Beech Tree News Network

This week, I’ll delve into the world of Steven Van Zandt.  Steven Van Zandt embodies both the frustration and beauty of the arts.  There is no official title, no one way to do the job.  He’s discovered it’s easier to be this creative furnace, this volcano of artistic output when you are not the focus.  The longtime guitarist and musical director of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band was also an underboss of a different kind: acting in one of history’s most influential television shows (The Sopranos).  That is, when he wasn’t writing scripts and arranging music, all while trying to preserve Rock & Roll.  The highway may be jammed with broken heroes, yet Little Steven refuses to pick a lane.

Little Steven, 72, remains an American original, the ultimate wingman.  “I prefer to be the observer than be observed”.  “People say aren’t you worried about being replaced”? But how can you replace a relationship of 50 years? Steven and Bruce Springsteen met as teenagers in 1960’s Jersey.  “The Beatles revealed this new world to us.  The Rolling Stones invited us in”, Little Steven says.  They formed a band anchored in Asbury Park, New Jersey. 

“It saved my life.  I didn’t have any path forward/  It(music) brings you acceptance”.  Van Zandt, who doesn’t read or write music, brought his guitar chops and his musical ear.  He arranged the iconic horns on their hit “Tenth Avenue Freezeout” and polished Springsteen’s guitar lick on “Born To Run”.  “I’m not ever gonna take more credit than the rest of this band.  It’s Bruce’s vision.  I try to make bad things good, good things great and great things better”.  After an argument over creative input, he left the band in 1984 and was absent on the band’s most commercially successful album, Born To Run.  He had married Maureen Santora and started writing songs for his own band, Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul.    

He turned his attention to political activism, most notable Apartheid in South Africa.  In 1985, SVZ wrote and produced the protest song “Sun City”.  In the late‘90’s, he and Springsteen reconciled and he rejoined the band.  There was a hitch: Van Zandt had already committed to a new tv show on HBO.  The creator David Chase had seen him at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.  He called and asked if he wanted to be in my new show.  He went to HBO who responded with “are you out of your mind”? The Sopranos would elevate television.  “I knew if I could create the guy from the outside in, I could be him”.  Acting was an adjustment.  HE decided he was going to turn the show into a Rock & Roll Band.

After the Sopranos 8-year run, he wrote his memoir and co-wrote and starred in Lillehammer, the first original series on a streaming service that would become Netflix.  But wait, there’s more.  Concerned with the future of Rock and to preserve, he stated a little radio show/station called Little Steven’s Underground Garage(one of my favorite Sirius XM stations).  

He also founded a class called T-Trock.  He asks a student “who are you listening to”? “Beyond”, they say.  “Well Beyonce emanates from Aretha Franklin, South Africa” and goes deeper.  50 years after meeting, Steven was asked how to make sense of it.  “We couldn’t do anything else”, Steven replies.   

Go to www.60minutesovertime.com to hear Steven’s thoughts on his late friend James Gandolfini.  While you’re following links, below are the links to my podcast Blendertainment.  I’ll be back here next week. 

https://open.spotify.com/show/61yTPt9wXdz37DZTbPUs16?si=w5jHghPVRmaTaP5ZEI-wzQ

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/blendertainment/id1541097172