I got invited to the HBO screening of Bruce Springsteen’s “Darkness On The Edge Of Town” documentary. It was very sweet as most of the small party were folks who played a part in that project all those years ago.

Of course, Little Steven was there, and Jimmy Iovine, Dave Marsh, Peter Parcher (the attorney who helped Bruce out from under some naïve contracts he’d signed at the time), Barry Bell (Bruce’s long time booking agent), the great Jon Landau, Barbara Carr and Bruce and Patti.

I was invited because I was one of a few people who really led the charge for Bruce back in the day. You see, labels like Columbia and Warner Brothers were huge with many types of artists. Columbia made most of its profits from the big pop stars at the time, like Neil Diamond and Barbara Streisand. Don’t get me wrong, they liked their rock—Bob Dylan, Santana, Janis Joplin, Ten Years After. But new rock artists didn’t get the same attention and when someone came along who was different, there was a sort of “prove it to me attitude” before someone would get the big backing.

So, a handful of rock promotion people like myself helped a lot of the new artists get started by building airplay, doing promotions, and organizing live broadcasts at FM rock radio. Indeed, the story of Bruce at the Roxy I’m in the middle of telling is quite timely now, as it happened on the Darkness tour.

Those days were fun as we were all like a family then with the same mission—break Bruce Springsteen! I was an original fan and an original gladiator for the cause, and we had a lot of fun together during those years.

I brought Misses Rap with me to the screening as we were already married then, and use to go to all the Bruce shows together and hang out after with Bruce and the Band. Of course, she was knocked out to get a hug and a kiss from the Boss. Without a doubt, Bruce is the hardest working man in the music business, always very classy, and he never forgets those who’ve helped him along the way. He’s very gracious that way.

In fact, I remember one dinner we had after an interview I’d set up with Bob Costas. We went to a small Italian place (Bruce treated!). We were talking about surfing—yep Bruce used to surf the Jersey shore. And, so did Clarence!! Can you imagine the Big Man on a surfboard??!! So, anyway, Bruce starts telling us about how he once lived in the back of a surfboard shop for about three months. At first, he said, the powerful resin smells use to make him very light headed. Then, he said he finally got use to it. Then he turned to me in his whimsical way and asked rhetorically, “Hey Rap, do you think that might have affected my song writing?!”

Anyway, I was very moved at the screening when Jon Landau introduced me along with a few others and said some very touching things about me and the work I’d done for the cause. It reminded me of how special those days really were.

The documentary will air this Thursday, October the 7th on HBO, and it is truly remarkable. It’s the making of the Darkness album and a very deep and revealing look at the process including the whole E Street Band. You will learn so much about Bruce and what makes him tick. Fan or not, this is not to be missed.

As the guy from HBO said, “This is the closest you’ll ever get to see something like Picasso painting in his studio.”

Hope to be back to these pages soon with some more good stories. Oh, I gotta finish Bruce live at the Roxy—but then there is the one where me and Ron Simms flew about 1,000 Aerosmith balsa gliders off the top of the Columbia Records building on the Sunset Strip! And, I’ve got to get to that Mott The Hoople one too. Well, there’s a ton of ‘em, so I hope you are enjoying reading this blog. Seems so, they told me something like 300,000 people are checking it out a month!!

Keep Rockin’!

Rap~

Bruce Springsteen
“The Promise: The Making of ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town'” Sneak Peek
from Columbia Records on Vimeo.