Bruce Springsteen: The Closest You'll Get to Tom Waits on Tour

Bruce Springsteen just released a new album, "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions," a collection of covers of songs that are somehow associated with Pete Seeger (he wrote them, he performed them, he was involved somehow). I've been listening to it all morning and it has a lot of good stuff. People that are fans of "The River" and "Born to Run" may not appreciate it as much as people who are fans of folk/swing/jazzy music, but it's nice mix of different styles, with the classic Bruce voice. However, in listening to it, I momentarily thought that Winamp somehow messed up and started playing Tom Waits. The song "Eyes on the Prize" (click here for 30 second preview in Realplayer...[sigh] for those people still stuck under Microsoft's clutches, here's the WMA file) is a dead ringer for a Waits song, right down to the prevalent stand-up bass that Tom tends to use in a lot of his music. But it's more than that, Bruce really roughs up his voice for this song; mixed with the banjo and fiddles in the background, it could be mistaken for a Waits song (true connoisseurs won't be tricked, but should see the link). Funny thing, Rolling Stone associated Bruce's interpretation of "O Mary Don't You Weep" (Real, windows media) as having a Waits-esque twang to it, but makes no mention of "Eyes on the Prize." Let me know down in the comments section who you think is right, me or Rolling Stone!!

My favorite song is "Mrs. Mcgrath," (real, windows media) an Irish-twinged song that has also been called "Mrs. Mcgraw" throughout the ages. If you're interested in other versions, I found this a capella (sort of, there's a bit of drum) version in my web searching.

As you can tell, this is not a full review; that's better left to the "professionals" who get paid big bucks by Rolling Stone, Amazon.com, et. al., to tell you and me what to like. I'm telling you what I like and hoping to key you guys into some music that I find enjoyable.