When Gary U.S. Bonds Met Bruce Springsteen

The story goes like this: during the late-50s, young Gary Anderson was singing in church and playing clubs in and around Norfolk, Virginia, trying to get a foothold in the music biz. The young soul singer’s expressive tenor voice brought him to the attention of local producer Frank Guida, who signed him to his independent Legrand Records label. New Orleans, Anderson’s first single for the label in 1960, was stamped with “Buy U.S. Bonds” on the sleeve, Guida hoping that deejays would mistakenly play the single thinking that it was a public service announcement.

The promotional ploy worked, as the rabble-rousing rock/R&B hybrid song became the newly-christened Gary U.S. Bonds’ first hit single, topping out at number six on the Billboard charts. A string of national hits would follow circa 1960-63, including Bonds’ lone #1 hit Quarter To Three, as well as songs like School Is Out (#5) and Dear Lady Twist (#9). During a 1963 tour of Europe, Bonds headlined above a young band about to break out that went by the name “The Beatles.”

By 1980, however, Gary U.S. Bonds was a name remembered by only a few faithful collectors of early-60s soul and a handful of diehard fans. Although Bonds frequented the oldies circuit with other ‘60s-era road warriors, he hadn’t released an album since 1962. A chance meeting with two young fans – Bruce Springsteen and “Miami” Steve Van Zandt – would lead to friendship with the two musicians and later lay the groundwork for a Bonds comeback. Armed with a fair degree of industry juice after the success of his 1980 album The River and its breakthrough single Hungry Heart, Springsteen used his newly-minted influence to get Bonds signed and in the studio to record an album.

The 1981 album Dedication was the result of this musical collaboration between the middle-aged R&B shouter Bonds and the under-30 rock stars Springsteen and Van Zandt. For fans of Bonds’ earlier work, Dedication was a reminder of the singer’s enormous talent, the songs not so much a throwback to the era as an updating of the trademark Bonds’ style. Springsteen wrote three new songs for the collection and Van Zandt added another, and the two talents also sang and performed and co-produced the set. Other material for Dedication was pulled from the enormously rich Beatles and Dylan song catalogs, along with other covers and a Bonds’ original.

Make no mistake, however, that Dedication is anything but Bonds’ album. His rock star sponsorship notwithstanding, it is Bonds that stands firmly in the spotlight. With Dedication featuring ten songs, mostly recorded with Springsteen’s E Street Band behind him, Bonds takes the material in his hands and quickly claims the territory as his own, his voice in fine form across the entire collection of flashback rockers and stylish soul rave-ups.

The album opens with the spry rocker Jole Blon, a duet of sorts between Bonds and Springsteen that puts both singers’ voices to good use. Written by ‘40s-era hillbilly star Moon Mullican, the song is an odd bird, a French Quarter-tinged ‘50s style roller that Mullican wrote almost a decade before the rock & roll revolution. The album’s big hit single was This Little Girl, an R&B revue styled knockout penned by The Boss in his best old school style. With a fair amount of vocal gymnastics by Bonds and featuring a killer King Curtis sax solo by the Big Man Clarence, the song’s infectious melody and soulful swagger still resonates after a quarter-century of play.

The rest of Dedication follows suite, Bonds working his magic on a handful of Springsteen and Van Zandt tunes written specifically for his use along with a few well-chosen yet surprising covers of tunes by Lennon/McCartney (the aching heartbreaking It’s Only Love), Bob Dylan (a bluesy take on From A Buick 6 with honky-tonk piano) and Jackson Browne (a magnificently naïve reading of The Pretender). Springsteen’s Your Love could pass for a Southside Johnny tune, with big delicious horns supporting Bonds’ emotional crawl. The title cut is no-frills party rocker, a hard-boppin’ stroll down the Asbury Park boardwalk underlined by Clemons’ honkin’ sax and a raucous instrumental undercurrent while the U.S. Bonds’ original Way Back When is a nostalgic look back at an era of simple love songs and brightly-colored lyrics with an early-60s big band soundtrack.

Dedication came out of left field, standing out from the early-80s glut of arena rockers, hardcore punks and new wave pop stars to grab its own little piece of turf on the charts, This Little Girl climbing to #11 on the Billboard charts and the album itself peaking at #27. With a Top Thirty hit album under Bonds’ belt, a sequel to Dedication was a given, so Springsteen got back to work and whipped up seven new songs and, with Van Zandt once again helping out on the boards and with the E Street Band backing him in the studio, the gang crafted the wonderful On The Line with Bonds at the forefront.

More than a mere sound-alike sequel to Dedication, the songs (and the performances) found on On The Line are grittier, harder-edged and even more soulful than on Bonds’ comeback album. Released in mid-1982 with the Reagan recession in full-bloom, Springsteen’s mind was on the working man and On The Line shows it. A finely-tuned collection of blue collar anthems, Bonds was the perfect choice to belt out these songs, his vocals across the album an inspired mix of dirty rock & roll and emotional soul.

