Of all of the members of Bruce Springsteen’s bands over the years, Francine Daniels holds the distinction of shortest tenure. Daniels joined The Bruce Springsteen Band as a backing vocalist in October 1971, replacing Barbara Dinkins, who preferred singing in the church choir rather than a rock and roll band.
Daniels made her debut on October 29th; she made her final appearance two days later. Not because her talents were insufficient, but because Bruce had finally realized that a nine-member band wasn’t economically feasible and made the painful decision to pare the band back to its core five-man, prototypical E Street membership.
Her tenure may have only lasted three days, but one of those gigs was partially captured on tape, which means we’re able to eavesdrop on the sound of the briefest of Bruce Springsteen Band eras.
Daniels wasn’t the only one-time-only element of that recording. One of the songs she sang backup on that night was an early original Springsteen song called “Living in Rock and Roll,” performed that night of October 30th in Richmond, and never (as far as we know) again.
Like many of Bruce’s Steel Mill and Bruce Springsteen Band era songs, “Living in Rock and Roll” is slight of lyrics and heavy on the jam. The recording above is distant and often muddy, but we’re able to make out enough of his lyrics to recognize that this is a pure pop song–nothing to analyze here.
Mama, mama, won’t you come and see
See what the music has done to me
Gone through my fingers, gone down deep into my soul
I’m just another boy trying to live in rock and roll
Sister, sister come quick
Just the other night, a revelation
Found it last night, soul on the radio
I’m just another boy trying to live in rock and roll
Well if you’ve got it, baby
Don’t hide it
You can feel it
You can’t hide it, you can’t hide it
???
The lyrics are either bluffed or repeated from this point forward, and I’m not even sure I’ve correctly captured what I’ve printed above. But I’m confident we’re close enough to paint “Living in Rock and Roll” as a good-time, uptempo crowd-pleaser, with vocalists Daniels and Dee Holmes clearly audible and acknowledged by Bruce just before launching into the song.
The next day, the band made it back from Richmond to New Jersey for a show at the National Guard Armory in Long Branch, after which Bruce released his backing vocalists to slim down the payroll.
Within a matter of weeks, Bruce would leave his own band and head west to start a new life in California, never (or so he thought) to return. He did return, of course, and just a few months later events were in motion that would lead to his first record deal and the formation of a new and enduring band.
But that’s a story for another day.
Living in Rock and Roll
Never recorded
Never released
First performed: October 30, 1971 (Richmond, VA)
Last performed: October 30, 1971 (Richmond, VA)
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