Keep in mind that we have no idea if those garage demos represent what is in the vault. The band may have overdubbed many more of them. It's also very possible that Bruce would decide to re-record some of those songs, either solo or with the band. Again, bootleggers (basically Batlan/Sutphin) didn't have access to everything and may have only grabbed the first things they saw. By no means should ANYTHING that has come out via bootleg be considered to be definitive history.
My hunch is that some of it does exist from the era and some of it doesn't. I doubt that an electric version of every song was completed to the level of a finished master in 1982. Some probably were and would require minimal touch-up to be released now. As for the rest, I would not bother including them. There is enough other material from those 1982 sessions that was completed and could be included without trying to re-create what an "Electric Nebraska" might have looked like had it been finished. I am not a purist when it comes to old outtakes. If a great song is buried and wasn't finished, by all means, re-record it or overdub it in order to make it releasable. I'm still holding out hope for a re-take on the great lost River sessions track "Chevrolet Deluxe" when they get around to a Tracks 2. I am so glad we have some of those outtakes from Darkness that were included on that box set, even though they were left unfinished back in 1977-8.
I agree, I am skeptical as to whether there is truly a finished Electric Nebraska. Clearly the sessions took place, but from what I understand, neither Springsteen nor Landau liked the results, and again revisited the demo tape. It sounds like there was a session that did not yield the intended results, so there may very well not be a completed project. That being said, I do suspect there are some releasable Electric Nebraska outtakes. With regard to the second part of your post, I completely agree with it. I want to hear music from the 82/83 session in its organic, historically accurate form. I have no interest whatsoever in hearing Springsteen overdub new music and vocals on top of the 82/83 recordings. "The Promise" was one of the most disappointing archival releases I have ever heard. Springsteen completely dropped the ball on that one -- he took is cue from The Rolling Stones and what they did with the "Exile On Main Street" outtakes. Fortunately "The Ties That Band" outtakes were much less manipulated.
Is there anything written or otherwise that goes into detail about how much these guys stole, and over what time period?
Not that I've seen, but I'm sure others are more knowledgable on that. There seemed to be a first leak in around 1984, with some of the River outtakes. BIUSA outtakes came soon after. Not sure when the Darkness outtakes appeared but I think it was around the same time. I think those guys were fired by 1986-7 or thereabouts, but it seems that they held on to the tapes they had stolen until they could sell them as a complete package to one of the bootleg labels, which issued them all as "The Lost Masters" series in the 1990s. I don't think these guys were responsible for the leaking of the early 1972 tapes. Jim Cretecos is usually identified as a source for this material, mainly because he asserted ownership of it and legal rights to it for some time until he lost in court. Allegedly, this is why there were no outtakes/demos from the Greetings period on Tracks - the final court decision didn't occur in time for Springsteen to be certain of complete ownership of that material.
It's pretty simple in my mind: Electric Nebraska exists and we've heard some of it already...on the Born in the USA album. There's a set of 12 songs that were recorded in both acoustic and electric versions. Nebraska Atlantic City Mansion On The Hill Born In The U.S.A. Johnny 99 Downbound Train Losin' Kind Used Cars Open All Night Highway Patrolman Reason To Believe Child Bride (Working On The Highway) The acoustic versions were from Jan 1982 ("acoustic Born In The USA"?) and the electric ones ("Electric Nebraska") were late April/ early May 1982. 8 of them went (in their acoustic versions) to the released Nebraska album, 3 (in their electric versions) to the released Born In The USA album and 1 is still unreleased. There are other songs that fit this acoustic/electric pattern too, though the exact recording dates don't match. "Pink Cadillac", "Robert Ford", "Club Soul City" are examples. It is pretty common for any artist to demo songs acoustically before going into a studio, so no surprise there. The question is of course about quality. Maybe the electric version of "Open All Night" isn't very good. Bruce didn't think so, at least compared to the acoustic version. We all want to hear it and judge for ourselves though. I believe that we'll get that chance someday in one of these box sets. (Brucebase has a lot more details on these sessions)
I found that page just a month ago. Very nice informations there. Just sad wikispaces will shut down soon but luckily all the infos will be moved to another wiki webpage.
Point taken. But does the electric stuff that wasn't finished specifically for inclusion on Born in the USA exist in complete, releasable form? Of course, I'm working on the assumption--I could be wrong--that once Bruce decides what he wants to include on an album and works out the concept he wants and chooses the songs which best illustrate what he wants to convey---additional overdubs and "sweetening" are then added before the record is cut. We know that the songs from the Nebraska/BitUSA sessions that were included on Tracks and Essential were "worked on" much later for inclusion on those compilations. Why would we assume that songs from those sessions that haven't been officially released yet exist in complete, finish form now?
