Bruce Springsteen Honors The Raspberries From Stage

On stage in Greensboro, NC, Bruce Springsteen dedicated "All That Heaven Will Allow" to the Raspberries, fondly recalling their "Greatest Hits" cassette in his car stereo in the late '70s, and on a stop in Pittsburgh, PA he called "Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)" a 'classic' and told the audience to go get it!

Rock artist and songwriter, Eric Carmen, shares his appreciation:


Just finished reading the posts debating the merits of Bruce, both humanitarian and musical. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Here's mine.

Bruce Springsteen totally gets it. When I listened to the "Born To Run" album ( which I did, by the way, during the time that I was writing the "Boats Against The Current" album, almost every night) it did everything for me that a great record should do. It drew me in, it made me smile, it made me think, it gave me chills, it inspired me. Those were brilliant songs, movingly performed.

Every time I hear "Born In The USA" I wish I had written it. That's a special secret award songwriters reserve for only those songs that make them a little bit envious that they didn't think of it first. Sometimes it's a couple of lines, ("Out on the road today, I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac…") sometimes it's the whole song ("Desperado").

The breakdown section toward the end of the record when Max starts playing those seemingly random, erratically brilliant drum fills and finally explodes back into the opening synth riff, followed by Bruce's primal scream is as perfect a rock 'n roll moment as I have ever heard. It gives me chills every time I hear it. It took me a couple of spins before I realized that all that tension, all that emotion, all that fire, was created using only the same two chords from beginning to end. Over and over, just two simple chords. That, my friends, is genius.

Bruce is the goods.

Now on to the "humanitarian" side of the debate. In all the years that Bruce has been on top, I've never heard a single person say one bad thing about him. That is extraordinary. That says a lot about him. As far as I can see he doesn't drink, use drugs or make a fool of himself in public places. He doesn't have to say one word about the Raspberries when he walks on that stage in front of 20,000 fans every night. The fact that he's done it two nights running is the ultimate compliment.

Bruce knows we get it, too.

When he mentioned "'Overnight Sensation" I couldn't help but think of that drum fill after the fake piano fade, and I wondered if maybe he and Max had listened to it one night and said, "Let's do something like that here at the end of "Born In The USA." And maybe that inspired him and he inspired me. That's the way music works. One artist inspires another.

Just between us, Bruce is as good as it gets. And when he mentions us or our records on that stage we are eternally grateful. Amen.

Eric



Read the reactions of fans at www.ericcarmen.com