Why The E Street Band is the backup band of backup bands!
Wednesday, December 18, 2013 7:03 AM
The Record
How to define "musical excellence"? Well, one definition is timing. In which case, you could say the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in its induction of the E Street Band into the "award for musical excellence" category next spring, came in late. Clarence Clemons (died June 18, 2011) and Danny Federici (died April 17, 2008), sadly, won't be around to take the stage at Brooklyn's Barclays Center on April 10. But the Hall of Fame's recognition of Springsteen's sidemen and -women, alongside such honorees as Cat Stevens, Linda Ronstadt, Kiss, Hall and Oates, Peter Gabriel and Nirvana (also, notably, missing a key player), is nevertheless one more welcome searchlight on that most shadowy of musical sub-worlds: the "backup band." You know: The guys who end in "aire" (The Jordanaires). Or the ladies who end in "ette" (The Raelettes). Or the guys who come after the ampersand: James Brown & The Famous Flames, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band. The key thing is, they come last. Or did. Just as it is now customary for a high-toned PBS show like "Downton Abbey" to examine the lives, not just of the lords and ladies, but also of the parlor maids and butlers, so it's becoming more common in the pop world to acknowledge music's downstairs people. "Standing in the Shadows of Motown," the 2002 documentary about the label's go-to crew, The Funk Brothers; "The Wrecking Crew," the 2008 film about the L.A. session men who backed everyone from Sinatra to The Beach Boys; and this year's "20 Feet From Stardom," about such underappreciated backup singers as Merry Clayton and Darlene Love, are a belated recognition that few stars are a one-man band. What talented people require, above all else, is talented people. Still, there are backup bands and backup bands. Pop groups come in all configurations, from all-star outfits like The Beatles, to celebrity glitter queens backed by a troupe of anonymous, interchangeable musicians. But there is a special mystique around bands that have a true cast of characters: bands like The Who and The Rolling Stones that consist of a frontman (Roger Daltrey, Mick Jagger), but also a group of well-known, well-loved sidekicks (Pete Townshend and his windmills, Keith Richards and his guitar riffs). The team of teams? Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Hands down. "Musical excellence," yes. The Springsteen sound is forever linked with Clemons' soulful sax, Roy Bittan's pop-operatic piano riffs, the sterling guitar work of Nils Lofgren and "Miami Steve" Van Zandt, and all those other players, alive, dead or departed, who made the band what it is over 30 years: Federici, Max Weinberg, Patti Scialfa, Garry Tallent, David Sancious, Vini Lopez. But "musical excellence," in the end, is a catchall category, a way to explain something that isn't ultimately about music. In 1992 Springsteen took to the road for a world tour featuring a new backup band that was – arguably – as good or better than the E Street Band, musically speaking. Fans weren't having it. "The Other Band Tour," they call it, to this day. What the E Street Band is about, even more than music, is narrative. Springsteen (himself inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1999), in the course of 18 albums over 30 years, created a setting, a story line, a world. It's a world of decayed blue-collar Shore towns and backstreets, of shuttered factories, of girls named Sandy and Wendy and Rosalita, of drifters and losers and people who yearn to get to that place where they really want to go, and walk in the sun. It's a world of places like Belmar's E Street — where the band first rehearsed. And traveling through that world, empathizing with it, commenting on it, is this group of scruffy troubadours, best friends – presumably — through thick and thin (never mind what goes on backstage). A handful of good buddies against the world: What could be more romantic than that? More, each of those buddies has an image, a personality: Van Zandt, the right-hand man with his piratical kerchief; slightly square Max Weinberg, the steady guy in back; Patti Scialfa, Springsteen's wife and a talented musician in her own right, but also playing the part of the hero's true-blue "girl" — above all, Clemons. Springsteen, throughout his years with Clemons, very deliberately milked the Huck Finn associations of the gentle black giant and the scruffy white outcast. "How I Met Clarence" stories – different every night – were a standard feature of concerts in the old days. So was the celebrated Springsteen-Clemons kiss: Springsteen sliding across the floor to wind up in Clemons' arms in an operatic bromance embrace. It was working-class theater — and Springsteen's band was not only musicians, but actors. If you want an analogy to the E Street Band, you won't find it in music. Look to literature, myth. Robin Hood, the charismatic leader, and his Merry Men, each with their own lovable traits: Little John, Friar Tuck, Will Scarlett – all banded together to help the poor, to do good, to raise hell and have a good time while thumbing their nose at authority. "Musical excellence," absolutely. But that's the least of it. Email: beckerman@northjersey.com