Friday, April 17, 2015

12. Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run


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Here's Bruce Springsteen leaning on the shoulder of Clarence Clemons, the E Street Band sax player. The original album cover art design is at bottom right with the artist's name and album title.
Clarence was "The Big Man"; this work is just a repetition of the statement on the record that he and Bruce would occasionally duplicate this pose on stage while the lights were dim.

Offstage, Clarence "The Big Man" Clemons had a big heart. He helped raise over $2.5 million for Home Safe, a non-profit organization helping
victims of child abuse and domestic violence. He would also personally visit abused children at Home Safe's campuses
to give them words of encouragement and practical advice about life. 

The Big Man. The shoulder to lean on. The words of encouragement. Let's have more of them here.
Clarence Anicholas Clemons, Jr. died on June 18, 2011. 


Here's the original album cover art design.




No. 15, Entertainment Weekly, The 100 Greatest Albums Ever; No. 18, Rolling Stone, The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time; No. 20, The Virgin All-Time Album Top 1000;
No. 22, Rate Your Music, The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time; No. 292, Billboard, The 300 Best-Selling Albums of All Time.

No. 15, Music Radar, The 50 Greatest Album Covers of All Time; No. 23, Rolling Stone, The 100 Greatest Album Covers.


Photo by Eric Meola. Album produced by Bruce Springsteen, Mike Appel, and Jon Landau. Columbia 1975.

The cover art of Born to Run is one of rock music's most popular and iconic images. It was taken by Eric Meola, who shot 900 frames in his three-hour session.
These photos have been compiled in Born to Run: The Unseen Photos.

The photo shows Springsteen holding a Fender Telecaster with an Esquire neck, while leaning against saxophonist Clarence Clemons. That image
became famous as the cover art. "Other things happened," says Meola, "but when we saw the contact sheets, that one just
sort of popped. Instantly, we knew that was the shot." Ultra-thin lettering graced the mass-produced version:
an unusual touch then; a design classic since. Full article





Eric Meola: "I really wasn't that excited about photographing Bruce Springsteen. His stage shows were
so much more powerful than his albums." 

"Bruce Springsteen came with Clarence. The band was in transition. It was a statement
about race as well. I wanted to capture on film what they did in concert.
It is very hard to re-create that kind of energy. But to their credit,
they did it. It was fantastic." More


(A) Thunder Road - Tenth Avenue Freeze Out - Night - Backstreets

(B) Born to Run - She's the One - Meeting Across the River - Jungleland


"Born to Run" live from BruceSpringsteenVEVO on YouTube.