The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle - Springsteen, Bruce (CD 1986)

The Wild, The Innocent, and the E-Street Shuffle is the sophomore effort from Springsteen and upon it's release, it completley dumbfounded everybody. This music was stuff that nobody had seen before, a flawless synthesis of influences and mastery of narrative songcraft. Almost 2 years before his big break with Born to Run, this album proved that he was already in the big leagues. Sadly, time has overlooked it and it's my duty to enlighten YOU. Read on.

Bruce Springsteen is just one of those timeless artists, a man who's been around since 1973 and is still one of the most instantly recognizable figures in rock and roll. 'The Boss', to his credit, has one of the greatest selling albums of all time in (Born in the USA), a reputation as being the best live act in rock and roll (One that he lives up to every night), and a penchant for always taking chances just when people think they have him figured out (Nebraska, Ghost of Tom Joad, Lucky Town)

As for that last trait, always taking chances, Springsteen illustrated very early in his career that he was not an artist to be tied down. His first album had the pigeonholing tagline of 'The New Dylan' and didn't really go anywhere, commercially, despite being the first of many artistic masterpeices from the Boss. Nobody knew what he'd pull for his sophomore effort, perhaps, not even himself.

The album opens with the street-corner flavor of 'The E-street Shuffle', an almost dance-rock song with a very 70's guitar flavor, loads of background 'Woah-oh oh oh!' that Bon Jovi must've paid close attention to, and a simple, good-time lyric. It's accentuated by a breakneck tempo pushed by virtuoso drummer Vini Lopez, sweet brass arrangements mostly handled by sax-man extrordinare Clarence Clemons, and it has a 'wah-wah' effect in the back of the mix that immediatley makes one think of a porn movie... or, perhaps an old Shaft movie. It's a great, entertaining album opener, and sets the whimsical tone of the album, not unlike 'Thunder Road' would set the desperate tone for his next album.

Throughout this album, there's an air of innocence, an atmosphere that would later be lost due to Springsteen's devotion to the disillusioned lives of his characters. Here, his characters still have youthful vigor and the 'can-do-anything' chutzpah that really sets this album apart from anything else he's done. The second track illustrates this quite well, '4th of July, Asbury Park' is a fond reminsice to an old friend named Sandy, urging her to leave the 'Boardwalk Life' behind and forge ahead to a new world. This attitude would become a staple in his songcraft, but it's already perfected quite nicely here. An accordian finds it's way into this song and it almost lends that quality of 'Let's sit on the patio of an italian restaurant and eat spaghetti and talk about the days'. It's hard to explain. This song is simply beautiful.

The lineup of the E-Street band changed after this album, losing drummer Vini Lopez and keyboardist/pianist David Sancious for more professional replacements, but throughout this album the two virtuosos shine in ways their replacements couldn't have. The remaining songs on the first half of this album run a gambit from the stone-cold street-corner blues of 'Kitty's Back', featuring another lightning-fast performance by Vini Lopez, and the whimsical 'Wild Billy's Circus Story' which continues the 'everything but the kitchen sink' feel of this album by featuring a tuba, which somehow weaves it's way in perfectly with Vini Lopez's drumming. The band really plays off each other extremely well in a way that was only hinted at on Springsteen's first album, and it seems with every line Springsteen sings, one of his band members find a way to accent it somehow.

People listening to this album straight through and comparing it to Springsteen's other works may be impressed, but not totally convinced of my 'The Boss's greatest album EVER' stance, I sure wasn't at first. What sets this album apart is the second half, which is just so brilliant, so magnificent, and so beautiful that it makes up for any other flaws and inconsistencies of the first half and elevates this album from Great to Legendary.

All three of the to-be-discussed songs are among Springsteen's greatest, but 'Incident on 57th Street' might be the prize winner here. Bruce tells the tale of Spanish Johnny and Peurto Rican Jane in a way only he can, a gangland love-drama about the romantic young boys of the New Jersey streets, whose greatest pleasures are sex, driving, and hits, in no order. David Sancious plays a simply beautiful piano accompaniment while Vini Lopez's busy drum work fits the arrangement perfectly, and Bruce's impassioned wailing gives way to one of his coolest guitar solos to close the song out, as it segues into...

Rosalita, one of Springsteen's very best uptempo rock tracks that is almost unlike anything he would ever try again. Organist Danny Frederici and keyboardist David Sancious interplay perfectly, Clarence Clemons decides to really make his presence known here as well with memorable lick after memorable lick. Vini Lopez keeps the entire band on the edge of their seat with relentless tempos and underneath it all is Bruce's vocals and guitar holding the chaos together by a thread. The song builds and builds and just when you think it's starting to level off it hits another level. This song was the obvious blueprint for future hits like Born to Run but it's also obvious that Springsteen knew full what what he was doing from day one. This is a perfect rock and roll song, period.

The album closer, New York City Serenade, is a wholly different beast, starting off with David Sancious playing a dark, haunting melody for all it's worth before running the keys like a man possessed. This song does very well in slowing the mood from the chaotic bliss of Rosalita, but true to form it throws a loop in the midsection as well, switching gears on a dime from a beautiful piano/acoustic guitar ballad to a handclapping, almost gospel-sounding B-section before reverting back to close this album out beautifully.

The Wild, The Innocent, and the E-Street Shuffle, as a whole, is a masterpeice of chaotic dynamics that Springsteen would never quite get back to again, due to the departure of Vini Lopez and David Sancious for the more professional Max Weinberg and Roy Bittan, whose collective commercial savvy would help Springsteen score big hits and reach the masses. There was a certain magic to the original lineup, however, and while not everyone may have been able to get into it as easily as say, 'Born in the USA' or 'The River', Springsteen's second album is where he pulled it all together and made, in this reviewer's opinion, the very best music he's ever made, and some of the greatest rock music of the genre. Don't call yourself a Bruce Springsteen fan without buying this album.