggest mistake I ever made’. Do you still believe that?” His response:
Interesting.
Politics
In September 2007, he made a contribution of U.S.$10,000 to the NAACP
Discography
David Bowie discography
Studio albums
* David Bowie (1967)
* Space Oddity (1969)
* The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
* Hunky Dory (1971)
* The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)
* Aladdin Sane (1973)
* Pin Ups (1973)
* Diamond Dogs (1974)
* Young Americans (1975)
* Station to Station (1976)
* Low (1977)
* “Heroes” (1977)
* Lodger (1979)
* Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980)
* Let’s Dance (1983)
* Tonight (1984)
* Never Let Me Down (1987)
* Black Tie, White Noise (1993)
* The Buddha of Suburbia (1993)
* Outside (1995)
* Earthling (1997)
* ‘hours…’ (1999)
* Heathen (2002)
* Reality (2003)
and TRIVIUM. A few of the selections follow below. The entire list can be found at this location.
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