Can there be anything more uplifting than a great rock concert? A concert where words like brilliant, fantastic, superb, amazing and incredible can never do it justice. They don’t even come close. If you are blessed to have seen that one special gig that actually changed your life, a gig that you wished had never come to an end, then maybe, just maybe, you’ve been in the presence of greatness. A night to remember that will never fade from your memory, however long you live. It’s as fresh today as it was all those years ago. It was a rock and roll epiphany.

The celebrated popular music scholar presents an intimate portrait of The Boss and his legendary band Bruce Springsteen fans know that the band makes the man, which is why millions of people have jammed stadiums and arenas to see The Boss play countless shows with his incredible E Street Band. In this revelatory and unapologetic biography, respected music scholar Clinton Heylin turns a critical eye towards Springsteen’s early days, capturing this classic phase of his career and his rise from Asbury Park hood rat to global rock star. Using long-buried archival recordings and bootlegs, Heylin expertly traces Springsteen’s creative process as a songwriter and performer and illuminates the roles of the E Street Band members in creating their distinctive sound. Highly nuanced and as fiery as Springsteen himself, E Street Shuffle offers the most revealing portrait yet written on this American icon.

Mention the record album Jesus Sound Explosion to a typical child of the 1970s and that person is likely to picture one of those collections that used to be shown on TV (Call now! Not available in stores!). When Mark Curtis Anderson spied a copy in a junk store a few years ago, he knew just what he'd found, and the memories of growing up in a Baptist minister's family came flooding forth. The title of Anderson's memoir is a nod to the live concert album from Explo '72, a kind of evangelical Woodstock emceed by Billy Graham. Explo's crowds of 100,000-plus signaled that enterprising evangelicals were discovering how to use rock and roll in the marketplace of conversion. Anderson was eleven that year, too young to be at Explo but old enough to wish he was. Other preachers' kids may have gazed out at the wider world and craved its movies, clothes, or toys, but he wanted its music. And not just the Jesus-rocker fare of Explo's Armageddon Experience or Children of Truth, but the real stuff, too. Jesus Sound Explosion recalls Anderson's quest for worldliness-through-rock as he came of age under the gaze, he often sensed, of his father's entire congregation. All of the backsliding and revival, idealism and disillusionment one would expect is here, told with delightfully understated humor and set against the sounds of The Guess Who, Yes, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Bruce Springsteen. Here is a knowing look back on a time when Jesus Christ Superstar climbed the pop charts, The Cross and the Switchblade hit the big screen, and anxious parents played their kids' records backwards in search of hidden messages from Satan.

Find out how legendary musician Bruce Springsteen earned his monicker. There's only one Boss; his story is revealed here. Bruce Springsteen is a platinum-shifting, stadium-filling rock star, but he is also more nuanced than that. He is a man of the people, making conventional-and-proud-of-it rock music aimed at the American working class. A supreme songwriter, Springsteen is a rock 'n' roll legend, and this lavishly illustrated book is an examination of his life and music. A comprehensive overview of a fascinating and unique artist, Boss: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band - The Illustrated History is a tribute to Springsteen's body of work, from the rock anthem Born to Run to his sepia-toned analysis of working-class misery, The River. There's Springsteen's gnarly, Bonnie and Clyde-style tableaux Atlantic City, as well as his debunking of guys' yearnings for youthful Glory Days. Throughout it all, Springsteen has demonstrated that he knows how to create a classic track. Find out once and for all why his nickname is The Boss.

Fifty years since Bruce Springsteen's debut album Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. brought a new songwriting talent to the public, Bruce Springsteen is long established as one of the giants of popular music. Through a long career of studio and live albums, archival releases, massive tours with the E Street Band, and more recently solo performances on Broadway, Springsteen has demonstrated a remarkable talent for communicating with a wide audience. Whether acoustic or electric, plainly presented or richly orchestrated, his narrative and character-based songs have captured and reflected the pains, hopes, dilemmas, and dreams of millions. Bruce Springsteen: Songwriting Secrets, Revised and Updated presents his music as the starting point for a masterclass in the art of writing powerful—and successful—songs. Songwriting guru Rikky Rooksby surveys Springsteen's rich catalogue and shows how the common techniques they employ can help you: Structure intros, verses, choruses, and bridges Write songs using anything from two to seven chords Arrange instruments for maximum effect Mimic the sound of Springsteen's chords and progressions Write lyrics that escape cliché, achieve clarity, and ring true This revised edition takes into account all the original music Springsteen has released since the first edition of 2004, including Devils & Dust (2005), Magic (2007), Working on a Dream (2009), Wrecking Ball (2012), High Hopes (2014), Western Stars (2019) and Letter to You (2020), along with other archival material.