The Unspin Room @UnspinRoom

My connection to Columbia Records was Charlie Koppelman, head of A&R, who famously didn't see commercial potential in Springsteen's second LP. But Charlie's boss, Clive Davis, loved Bruce, and was there one last time in Newark. Bruce remembers youtu.be/L7aprW9fwvw?si… via @YouTube

The single of "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" barely charted in 1976, but 48 years later, April 12, 2024 in Uncasville, Bruce Springsteen's (Bad Scooter's) ode to the formation of the E Street Band is an opportunity to get back among the crowd and "take in all the heat they was giving"

"I'm not scared of dying..." David Clayton-Thomas sang in "And When I Die," leading Blood, Sweat & Tears to 5 Grammys, beating Abbey Road for best album in 1969. Judy Collins brought him to the band. "...if it's peace you find in dying..." RIP youtu.be/a_ELQyfJ-yk?si… via @YouTube

Play ball! Display case at MacPhail's in Edgartown, MV with press passes of CBS Sports president Bill MacPhail. Bill's dad Larry was president of the Brooklyn Dodgers, then the New York Yankees. Great-grandson Brian owns the popular breakfast and coffee shop near the Chappy Ferry

It wouldn't be summer in America without baseball, and the game at its best isn't just the MLB, but teams like the Sharks of Matha's Vineyard, with majors-caliber Division 1 players from colleges all around. There's hot dogs, kids running the bases...best of all: community spirit

Alison Shaw had a first solo photography show in 1981. A Smith grad, her work is definitional for Martha's Vineyard. At her workshop and gallery in Oak Bluffs, she holds her capture of a blizzard in Menemsha in 2024, a pointillist dreamscape with historic 1929 vessel Little Lady

I feel the spirit recalling Thalia pulling Obama onto the dance floor in our Fiesta Latina on the South Lawn in 2009 and magic moments from the Motown Sound in 2011--these and other highlights of our shows shine at the Obama Presidential Center. Make change come again. Yes we can

There are many things I miss about 44's presidency. A fun one was bowling in the White House. At the Barn in Oak Bluffs on Martha's Vineyard, a haven for the Black community and families since the 19th century, Barack Obama showed off his bowling form--he was more than a hoopsman

Paramount Skydance and the Ellisons completed their acquisition of Warner Discovery--itself the bastards child of another mad mogul--and all it took was a kleptocrat president and the "murder," to use Scott Pelley's word, of 60 Minutes. Read about it here. berkshireeagle.com/opinion/column…

In a bittersweet rendition of recent tour centerpiece Land of Hope and Dreams, Bruce Springsteen celebrates the Obama Presidential Center opening today in Chicago, to an audience including Barack and Michelle Obama as well as Bill and Hillary Clinton; keep the faith in dark times

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band bring a heartbeat cadence to "Trapped" from Uncasville April 12, 2024, here in full length. The Boss heard it on a Jimmy Cliff cassette and first performed it at Wembley in 1981, and released a 1984 version at the Meadowlands. Play it loud!

50 years ago, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band released their first worldwide single, Born to Run. It became their first top 40 hit, blasting from every window on my campus. Here for the first time at full length from Halloween '24 in Montreal. Rock and roll will never die

In 2014 we closed a spirit-lifting salute to the troops, hundreds of whom were in attendance on the South Lawn of the White House, as President Obama joined Willie Nelson onstage before he got On the Road Again. Sunday it was U.F.C. You choose youtu.be/v-lvRISnazA?si… via @YouTube

A hit first for the Isley Brothers in '62 and the Beatles in '63, "Twist and Shout" is a bar band roof-raiser sure to brighten your spirits, as Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band succeed in doing as an encore on Halloween '24 in Montreal. Come on baby, work it on out now🕺💃

A power trio, Tony-winners Joshua Henry as Coalhouse Walker, Jr. and Brandon Uranowitz as Tateh welcome breakout Lauren Blackman, understudy to Caissie Levy, as Mother in Broadway revival "Ragtime." The pipes of Henry and star-in-the-making Blackman are out of this world. See it!

"One of Us" was Joan Osborne's hit off her first album, "Relish." Here today in Fairfield CT she closes her show with it. I somehow always pair it in my mind with R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion," which preceded it by a few years. If God was one of us...just a stranger on the bus...

Bob Dylan liked Joan Osborne's cover on "Relish" of Man in a Long Black Coat--heard here today in Fairfield, CT--so he asked her to duet Chimes of Freedom with him for "The '60s" miniseries in 1999. Recently, Bruce Springsteen closed his shows with it. A great song has many lives

Music and its resonance for life, love, dreams and memory is the subject of my latest column in The Berkshire Eagle. Whether it is Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan or whomever moves you, savor the sound.berkshireeagle.com/opinion/column… via @berkshireeagle

In addition to the bittersweet beauty of this heartfelt rendition of Bobby Jean by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band on April 15, 2024 in Albany is my capture of the magic carpet of waving arms by the audience in front of the Boss, the rhythm in 3/4 time just like a lullaby

Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Jimmy Cliff...gone now. Of all the anthemic reggae, nothing moves me more than Cliff's "Trapped." And no-one delivers it more heartbreakingly than Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. From my vault, Albany April 15, 2024. Now is the time for your tears