January 5: Bruce Springsteen released Greetings from Ashbury Park NJ in 1973

“This boy has a lot more of the Dylan spirit than John Prine. His songs are filled with the absurdist energy and heart on sleeve pretension that made Dylan a genius instead of a talent.”
– Robert Christgau, Creem magazine

Greetings from Asbury Park NJ is the first studio album by Bruce Springsteen, released in 1973. It only sold about 25,000 copies in the first year of its release, but had significant critical impact. It was ranked at #379 by Rolling Stone on its list of 500 greatest albums of all time. The album also hit the number sixty stop on the Billboard 200 albums listing.

The re-release that is part of the box-set (released autumn 2014) sounds amazing!

Released	January 5, 1973
Recorded	July–September 1972 at 914 Sound Studios, Blauvelt, New York
Genre	Rock, folk rock, Jersey Shore sound
Length	37:08
Label	Columbia
Producer	Mike Appel, Jim Cretecos

Greetings from Ashbury Park NJ review in Rolling Stone Magazine

By LESTER BANGS, JULY 5, 1973

“Madman drummers bummers and Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat/In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat” begins the very first song, and after that things just keep getting more breathtakingly complicated. You might think it’s some kinda throwback, but it’s really bracing as hell because it’s obvious that B.S. don’t give a shit.

He slingshoots his random rivets at you and you can catch as many as you want or let ’em all clatter right off the wall which maybe’s where they belong anyway. Bruce Springsteen is a bold new talent with more than a mouthful to say, and one look at the pic on the back will tell you he’s got the glam to go places in this Gollywoodlawn world to boot. Watch for him; he’s not the new John Prine.

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I think it’s an album brimming with potential. It has many great songs but I think it sounds under produced. I like the record, but I just think that it should have been so much better given the material.

The best things about it are the lyrics, the humour and the promise of things to come.

…and a lot of the songs are tremendous in a live setting, just check out this classic performance of Spirit in the Night – Live 1973 in Los Angeles:

Spotify:

Personell:

The E-Street Band

• Clarence Clemons – clapping, saxophone, vocals
• Vini “Mad Dog” Lopez – clapping, drums, vocals
• David Sancious – keyboards, organ, piano
• Bruce Springsteen – acoustic guitar, bass guitar, clapping, congas, electric guitar, harmonica, keyboards, piano, vocals
• Garry Tallent – bass guitar

Other musicians

• Richard Davis – upright double bass on “The Angel”
• Harold Wheeler – piano on “Blinded By the Light”
• Steven Van Zandt – sound effects on “Lost in the Flood”

– Hallgeir