From way back in the age of The Castiles, here’s Bruce’s only ever performance* of “The Letter,” originally made famous by The Box Tops and one of Rolling Stones’ 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
This performance is from The Castiles’ gig on September 30, 1967 at The Left Foot in Bruce’s home town of Freehold, NJ. And yes, that means this performance was only mere weeks after the song was originally released in August 1967, which is probably why the arrangement is so close to the original.
Here’s a contemporaneous video of The Box Tops performing their hit on Upbeat sometime in the latter half of 1967.
*Technically, Bruce did perform this one other time in 2015 with Southside Johnny, but Bruce was just on guitar for that one–SSJ took the vocals. So we’ll consider this a one-time-only performance.
The Letter
First performed: September 30, 1967 (Freehold, NJ)
Last performed: January 17, 2015 (Asbury Park, NJ)
