{"id":565,"date":"1988-03-17T11:00:37","date_gmt":"1988-03-17T19:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/estreetshuffle.com\/?p=565"},"modified":"2026-02-08T06:33:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T14:33:17","slug":"matr-joe-grushecky-and-bruce-springsteen-lighten-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/estreetshuffle.com\/index.php\/1988\/03\/17\/matr-joe-grushecky-and-bruce-springsteen-lighten-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Lighten Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today’s meeting across the river comes from the city of three rivers: Pittsburgh, PA.<\/p>\n

For a brief time in 1995, Bruce Springsteen joined Joe Grushecky and the Houserockers, taking a supporting role during Joe’s\u00a0American Babylon\u00a0<\/em>tour. (Bruce produced the album, played and sang on several tracks, and wrote two of them.)<\/p>\n

This audio clip is the final encore from the October 20, 1995 show at Nick’s Fat City, “Lighten Up” from Joe’s album, End of the Century<\/em>. Bruce is on background vocals and guitar, but you can hear him clearly. The song starts about a minute in.<\/p>\n

Lighten Up
\nFirst performed:<\/strong> October 20, 1995 (Pittsburgh, PA)
\nLast performed:<\/strong> October 20, 1995 (Pittsburgh, PA)<\/p>\n

\u00a9 February 5, 2018<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A one-off performance of Joe Gruchecky’s “Lighten Up” with Bruce from the American Babylon tour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,3609,5],"tags":[269,267,268,68],"class_list":["post-565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cover-me","category-little-help","category-meeting-across-the-river","tag-american-babylon","tag-joe-gruschecky","tag-lighten-up","tag-pittsburgh"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/estreetshuffle.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/lighten.jpg?fit=640%2C640&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9w3Lk-97","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":19801,"url":"https:\/\/estreetshuffle.com\/index.php\/1988\/07\/31\/matr-joe-grushecky-and-bruce-springsteen-american-babylon\/","url_meta":{"origin":565,"position":0},"title":"American 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