I was walking down the boardwalk and there’s this cat coming my direction. I knew I recognized him. When I got a little closer, I realized he played the organ in one of my bands that I had before… and he had this little blonde lady with him and had a little kid with him. I ain’t seen him in about five years… So we stopped, we was talking and stuff. He told me he was married and he hadn’t been playing too much lately and had a kid and was like, just like an art designer type of guy or something. And it set me thinking about all the cats that I was in the earlier bands with that like had settled down and got hitched up and stuff…. I don’t think hardly any of ’em still playing any more. You know you’re getting older when you see ’em, this guy’s settling down, this guy’s got this steady job here, and you’re still out running around, messing up all over and stuff. This is for the married folks… this must’ve been what it was like when you decided to do this thing I hate.” — Bruce Springsteen, September 12, 1975
Bobby Alfano was the last member to join Bruce Springsteen’s first band, The Castiles, in September 1966. In a 2004 NPR interview, Alfano related how he fell into Bruce’s circle:
By that point, The Castiles had already been playing together for over a year as a guitar-driven band, but Bruce decided they needed an organist. Not everyone was convinced, though…
Once Bobby joined, he remained with The Castiles until they disbanded two years later, at which point he became the only Castile to join Bruce’s new band, Earth.
Bruce and Bobby both aspired to lifelong careers in music. Before long, though, Alfano took a different path.
In 1972, when Bruce formed what would become the E Street Band to record his debut album, Alfano was the first organist he called. Bobby was about to get married, though, and he needed a reliable, steady job to support the family he was about to start. Regrettably, Alfano declined Bruce’s job offer, and Bruce continued his search.
Today, we know Bruce to be a devoted family man himself, but that phase of his life came much later than for Bobby.
In the early 1970s, Bruce focused on his career, zealously guarding it against any interfering relationships. All the while, Bruce’s former bandmates settled down and started families, leaving their dreams behind. Bruce couldn’t help but take notice, and it steeled his resolve even further.
It was shortly after the release of Born to Run in the summer of 1975 that Bruce ran into Bobby on the Asbury Park Boardwalk. In that same NPR interview, Alfano shared his recollection of their reunion.
Bruce became outspokenly anti-marriage–not so much against the institution itself but against the incompatibility of it with the dreams and aspirations of a budding rock star. He’d discuss it in interviews, and tell gently mocking stories from the stage like the one in the pull-quote above (completely oblivious to the fact that he’d already met the woman who would one day change his attitude toward matrimony).
All the while, though, his music grew increasingly romantic. It wasn’t love Bruce had an issue with, after all, just marriage. Throughout the Born to Run Tour, Bruce dusted his set lists with classic romantic covers like “Then She Kissed Me,” “When You Walk in the Room,” and “Pretty Flamingo“–all songs of new love, not enduring.
But there was one cover in particular that stuck around the set list that year, one that did tiptoe up to the topic of matrimony: Ike & Tina Turner’s 1961 hit, “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine.”
“It’s Gonna Work Out Fine” earned Ike and Tina a Grammy nomination and stopped just shy of the top spot on the Billboard R&B chart. (It reached #14 on the Hot 100.)
Through today’s lens, “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine” certainly embraces some sexist tropes. The song is a patter between a couple: she wants to settle down, he wants none of it. It’s easy to see why the song appealed to Bruce.
Lacking an on-stage female foil, however, Bruce could only play it (semi-) straight. Bruce merged both parts into a single character; he was both suitor and reformed Romeo.
Still, you can’t cover “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine” without a little snappy patter, so he enlisted Clarence for that part. The result was a clever cover of an ironic love song performed straight–irony on top of irony.
A decade later, Bruce would warm up to the idea of marriage, although it would take him five more years and another try to get it right.
As for Bobby, he got married a few weeks after the release of Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., the album that could have changed his life had he accepted Bruce’s job offer, and had a son (the one Bruce saw him with in the pull-quote at the top of this article) shortly after the release of Born to Run. He became a fixture in the Jersey Shore music scene, performing with local bands as late as 1994. His final stint was with Vinnie Lopez’s Disco Rejects.
It would take Bobby another try to get marriage right, too. He married his second wife right around the time Bruce started to realize he might have found his, and he had a daughter a few years later.
At the time of the NPR interview, Bobby was planning to go into the studio and record some new music. Three years later, at the age of 57, he was gone. He was inducted into the inaugural class of the Asbury Angels and is remembered fondly to this day.
Bobby wasn’t the first Castile to depart this earth, nor was he the last. In the years since, the remaining band members have taken their leave as well, leaving Bruce Springsteen the last Castile standing.
We know from Bruce’s recent interviews that he was profoundly affected by that realization, and I’m sure a part of that must come from reflection over paths taken and paths declined. Our lives are determined by an endless series of decisions, some with greater consequences than others, but most are ultimately unknowable.
When Bruce and Bobby had their chance boardwalk meeting that day in 1975, neither could have known where their lives and loves would take them in the years ahead.
But they knew which path they each had to walk, and they trusted it would work out fine .
It’s Gonna Work Out Fine
First performed: August 16, 1975 (New York City, NY)
Last performed: April 14, 1990 (Santa Monica, CA)