The album opener, Hold On (To What You Got) is an anthemic blend of blind romanticism and spirited defiance, with a rocking guitar solo and shotgun-blast vocals by Bonds. The album’s lone Top Thirty hit single, Out Of Work, is also On The Line’s defining moment. Another Springsteen composition, the song’s vintage sound and bouncy instrumentation is complimented by pitch-perfect Bonds vocals, appropriately joyous and yet world-weary. Club Soul City goes the other direction entirely, with sparse instrumentation shadowing Bonds’ soulful wail, his vocals overwhelming the young pups (Springsteen and Van Zandt) with his incredible control and emotion; Springsteen’s lyrics are literally drenched in pathos.

The R&B classic Soul Deep is provided a decent albeit rough-hewn vocal performance by Bonds, with the E Street boys backing him up, while another Springsteen composition, the heart-breaking Love’s On The Line, is supported by lush instrumentation, fine vocals and a highly-textured sax solo courtesy of you-know-who. Turn The Music Down is a Bonds original done up like his early-60s hits, a rollicking parents-versus-kids defense of rock music that typically translates better on stage than on record. Rendezvous, one of Bruce’s better B-sides, is handed off here to Bonds, and the singer takes it to the goal line. Although Bonds’ vocals aren’t as transcendent as Springsteen’s on his original version, they’re nevertheless sweeter and loftier, with an innocent edge.

Although On The Line didn’t make nearly the commercial splash of its predecessor, the collection did yield a hit single in the aforementioned Out Of Work, and the album worked its way up the crowded charts to a respectable #52 position. Sadly, this American Beat reissue that pairs Dedication with On The Line drops the otherwise robust Van Zandt song Last Time from the CD. Although they might have been able to shoehorn the song in…I hate incomplete albums…this “twofer” CD is nonetheless a fine representation of Bonds’ Springsteen-sponsored “comeback” era, the singer finding a new audience with bold new material instead of relying on his old hits for applause.

Bonds would record one more album during his “comeback” phase, the often overlooked Standing In The Line Of Fire, working with Van Zandt for the title track and with his touring band in the studio for the 1984 release. The album, although a worthy successor to the two Springsteen-fueled discs, largely fell on deaf ears and sold poorly. As the decade wore on, Bonds receded once again to the background, touring sporadically and seldom recording (nothing but low-budget live discs during this period), before re-emerging two decades later with the tongue-in-cheek titled Back In 20 album in 2004. A fresh reminder of Gary U.S. Bond’s immense talents, Back In 20 is a fine bookend to the often-overlooked singer’s incredible work on Dedication and On The Line. (American Beat Records)

(Click on the CD cover to buy Dedication/On The Line from Amazon.com)

The Amazing Nils Lofgren Bootleg Show!

One of the most highly-coveted “Holy Grails” of record collecting has always been Nils Lofgren’s Back It Up!! A 1975 promotional release by Lofgren’s label, A&M Records, the faux bootleg was actually cut live in the studio by Nils and band for a radio broadcast on San Francisco’s KSAN-FM. The folks at the label liked the performance so much that they decided that it was just the thing to light a fire under complacent FM radio programmers and support Lofgren’s critically-acclaimed self-titled debut album.

With much less corporate bureaucracy to struggle with back in those days, the idea of an authorized “bootleg” album shuffled around the offices and quickly became a reality, the label pressing up 1,000 copies of Back It Up!! on vinyl with a plain white cardboard sleeve and crude photocopied insert, as was the style of bootleggers at the time. The label mailed ‘em out to radio stations and the press and although it netted Lofgren a fair amount of airplay and hype, history has proven that it did little to boost his record sales above those of any mid-card punter.

As laid out by Bud Scoppa’s informative liner notes for Back It Up!! Live…An Authorized Bootleg, the label was hot to send the promo album out as a regular release, an idea nixed by the man Nils himself. Fearing that the live disc would interfere with sales of his second album, Cry Tough, the promo-only album was put back into the label’s vaults. Meanwhile, as Lofgren’s career continued on pace, with the talented guitarist eventually setting aside his solo work in favor of a gig with Springsteen’s E Street Band, the status of Back It Up!! continued to grow, a primo copy of the original PVC fetching low-to-mid three-figure prices in collector’s circles.

