Bruce Springsteen is doing a one-man show — words and music — in a 975-seat theater for 8 weeks on Broadway.
It’s a serious project, as the audience learned one recent night when the clapping began for “Dancing in the Dark.” Springsteen stopped singing. “I’ll handle it myself,” he said.
Times critic Jesse Green ended his review with this: “As portraits of artists go, there may never have been anything as real — and beautiful — on Broadway.”
I was thinking of the keyword — “real” — as I read David Talbot’s take on “Springsteen on Broadway.”
Bruce Springsteen’s show on Broadway is a somber ceremony, a requiem for a lost America. There’s no longer just a darkness on the edge of town, it’s all across the land…. Bruce is clearly in a deep, dark space these days, as millions of us are. A friend saw him at a hotel in NYC one morning after the show and said he looked like a man on a final mission.
Serious times traditionally call for light entertainment that helps people forget their troubles. And as there were during the 1930s, there are plenty of escapist movies, binge-worthy television, and upbeat music. But in this serious time, there are also creators making the most serious and urgent art of their careers. Bruce, for one. Krishna Das, for another.
I write about Krishna Das every chance I get — here’s the primer, and then there’s this and this and this and this and this — because his chants work on so many levels. And not just on me. It’s not hype that Krishna Das is considered “the Springsteen of kirtan.”
“Trust in the Heart” is a bookend to “Bruce on Broadway.” The production is stripped down, the instrumentalists are almost an afterthought. And KD’s voice! As he says, he’s not a performer, he’s just offering his voice as a prayer. This time I feel he’s on his knees, asking for extra help. Or maybe that’s me. [To buy the CD from Amazon, click here. For the MP3 download, click here.]
There are 73 minutes of soul music on this CD. Here they are.
This article originally appeared on The Head Butler