Peter Ames Carlin - Bruce

I am always wary with biographies. I fear that they present the person as a perfect being, kind, pleasant, perceiving him only under his good face. It does not interest me. What I like is the dark side of people. The presentation of the artists through their true face. In a word: the truth. Although it is not always beautiful to tell. That's life.

Peter Ames Carlin present in an enormous book the life of Bruce Springsteen from all angles. The good and the obscure. We can meet the parents of the Boss, his family, his friends, members of the E Street Band, musicians fairly common, but together form an outstanding war machine. We learn why his fans and his family love him despite everything, despite its flaws and the fact that he is intolerant and sometimes unfair with them.

It is important or essential to know about the characters of Bruce's parents, the rather jovial Italian mother and father, dark, drinker of beer, he often seated in the kitchen at night to smoke and drink without speaking. Just to think. Bruce is always torn between these two very different temperaments.

Both sides of BruceSpringsteen is first of all a generous, friendly, affordable man for all his fans. Somewhere, he seeks to save lost souls, to help others, fight injustice, the cowardice of men. But Springsteen is also an intolerant man, an angry man, a tyrant to his family and his musicians, manic able to throw away everything he has recorded for an album and start all over again. To drive crazy all his entourage.

He is also someone who has always wanted to be recognized for writing beautiful songs but never wanted to be a star. He fights against the star system and tries to stay normal, like any other guy who wants like everyone to have a beer in any bar.

The biography of Peter Ames Carlin introduces us to Springsteen's writing work from its beginnings in New Jersey clubs to recently. He tells us about the birth of the great songs of the Boss, how he met the members of the E Street Band. Mates until death. Despite the failures, deaths (Danny Federici, Clarence Clemons), he is still ahead because one do not have to stop. Stopping is dying.

The author also tells us the loves of Springsteen. Those who did suffer him and those who made him happy. But still it is the music that has always been the biggest and the most beautiful place. His wife Patti is with him for more 25 years but she is also a member of the E Street Band.

Bruce Springsteen is a monster of work. He writes and records all the time. To realize just go back into his discography work but also in its hundreds of unreleased songs or outputs dropper here or there.

For my part, I find that this biography contains more information about the Boss that already the amazing Dave Marsh biography.

Bruce Springsteen is a man made of contrasts, paradoxes, internal pain, suffering and he explains in some songs with dark texts that soon give way to more jovial and rock'n'roll songs. As if to apologize.

Anyway it's a fundamental and essential biography to know the Boss, understand his music, his lyrics, his choices and his pain but also his joys. And also to dive back into the colossal and titanic work of a normal star. Or trying to be.