“It’s the biggest joke in the world that it’s billed as the Red Bank Rockers–since any educated ear could pick out the sound of the E Street Band.” — Backstreets #9, Spring 1984
We can forgive Backstreets for the error, because they certainly weren’t the only ones to swear that this 1983 instrumental track by Clarence Clemons and The Red Bank Rockers was really a Big Man-fronted E Street Band in disguise.
Even that lead guitar sounds like Bruce, but it’s not–it’s actually David Landau, Jon’s brother.
But to the degree that it sounds exactly like an E Street Band track, credit that to the songwriter and producer (or maybe co-producer, the record is murky on this one): The Boss himself.
We don’t know exactly when Bruce wrote “Summer on Signal Hill,” but we know it was recorded in the summer of 1983, and Max Weinberg (who also covered it in 1991 with Killer Joe) cites E Street Band rehearsals (but not recordings) of it in 1982.
Intriguingly, though, when the E Street Band rehearsed the song, it was known as “Now and Forever” — and it had lyrics. When Bruce donated the music to Clarence for an instrumental, he retitled it “Summer on Signal Hill.”
(Signal Hill is most likely a reference to Telegraph Hill, the name of Bruce’s street (as well as a nearby park) where he lived from the Born to Run-era through 1981, which leads me to suspect that Bruce actually wrote the song even earlier than 1982.)
The retitling appears to have been a late decision, however, because when the song was originally issued as the B-side to “A Woman’s Got the Power” in Australia, it was actually called “Now and Forever.”
Dave Marsh set the record straight in the very next issue of Backstreets, but for many fans, the is-it-or-isn’t-it debate continued.
In 2002, Backstreets finally got a chance to definitively settle the matter when Christopher Phillips had a chance to interview The Big Man himself. When asked who the studio musicians were on “Summer on Signal Hill,” Clarence flatly stated that they were his band, The Red Bank Rockers.
Chris pressed once more: “It sounds for all the world like the E Street Band, and that’s sort of been an ongoing–”
“That’s because the song was written like that, written by Bruce,” Clarence replied. “It’s his signature sound. Other musicians may play, but his songs will sound like him, sound like the E Street Band. So you’ve got that real E Street Band sound in there. But that was my band.”
So we can consider the matter settled. Now we can turn our attention to the more important mystery:
Whatever happened to those lyrics?
Summer on Signal Hill
Recorded: July 1983
Released: B-side single (1983, 1986)
Never performed
