Virtually single-handedly spearheading the heartland rock wave that swept across the charts during the mid-1970s, followed by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers a remote second, New Jersey’s Bruce Springsteen dropped mammoth LPs during the decade’s blockbuster album era, winning the affections of middle America with his stirring blue-collar anthems and ruggedly romantic lyricism.
Haunted folk balladry would come with 1982’s Nebraska, followed by 1984’s gargantuan MTV monster Born in the USA, but his ‘glory days’ in the eyes of many will always be the double LP punch of 1975’s Born to Run, followed by Darkness on the Edge of Town three years later.
While hopelessly enamoured with rock and roll heritage, Springsteen was no punk refusenik. Far from being scared off by the new wave’s insurrectionary threat, Springsteen co-wrote Patti Smith’s ‘Because the Night’ hit, attempted to offer ‘Hungry Heart’ to Ramones, and was a vociferous fan of New York electronic duo Suicide, occasionally covering 1979’s ‘Dream Baby Dream’ live and cutting a studio cover for 2014’s High Hopes.
“I loved those early Buzzcocks records, all The Clash records, the singles,” Springsteen revealed to Elvis Costello in 2009, touching on the limited availability of punk records as an eager collector, “…because you couldn’t get the records, you had to try to go and get the singles”.
Springsteen was also a fan of The Dictators. Formed in 1972 in New York’s Kerhonkson hamlet, the road paved by The Stooges and New York Dolls would be hurtled down by The Dictators. Bored of stadium rock and aghast that their beloved Rolling Stones could only grace the Billboard Hot 100 with the syrupy ‘Angie’ ballad, the gang sought to reignite rock and roll’s flame and unleash songs about girls, wrestling, beer, and generally being smartarses for a slice of garage rock that presaged punk’s explosion by several years.
First recording material just as Ramones was first playing the famed CBGB, founding members Andy ‘Adny’ Shernoff and Ross ‘The Boss’ Friedman roped in old pal and roadie Handsome Dick Manitoba to front their debut album. Dropped in 1975, The Dictators Go Girl Crazy! would stand as an essential bridge to New York’s punk plume, full of hard rock bluster and debauched humour with turbo fuel in its tank, determined to make rock exciting and fun again.
By 1978, The Dictators could count Springsteen as a fan. While recording their third LP, Bloodbrothers, in the city’s Record Plant studios, Springsteen was in the building recording Darkness on the Edge of Town. Feeling bold, Shernoff knocked on, offered Springsteen a free T-shirt, and invited him to collaborate in whatever capacity. The impromptu session was caught on the album’s opener, with Springsteen emphatically counting the band in on the ripping ‘Faster and Louder’.
Once their respective albums were cut, Springsteen was travelling across North America for that year’s Darkness Tour. Playing New York’s Palladium, The Dictators went to see his show, and by either tip-off or divine happenstance, the rocker was sporting their official shirt on stage. ‘The Boss’ fandom wouldn’t stop there. When playing a show in 1981, he introduced his band accompanied by a line from The Dictators’ ‘Two Tub Man’: “I don’t care who you bring out here, daddy, Rainbow, Strong Bow, they all crumble under the power of the Big Man!”