Now I had seen several bootleg copies of Back It Up!! circulating around the various record conventions that I worked during the late-70s/early-80s, especially in Detroit and Chicago, but the Reverend actually picked up his favored copy of the vinyl from a former label executive’s gotta-move-now-cause-I’m-outta-cash yard sale in Nashville for a mere $2.00. My copy looks like the real thing, but what the hell do I know? It could be a boot; if it is, it’s a good one: the vinyl sounds great and looks authentically grungy. Maybe I should do some DNA testing, though, ‘cause according to Scoppa, his roommate – noted rock critic R. Meltzer – was hired by the label to fix the inserts to the sleeve, his sweat inevitably mixing with the sticky glue.

The main reason why Back It Up!! remains a valued collectible after all these years isn’t solely because of its scarcity, or lack thereof (I’ve probably seen over 1,000 copies myself at shows through the years, if you catch my meaning). No, the album is valued above other label promo items ‘cause it rocks like a leopard on a treadmill, whatever that means. It’s a great selection of songs…a couple from Nils Lofgren, the debut album; a couple of vintage Grin cuts (including the beautiful Like Rain); and a soulful turn on the Goffin-King chestnut Goin’ Back.

The performances captured by the album are simply electrifying, among the best you’ll hear from Nils, and these ears have heard a lot. Lofgren’s Keith Richards tribute, Keith Don’t Go (Ode To The Glimmer Twin) starts out with a tense, trippy guitar line straight from the Who playbook before breaking into Nils’ impassioned lyrical plea. The fretwork is stellar, Nils tearing off a number of superbly crushing solos built atop the brickyard rhythms provided by his brother, guitarist Tommy Lofgren.

I Don’t Want To Know, also from the solo debut, should have been a huge radio hit; a melodic rock number with fine vocal gymnastics and a BIG catchy hook guaranteed to grab you by the ears, it’s a classic tale of love and betrayal. This live version benefits from the addition of Al Kooper’s piano, the rock legend working on producing Lofgren’s sophomore effort at the time. The aforementioned cover of Goin’ Back offers Kooper’s light-hearted keyboard riffing and a breathless, smooth-as-silk vocal performance by Nils. Beggar’s Day jumps back into a rock groove after several pop-inflected cuts, the obscure Grin band cut showcasing some of Lofgren’s tuffest vox and even tougher fretwork, his slice-and-dice solos filleting the slightly funky rhythms of bassist Scott Ball and drummer Mike Zack.

Rock & roll, much like life, is full of “what if” moments. What if you had married the geek that later started that billion-dollar software business rather than the high school quarterback? What if you’d bought that Google stock at $12 per share like your father-in-law suggested? What if Mr. Miyagi had refused to teach that punk kid any of his slick moves? What would have happened to Lofgren’s career if an excellent live set like Back It Up!! had been released to compliment both his debut album and Cry Tough? Would it have been enough to put Nils in the national spotlight, where his native talent and dynamic onstage presence might have brought him the stardom he deserves?

As good as this set is, maybe Back It Up!! could have been better. Clocking in at slightly less than 45 minutes, the album feels incomplete by a song or two. Maybe Nils and his talented band only put these seven songs to tape, I don’t know. But if Hip-O Select had more of this stuff in the vault, they should have released an expanded version of Back It Up!! since it’s clearly the long-faithful fans that would be the most interested in this limited edition CD reissue.

Be that as it may, if you’re interested in this great disc, I’d recommend that rather than spend your coin on this A&M/Hip-O Select release, you surf over to the man’s web site (www.nilslofgren.com) and buy his virtually identical version of the album instead (titled Bootleg), which, contrary to the major label’s advertising campaign, beat their version to CD by almost six years. You can’t go wrong either way, ‘cause this is a classic disc deserving of a place on your shelf. (A&M Records/Hip-O Select)

(Click on the CD cover to buy Back It Up!! from Amazon.com, though in this instance we'd really rather that you bought it from Nils instead. Please. Go ahead, we'll wait. There's a link above.)

Nils Lofgren's Amazing "Wonderland"

There will be absolutely no argument about this, people – Nils Lofgren’s Across The Tracks should have been a mondo-huge radio hit. Period. I’ll hear no debate, no dispute, no qualifying…MONDO-HUGE radio hit! I’ve got the charts and pie graphs and seismograph readings to prove my point…and if that doesn’t convince you (wink, wink), I also have a ten-pound sledge and an itchy trigger-finger. Yeah, I thought so…

By the time of the 1983 release of Wonderland, Nils Lofgren had enjoyed status as a rock-n-roll wunderkind for over a decade, beginning with his brief tenure as part of Crazy Horse backing Neil Young, and continuing through his work with cult favorites Grin. Nils had half-a-dozen major label solo recordings under his belt by this time, but he was also on his second record label in only eight years, and had been unable to break free of the increasingly crowded rock guitarist pack. Lofgren seemed doomed to “also-ran” status for the remainder of his career, forever fated to being a critic’s darling. Critical acclaim doesn’t put beans on the table, however; you have to sell some records at some point in time.

