For most musicians, they have this one story. It’s the story of the very first moment, the first spark, when suddenly, the path became clear. Even if they didn’t dare to dream it, let alone walk it, for a while after, the path towards music was suddenly there as one vital influence beckoned them.
Bruce Springsteen has his own tale, and it’s a familiar one.
Really, most of the stories look the same. A kid with a name the world would eventually come to know, but for now, they’re a nobody. They’re at home in their small towns with their parents around them. The TV is playing, or the radio, and suddenly, the world is in technicolour. Suddenly, they hear a voice or see some dance moves or are hypnotised by some stage presence, and from then on, everything is changed.
Springsteen’s tale is precisely that. Back in New Jersey, in the 1950s, the TV was on in the living room and suddenly he was introduced to the man who would become one of his all-time biggest influences and initial guiding lights. You can probably already guess who it was.
“A big, big influence was Elvis,” Springsteen said, obviously, adding, “My mother sort of had him on TV when i was nine years old. I was shocked. I stood there.”
For so many of the top musicians of the 1960s, ‘70s and beyond, Elvis’ name appears as that world-opening star. So many of them share this same story as even Paul McCartney has spoken about this exact scene. “You heard people saying, ‘I’ve never heard anything like that before, man.’ And it was that,” McCartney said of The Kings’s influence, “You hear on the radio Elvis Presley’s ‘Heartbreak Hotel.’ It was like, ‘Oh my God, what is that?’”
Robert Plant had the same scene too, remembering a day he was in front of his TV in the Midlands and Elvis appeared on it. “That was the kind of lock-in. It was an opiate,” he said, “Something happened when I heard the sound of that record. It certainly made me put my stamp collection to one side for a bit.”
Elvis Presley was more than just the most famous musician the world had ever known at that point. He was a super-muse as without him, and without these shared scenes so many artists recalled as a moment that changed everything, the years following would sound completely different or even be utterly devoid of the stars we know.
One of those missing stars would be Springsteen as that first introduction to Elvis was also the first moment he wondered if maybe he wanted to do that too. “It was some shock of recognition, even at that young age, like ‘that looks like fun, how do you do that?’” he recalled as his childhood self was suddenly opened up to a new possible future in which he too was an entertainer.
Flash forward a few decades, and it’s as if Springsteen exists in Elvis’ direct lineage, starting with The King and then moving down to The Boss as leading lights in rock and roll so powerful, they needed titles.
