As recently as a year ago this past autumn, The New York Times misspelled the Boss’s last name as “Springstein,” reminding those of us old enough to remember that, early in Bruce Springsteen’s career, it was commonly thought — or secretly hoped by some — that this rock ’n’ roll messiah was Jewish. That rumor was put to rest for good once Springsteen’s 1975 breakthrough album, “Born to Run,” garnered him the cover stories of both Time and Newsweek magazines in the same week. Besides fitting Springsteen for Elvis Presley’s fallen crown, the articles revealed little-known biographical facts including, alas, that Bruce was Italian on his mother’s side and Dutch-Irish on his father’s. Still, there was something about his early street-poet vibe; the dazzling, Dylan-esque wordplay (albeit soon abandoned for a simpler, more straightforward vocabulary); the Lou Reed-like punk in his strut; and the suburban New York/New Jersey fellowship among the members of the E Street Band that was very familiar, almost haimish, suggesting that Springsteen was, if not a member of the tribe, at least a close haver, and one who in fact occasionally plays “Hava Nagila” in concert.
From the beginning of his career, Springsteen surrounded himself with Jewish managers, producers and musicians. Mike Appel scored the Boss his deal with Columbia Records (where he was signed by John Hammond — the same talent scout who nabbed a young Bob Dylan — and which is releasing “High Hopes,” a new collection of previously unreleased Springsteen tracks recorded over the last decade), deftly steering his career through “Born to Run.” Around which time, then-rock critic (and Brandeis University alumnus) Jon Landau — he of “I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen” fame — took the reins as Springsteen’s producer, confidant and, eventually, manager.
Springsteen’s recording engineer on his first two albums and for the earliest sessions of “Born to Run” — including the title track — was the Israeli Louis Lahav. Lahav’s wife, the kibbutz-raised Suki Lahav (now an award-winning author), was likewise an early member of the E Street Band; it’s her klezmer- like keening you hear on the violin intro to the mini-rock opera, “Jungleland.” And the E Street band’s pianist, Roy Bittan, a New York native, once said that the secret to his own distinctive playing is that his “sound is that of a little Jewish kid with an accordion.”
The best-known member of the E Street Band, next to the late saxophonist Clarence Clemons, is perhaps drummer Max Weinberg. Anyone not already familiar with Weinberg’s skin-pounding for the Boss discovered him as the longtime drummer and leader of the house bands on Conan O’Brien’s late-night TV talk shows. Weinberg, whose parents ran a Jewish summer camp called Pocono Highland — and whose first public appearance as a drummer was at age seven when he sat in with a bar mitzvah band — has also enjoyed a small sideline career as a motivational speaker, often speaking to Jewish groups, before whom he calls the E Street Band “the greatest bar mitzvah band of all time.” (Indeed, you can hear Springsteen himself addressing this notion on the recording, “Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band: Live in New York City,” when he ecumenically tells the crowd, “I’m gonna throw a rock and roll exorcism… a rock and roll baptism, and a rock and roll bar mitzvah!”).....
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Poster Comment:
Hah! Naah, he can't be gew -- there are no Dutch, Irish or Italian gews, right? Bruce, the magic singer who looks goyish from the front and gew from the side.