Ultimately, when standing at the crossroads, he chose to put his career on the back-burner and take up Bruce Springsteen’s offer to join the E Street Band after the departure of popular guitarist Steve Van Zandt. The decision to take a walk down E Street made Lofgren a wealthy man, but one has to wonder if he has ever thought about what might have happened had he chosen to continue pursuing the brass ring on his own. Through the years, critics have pointed their collective fingers at various reasons for Lofgren’s failure to break through, from lack of label support and the unflinching ignorance of radio to the typically shallow production of the artist’s albums and even to Lofgren’s own lack of personality.

Wonderland was the last album that Lofgren recorded before jumping on the whirlwind Born In The U.S.A. tour with his New Jersey pal Bruce, and it stands tall among his best work. Contrary to what many pundits assert, Wonderland proves to this critic that Lofgren has no shortage of personality. A varied and heartfelt collection of material that was well-rehearsed and basically captured live in the studio, the album provides Lofgren with the guitar showcase that he had always deserved.

The aforementioned Across The Tracks is an energetic tale of star-crossed lovers, Lofgren’s spirited vocals complimented by a heavy drumbeat, an undeniably catchy melodic hook, great Romeo & Juliet lyrics and some damn fine guitar work. Edgar Winter throws in barely-audible backing vocals. Unlike some of the other songs on Wonderland, Across The Tracks doesn’t suffer from period production – this is a timeless rocker that plays across the decades. Kudos to Andy Newmark for his killer stompin’ on the drum kit…

Ole Nils switches gears with Into The Night, a moody, atmospheric semi-ballad that displays Lofgren’s abilities as a crooner, his passionate lyrics matched with a lush arrangement and subtle six-string flourishes. I Wait For You is a larger-than-life Springsteenesque mid-tempo rocker with stellar fretwork, notes flying everywhere as the drums ring clear like a jackhammer, Kevin McCormick’s throbbing bass tossing the boys a lifeline to pull them out of this emotional quicksand. The title cut is a syncopated, slightly Latin-flavored tune that reminds me of NYC; with backing vocals by the underrated, can’t-outstay-her-welcome-in-my-house Louise Goffin, the song is an enchanting romp through, well, Wonderland.

Wonderland was produced by Lofgren with his long-time bandmates McCormick and Newmark, and the work they did was ‘magnifico,’ accentuating their instrumental strengths and Nils’ solid songwriting chops while pushing Lofgren’s sometimes too-slight vocals to new heights. Confident Girl is a great example of the chemistry between the three, Lofgren’s guitar blazing with laser-like intensity while his vocals speak of a confidence that was sometimes lacking from his earlier work. Throw in some nice three-part harmonies and a one-two rhythmic knockout punch and Confident Girl could have easily been the second hit single from the album. Goffin also chimes in on the reggae-splashed Everybody Wants, Lofgren channeling his inner-Garland (i.e. Jeffreys) on this warm, infectious tune.

That’s not to say that there’s not a little chaff among Wonderland’s many pearls. Deadline might be a great song live, but as captured in the studio, it just stinks up the joint. The guys fell prey to the “sound de jour” and mucked up a song with an otherwise scorching guitar solo with new wavy synth punctuation that sounds hopelessly out-of-date a quarter-century later. Plus, Newmark’s delicious bass-heavy drumming is tossed aside in favor of a tinnier, repetitive, ‘radio-friendly’ snare drum beat that would induce a migraine in even the heartiest of listeners. The entire song sounds not dissimilar to the dreck produced by a lot of major label bands at the time, all trying to get their stuff on MTV. Ditto for Lonesome Ranger, a meager ballad that wastes Carly Simon’s perfectly good backing vocals in the creation of a funky, plasticized grab for airplay; there’s nothing here to differentiate it from a dozen other, slicker period bands that don’t have a tenth of this trio’s talent.

Overall, Wonderland signals the beginning of an evolution in Nils Lofgren’s creative direction. He would make one more very good (and similar) solo album in 1985’s Flip before taking the next six years away from recording. When Nils came back to the studio, he had matured as both an artist and a guitarist. He had toured the world as part of the biggest, baddest instrumental ensemble that has ever graced a stage in the E Street Band, taking part in marathon live shows that would test the talents of any musician. By the time of 1991’s Silver Lining, Lofgren had better than two decades under his belt and his vision was clear, his influences fully absorbed.

Although Lofgren’s creative output has been infrequent in the 24 years since Wonderland, resigned mostly to live albums and performances, there is no doubt that this album stands as a high water mark for the guitarist’s astounding career, an often overlooked album (released by American Beat for the first time in the U.S. on CD) well deserving of another listen. (American Beat Records)

(Click on the CD cover to buy Wonderland from Amazon.com)