ALBUM REVIEW: Springsteen Stays on the Surface for Soul Covers

Poet, soothsayer, boss, shaman, future of rock and roll: Bruce Springsteen has had a lot of capes thrown around his shoulders throughout his career. But recently he realized he also had a bespoke accessory, a soulman cape languishing in his wardrobe closet that he wanted to haul out and revisit.

Bruce Springsteen (photo by Danny Clinch)

In a promo video for his latest project, Only the Strong Survive, Springsteen says he’s spent his working life with his voice at the service of his songs. “My voice always came second or third or fourth to the expression of those elements. But this time I decided to do something I’ve never done before — make some music that is centered around singing, around challenging my voice. … The music that led to this epiphany and gifted me this insight was soul music.”

Nobody’s ever challenged Springsteen’s soul creds. The 73-year-old working-man’s rock icon has had soul covers in his set lists since the beginning of his career from soul legends including Wilson Pickett, Solomon Burke, and Otis Redding. The Sam Moore (Sam & Dave) guest appearance immortalized on the “Hold On, I’m Coming/Soul Man” video from Springsteen’s 2009 Madison Square Garden show has enough merit alone to permanently pin an honorary soul man badge to his chest.

For Only the Strong Survive, the Boss keeps his homage mainly to Motown-ish, Detroit-centric Northern soul sounds including Smokey Robinson, David Ruffin, Jerry Butler, Tyrone Davis, William Bell, and The Supremes.

For the re-upholstered 1962 Ben E. King classic, “Don’t Play That Song,” even though Springsteen is putting plenty of authentic grit and soul in the vocal, the bouncy, jangly arrangement with the backing choir’s doo-doo-doos make it a little too cute, and the spoken-word add is a little treacly. It comes off sounding like one of those past-their-prime oldies-but-goodies shows when remnants of the former idols are dragged onstage to do the remember-when bit, pandering to the audience instead of just letting the song do its magical time warp on its own merits.

There’s a lot of that going on throughout this project, Springteen’s anthemic instincts pushing the arrangements into arena sing-along sessions.

Despite its title, the Dobie Gray vehicle “Soul Days” is beach music, a genre spawned by white kids discovering Black R&B artists in the ’50s blaring from jukeboxes along the North and South Carolina shore. Springsteen does add an extra layer of soul over Gray’s original with his knuckle-dragging, gravel-throated delivery. The credits say this version features Sam Moore, but where is he on the track? Springsteen gives him a shout-out toward the end, saying he wants to hear some Sam & Dave, yet the great soul man is relegated to sparse background vocals. Seems like if you got Sam in the studio you could use him to greater effect.

Springsteen makes a better case for soul than Diana Ross did on “Someday We’ll Be Together,” blowing past the lead Supreme in a spray of gravel and grit, growlin’ and groanin’ about his future romantic aspirations.

The cover of William Bell’s 1968 single “I Forgot to Be Your Lover” is more like it, Springsteen really letting his soul go naked, soaring with Sam, worthy of standing face to face at the soul mic. But there’s a great big elephant in the studio as well. If you’re going to fulfill your soul-man dreams and stretch out your tonsils, why not follow the elephant’s footprints to the lair of the legendary soul purveyors? Where’s Solomon Burke’s “Cry To Me?” Wilson Pickett’s “I Found a Love?” Otis Redding’s “Mr. Pitiful,” “Champagne and Wine,” or “These Arms of Mine?” Or Percy Sledge’s “Cover Me,” “It Tears Me Up,” or “Out of Left Field”?

Perhaps the answer is in the promo video, when Springsteen calls this collection “some of the most beautiful songs in the American pop songbook.” That’s fine for instant gratification for the masses, but maybe next time let pop stay at home when you take your soul out for a stroll.

It’s an auspicious beginning for a caped crusader revisiting his tailors. But for future endeavors, why not go a bit farther down the Shore for some Memphis- or Muscle Shoals-soaked Southern soul? And as befits a man who wants to wear that soulman cape, next time out, dig down a little deeper, and instead of just flashing your soul, bare it.

Bruce Springsteen’s Only the Strong Survive is out Nov. 11 on Columbia Records.