The River
A double album from eighteen months of sessions, built to catch the live band, and his first number one.
Bruce Springsteen, 1980
- Released
- 17 October 1980
- Recorded
- March 1979 to August 1980
- Studio
- Power Station, New York City
- Label
- Columbia
- Producer
- Bruce Springsteen, Jon Landau, Steven Van Zandt
Springsteen wanted a band record that captured how the E Street Band sounded on stage. Rehearsals took place in early 1979 at a studio in his home in Holmdel, and sessions at the Power Station began in March. Springsteen, Landau and Van Zandt produced it. More than fifty songs were cut. He had planned a single album, The Ties That Bind, for late 1979, then scrapped it.
Hungry Heart began as a song for the Ramones until Landau persuaded him to keep it. Flo and Eddie sang the harmonies, and the mixer Chuck Plotkin sped the tape up to give the vocal a more boyish lilt. Released on 21 October 1980, it reached number five, his first top-ten single. The album was his first American number one, sold 1.6 million copies by Christmas and later went five times platinum. The River Tour ran 140 shows. Stolen Car, The River and Wreck on the Highway point toward Nebraska. Steven Hyden called it the most representative record of his career.
Track listing
- The Ties That Bind3:34
- Sherry Darling4:03
- Jackson Cage3:04
- Two Hearts2:45
- Independence Day4:50
- Hungry Heart3:19
- Out in the Street4:18
- Crush on You3:10
- You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)2:37
- I Wanna Marry You3:30
- The River5:01
- Point Blank6:06
- Cadillac Ranch3:03
- I'm a Rocker3:36
- Fade Away4:46
- Stolen Car3:54
- Ramrod4:05
- The Price You Pay5:29
- Drive All Night8:33
- Wreck on the Highway3:54
Personnel
- Bruce Springsteen vocals, electric 6- and 12-string guitars, harmonica, piano on Drive All Night
- Roy Bittan piano, organ
- Clarence Clemons saxophone, percussion
- Danny Federici organ, glockenspiel on Hungry Heart
- Garry Tallent bass
- Steven Van Zandt acoustic and electric guitars
- Max Weinberg drums
- Howard Kaylan, Mark Volman background vocals on Hungry Heart
- Neil Dorfsman engineer
More from Bruce Springsteen
Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. (1973), The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle (1973), Born to Run (1975), Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978), Nebraska (1982), Born in the U.S.A. (1984), Tunnel of Love (1987), The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995), The Rising (2002)
Sources
- The River (Bruce Springsteen album), Wikipedia
- The River (release), MusicBrainz