Springsteen Takes Seeger Overseas

Live in Dublin
Bruce Springsteen with the Sessions Band
(Columbia)

Bruce Springsteen became a rock-and-roll icon by making grandiose artistic statements. The wall of sound on "Born to Run" and the similarly big-sounding "Darkness on the Edge of Town" took him from the Jersey Shore to the cover of Time and Newsweek. Not that his legacy was in doubt, but Springsteen cemented it in the mid '80s with the (often misunderstood) anthem "Born in the U.S.A." and the fistful of hit singles from that album.

Not satisfied with being a full-fledged rock star for more than 30 years, "The Boss" has spent much of his career remaking himself as a latter-day Woody Guthrie or, perhaps more appropriately, Pete Seeger. Having long ago been dubbed a "New Dylan," Springsteen increasingly has aligned himself with Greenwich Village-era Dylan. Starting in 1982 with the stark, acoustic home recording "Nebraska" and continuing to varying degrees on 1995's "The Ghost of Tom Joad," 2005's "Devils and Dust" and last year's "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions," Springsteen has embraced his inner folk singer and social activist. On the new "Live in Dublin," recorded during a three-night stand on the final leg of last year's "Seeger Sessions" tour, Springsteen reconciles both sides of his professional personality. The double live disc features Seeger-inspired material from the studio recording and a handful of Springsteen's compositions put through their paces by a rambling, rollicking, 18-piece band that's more Bourbon Street than it is E Street.

Some will argue that the world did not need a third set of "Seeger"-related material. Springsteen raised some eyebrows (and fans' blood pressures) when he decided to release the expanded "American Land Edition" of "Seeger Sessions" (or, as HickoryWind's Hal Bogerd prefers to call it, $eeger $e$$ion$) only four months after the street date of the initial studio album. This tour document, available as a two-CD, one DVD set or separately, could easily be construed as greed from a guy already having a hard time portraying himself as a common man. To use his words, Springsteen long has been "a rich man in a poor man's shirt."

It would have been preferable for the "American Land Edition" to be the only studio edition of "Seeger Sessions," but that doesn't diminish the value of "Live in Dublin." Longtime fans know there's a decided difference between Springsteen on disc and in performance, and this album is no exception. The band on "Seeger Sessions" sounds like it's having a great time playing revved-up versions of traditional music, and none of that is lost in the live setting with an expanded lineup. If anything, The Sessions Band picks up steam with the four extra musicians. They also allow Springsteen to revisit his songbook in some unexpected and quite enjoyable ways.

No time is wasted in getting to the retooling. "Live in Dublin" opens with the "Nebraska" classic "Atlantic City" made over as an Appalachian murder ballad, complete with banjo accompaniment from Crooked Still's Greg Liszt. It's a little disorienting at first because the new/old treatment radically alters the song's distinctive melody. The point is moot when the horns kick in on the chorus, and it's off to Mardi Gras. New Orleans is an important touchstone for this band; it went over well at Jazz Fest 2006 in one of its earliest performances, and the hardship brought upon the city by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 worked its way into Springsteen's writing and performance. In fairness, New Orleans also was the driving force behind the new songs and the "American Land Edition" of "Seeger Sessions."

"Nebraska," Springsteen's most spare work, is also represented here by a pretty straightforward "Highway Patrolman" and a boogie-woogie piano version of "Open All Night" that features female backing vocals in the style of the Andrews Sisters.

"If I Should Fall Behind" here becomes a waltz, adding a bit of an old-timey feel and even more poignancy to the ballad from 1992's "Lucky Town." Also notably changed is "Further On (Up the Road)," from "The Rising," which gets a new cadence, lead vocals from other band members on some verses and, appropriately for the shows on the Emerald Isle, penny whistle.

Not all of the reworked material is as successful. "Blinded by the Light," which became an early Springsteen classic for its colorful lyrics and Dylanesque delivery, comes off here as somewhat monotonous.

Of course it was covers, not Springsteen's originals, that were the impetus behind "Seeger Sessions," and the band naturally revisits much of that material (though "John Henry" is noticeably absent). On "Old Dan Tucker" and "My Oklahoma Home," Marty Rifkin's pedal steel suggests that Springsteen reached into the bag of iconic American influences and pulled out a little Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, too. They chose from other traditional material, too. "This Little Light of Mine" has a fervent gospel feel, but "When the Saints Go Marching In," played in a somber ballad style, has quite the opposite effect. It certainly could be heard as a processional for New Orleans though it doesn't fall back on the standard, second-line style.

The material wasn't all old folk music, and even tradition was subject to tinkering. An update of Blind Alfred Reed's "How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live" alluded to New Orleans and Katrina. Springsteen's Irish jig "American Land" also carries an undercurrent critical of U.S. domestic policy. The political undertones in even the traditional material such as "Mrs. McGrath" caused albums and tickets to sell better overseas than in the States. Taping the tour abroad was a wise choice, because it surely is an appreciative Irish crowd happy to help by singing along vociferously on "Old Dan Tucker," "My Oklahoma Home" and "Pay Me My Money Down."

The set closes with a song closely associated with Pete Seeger, "We Shall Overcome." It's also the song that Springsteen contributed to a Seeger tribute album, thereby planting the seed for all that followed. The handling of the traditional material and the arrangement of Springsteen's own songs show that he is indeed a link in the chain from Seeger to future folk singers and social critics. It sometimes feels like he's forcing us to make the comparison, but the parallel definitely is there. Springsteen's songs will be sung alongside Seeger's at campfires, Carnegie Hall and political rallies for generations to come.