I’ve been writing this blog for more than 1,400 days, but I still can’t get over how astonishing it is and how fortunate we are to have such a thoroughly documented record of Bruce Springsteen’s performing career.
I mean, it’s not surprising that we have almost every show from the River era forward; Bruce’s critical and popular reputation had been firmly established by then. But the fact that we have a significant number of recordings dating back more than a decade earlier boggles my mind.
But what really blows me away is that we have surviving recordings of seventeen-year-old Bruce Springsteen fronting his very first band, The Castiles. What are the odds that someone would have recorded a high school band in 1967 (it wasn’t as easy as holding up a mobile phone back then) let alone preserved it for a half-century after?
We can thank Father Fred Coleman for that. He was the one who saw the boys’ potential and recorded their stage performance for posterity. (Read about Father Coleman here.)
One of the songs he captured for us on tape was a cover of Lee Dorsey’s funky 1965 single, “Get Out of My Life, Woman,” which peaked at #44 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #5 on the R&B chart in 1966.
Although Bruce and the boys were almost certainly aware of the original, given its popularity just a year before they covered it, their arrangement was also clearly influenced by The Paul Butterfield Blues Band’s cover, released in the summer of 1966.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub35rttSDYs
We can hear that version inform The Castiles’ performance at their September 1967 gig at The Left Foot in Freehold. It’s more rock than funk, and more urgent than either Dorsey’s or Butterfield’s versions. Only a minute of audio circulates, but it’s enough for us to get an appreciation for the young band’s growing ability to make an established song their own.
Get Out of My Life, Woman
First performed: September 16, 1967 (Freehold, NJ)
Last performed: September 16, 1967 (Freehold, NJ)
