“‘Heart Full of Soul…’ oh, did we play the hell out of that many a night.” — Bruce Springsteen, Little Steven’s Underground Garage, Episode 471
Bruce must have meant “on vinyl,” because if they played the hell out of The Yardbirds’ “Heart Full of Soul” many a night in concert, there’s no record of it. (That’s actually not that improbable–most of Bruce’s pre-label gigs aren’t well-documented.)
The Yardbirds released their first post-Clapton, with-Beck single in the summer of 1965, the exact moment in time when Bruce was forming his first band, The Castiles.
We know that The Castiles had an affinity for The Yardbirds (we have a recording of them performing “Jeff’s Boogie“), and we know they were intrigued enough by Indian-influenced rock to cover The Kinks’ “See My Friends.”
So with “Heart Full of Soul” riding high on the charts that summer (it peaked at #9 on the Billboard Hot 100), it’s not a stretch to imagine that The Castiles might have indeed covered it on many an undocumented occasion back in the mid-to-late sixties. But there’s no record–and certainly no circulating recording–of Bruce covering it in concert across his more than five decades of performing.
However, we do have a recording of Bruce and the E Street Band performing it during a closed rehearsal session for the Darkness Tour, just four days before that legendary tour kicked off. From the sound of it, this was an improvised performance inspired when Bruce idly started playing the riff between songs.
Unfortunately, the recording is distant and the performance is short (they had new material to perfect, after all). But it’s all we have–other than an unrecorded Reunion Tour soundcheck, this is the only documented performance of Bruce performing “Heart Full of Soul.”
Heart Full of Soul
First performed: May 19, 1978 (Asbury Park, NJ) (soundcheck only)
Last performed: June 27, 1999 (Oslo, Norway) (soundcheck only)
