Happy Birthday Steven Van Zandt who today turns 59. Yes, he was a major player in Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band (legend has it the reverby guitar hook in the song Born to Run was mainly his idea) and, yes, he was Silvio Dante in The Sopranos. And he started the syndicated radio show Little Steven's Underground Garage which led to the XM/Sirius channel Underground Garage. But please do not overlook the first album he released in the early '80s as Little Steven and The Disciples of Soul called Men Without Women (after the Ernest Hemingway anthology of short stories by the same name). Jersey meets Motown in a collection of greasy, hand clapping, foot stomping, brass section buoyed back beat tough tunes that are a mountain and half better than the less inspired and relying on formula moments in Bruce's discography. Am I the only one who hears evocations, in a good way, of non-stop rock and roll masterpieces like the Four Tops' Bernadette or the Smokey and Miracles' Tears of a Clown in this song?
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