One of my favorite songs, "County Fair, always sounded poor to me, including the released version on Essential. Does anyone have any idea why? Perhaps he wanted it bathed in reverb, but it's so unlike all the other outtakes, that to me anyway are recorded very well, certainly his best sounding recordings up to that point.
It's been a long time since I revisited my outtakes collection, but I have a version of it in poor sonic quality that sounds a lot more "fleshed out" than the version on Essential. That's one of my favorite outtakes too and I was surprised that it sounded the way it did on Essential, especially since None But the Brave sounded so much better.
I accept that not everyone loves the title track, but can you imagine it not being released and only surfacing about 15 years later?
Intuitively, I fear that a full band version of "Open All Night" is not all it might be cracked up to be - part of the reason we have Nebraska the album as is! Based on this list, a deluxe Nebraska would have acoustic versions of "BITUSA" (which we got on Tracks already), "Losin' Kind" and "Child Bride" - meanwhile, a deluxe Born in the USA would have electric versions of "Nebraska", "Atlantic City", "Mansion on the Hill", "Johnny 99", "Losin' Kind", "Used Cars", "Open All Night", "Reason to Believe" and "Child Bride". Sounds like a deluxe Nebraska will be skipped over for a deluxe Born in the USA just based on what's available although I like the idea of a comprehensive collection that addresses both albums as they are so related in theme and timing. I must admit that I've stopped wondering about the fabled electric Nebraska as it seems a proper determination was made at the time.
I have a feeling it doesn't matter what's in the vault, it only matters what Bruce is ready to let loose. If he didn't like it then, there's every chance he doesn't like it still. The Boss isn't just a nickname.
He knew that a lot of people were going to listen only to the chorus, the electric version was designed that way and it could never have been an outtake.
Doubt he was influenced by 'Exile' at all, really (Bruce's release came out six months later but had been in the works for some time before) - the bonus disc of which was something of a travesty in the way it chose to rewrite history (including a Satanic Majesties outtake, ffs!) and full of not only new overdubs but modern day lyrics. Pleasant enough listen but a bonus disc of 'leftovers' from a double album which was already half full of leftovers and where the vocals were nearly all done just a couple of months before release was always going to be of dubious authenticity to begin with. Based on bootleg evidence, Bruce seems to work very differently to the Stones. There simply aren't a lot of unreleased Stones songs that sound 'finished' , as it would appear the vocals and lyrics generally only seem to be complete on the songs they choose to release officially. With Bruce that's not the case - several of the Darkness outtakes sound like the vocals needed more work and personally I don't think the tampering he did on 'The Promise' album affected things too adversely. At least all of the songs on that double album came from 1977-78! The bootlegs of the BITUSA sessions suggest a LOT of songs were finished. I think Max Weinberg once said they cut about 80-100 songs. This represents what we KNOW was recorded between 1982 and 1984 , and theres a LOT there that's uncirculated. Brucebase - Born In The USA - Studio Sessions he could easily assemble a release-worthy disc of the solo demos plus a couple of discs of outtakes without even duplicating anything that's been released on Tracks, Essential or on b-sides. And if people misinterpreted 'Born in the USA' so badly in 1984, God knows how they'd react to 'The Klansman' in 2019. And for completion's sake, this is what we know was cut for the 'Nebraska' album - and yes, the contract he signed with Sony a few years back does (from memory) include provision for an expanded release of this album as well as BITUSA. Brucebase - 1981 solo - Studio Sessions Brucebase - Nebraska - Studio Sessions
not sure about that but I ton of songs on that album are actually very dark and depressing subject matter tarted up to sound like pop hits
Yes he did, but for the most part, they were much less glaring and were much more seamless. I am certainly not excusing it, and fans who had spent years listening intently to the boots found the 1998-era remixes and tiding-up of some songs to be distracting, but the overwhelming presentation was nowhere near as glaring as what he did on "The Promise." Those 2010-era gravel vocals pasted on 1977/1978-era tracks were horrible and jarring (and there were a lot of them).
Pretty much other artist would have built a career around those two songs (I'll add 'Shut out the light' as well, although at least that popped up on a b-side). Back then, there was no such concept of putting out box sets of unreleased material. I realise he wanted a particular sound or theme for the finished record, but you have to wonder about someone's mindset when they listen back to that pair of gems and think "nah...I'll put out stuff like Working on the Highway and Cover Me instead....". As bewildering as Dylan dumping Blind Willie McTell or Red River Shore for me.
Dylan Biograph box came out in 1985. Buddy Holly had unreleased albums and boxes in the 60's and 70's.
