Aubrey “Moon” Mullican was never the crossover star he should have been.
Born in 1909, Mullican was too old to ride the rock and roll wave when it crested, even though he helped create it.
Known as the “King of the Hillbilly Piano Players” (which is much more of a compliment than it might sound), Mullican nevertheless scored a series of Top Ten country hits, starting with “Jole Blon” in 1947 when he was already thirty-eight.
In 1951, his music took a turn toward what would eventually become rock and roll with the release of one of his biggest hits, “Cherokee Boogie.”
As we can hear, Mullican was a pretty mean pianist, and “Cherokee Boogie” and his subsequent work influenced the much younger Jerry Lee Lewis, who took Mullican’s sound and ran with it.
By the time Mullican released “Seven Nights to Rock” in 1956, he was approaching fifty and eclipsed by Lewis, Chuck Berry, and other early rockers.
“Seven Nights to Rock” should have been a hit. It’s reminiscent of iconic songs like “Rock Around the Clock” and other songs that lit up the charts, yet it never charted for Mullican. It’s hard not to conclude that his age had something to do with it: rock was music for the young, and it must have seemed at least a little odd to hear the elder Mullican sing of “rocking” with a different girl every night of the week.
That didn’t stop a score of artists from covering it in later years though. Notable versions included Nick Lowe’s cover in 1985 and a 2012 rendition by The Connection that was anointed “Coolest Song in the World” by Little Steven.
Bruce Springsteen covered it, too–more than one hundred times, in fact. It was a staple throughout the back half of the Rising Tour, where it often immediately followed “Born to Run,” benefiting from the adrenaline rush that led into it.
Bruce played “Seven Nights to Rock” several times on the Magic, Working on a Dream, Wrecking Ball, and River Tours, too, although it never again sounded as vital as it did on the Rising Tour.
There was one particularly memorable performance in 2014, though, when Patti Scialfa decided that perhaps seven nights was a bit too much rocking for her husband, and that perhaps she might like to do a bit of rocking, too…
“Seven Nights to Rock” hasn’t exactly been a staple of Bruce’s set lists since the Rising Tour, but it’s never really been gone either. In fact, Bruce has played it at least once almost every year since the Rising Tour (including non-touring years) and as recently as late 2019 at The Stone Pony.
So odds are good that as soon as we’re fortunate enough for any night to rock, “Seven Nights to Rock” will be a wild card candidate in Bruce’s set lists.
Seven Nights to Rock
First performed: April 13, 2002 (Asbury Park, NJ)
Last performed: September 1, 2023 (East Rutherford, NJ)
Not meaning to digress too much, but there are some big “Power Pop” artists in the Connection and is that Kurt Baker playing the bartender?
Not a big fan of the song “Seven Nights” in the E Street live repertoire (however, your deep research helped my appreciation). Much prefer The Connection’s take (had not heard this previously) with the much faster pacing propelled by the drummer’s flying double rolls on the snare.
Perhaps including a comedic skit of “What’s good for the goose…” by Bruce and Patti, as shown in the included video, would give a nightly live version the needed gravity to hold it’s place in the show and allow Patti a chance to find some appropriate tit-for-tat lyrics for The Bossman. Now, that would be fun! (Thanks for the history.)