Greetings 1

Greetings from Freehold:How Bruce Springsteen’s Hometown Shaped His Life and Work

David WilsonChairman, Communication CouncilMonmouth UniversityGlory Days: A Bruce Springsteen SymposiumPresented Sept. 26, 2009

Greetings 2ABSTRACTBruce Springsteen came back to Freehold, New Jersey, the town where he was raised, toattend the Monmouth County Fair in July 1982. He played with Sonny Kenn and the Wild Ideas,a band whose leader was already a Jersey Shore-area legend. About a year later, he recorded thesong "County Fair" with the E Street Band.As this anecdote shows, Freehold never really left Bruce even after he made a name for himself in Asbury Park and went on to worldwide stardom. His experiences there were reflectednot only in "County Fair" but also in "My Hometown," the unreleased "In Freehold" and severalother songs. He visited a number of times in the decades after his family left for California.Freehold’s relative isolation enabled Bruce to develop his own musical style, derivedlargely from what he heard on the radio and on records. More generally, the town’s location,history, demographics and economy shaped his life and work.“County Fair,” the first of three sections of this paper, will recount the July 1982 episodeand its aftermath. “Growin’ Up,” the second, will review Bruce’s years in Freehold and examinethe ways in which the town influenced him. “Goin’ Home,” the third, will highlight instanceswhen he returned in person, in spirit and in song.

Greetings 3COUNTY FAIR Bruce Springsteen couldn’t be sitting there. Could he?The question came to me in the summer of 1982, as my then-fiancée and I sat in a field atthe Monmouth County Fairgrounds in Freehold, New Jersey. We were waiting for Sonny Kennand the Wild Ideas, a local band that she followed around the Jersey Shore, to start playing.Sonny was already a guitar hero by the time Bruce debuted with Freehold’s Castiles in1966. His band at the time, Sonny and the Starfires, had even been the opening act for rocker Jerry Lee Lewis.

Since then, their fortunes had diverged.Bruce had released five albums for Columbia Records and was getting ready to put outhis sixth, “Nebraska.” He had scored four top-40 singles -- “Born to Run,” “Prove It All Night,”“Hungry Heart” and “Fade Away” -- and played to millions of fans with the E Street Band.

Sonny worked at a musical-instrument store in Red Bank by day and played in Shore-area bars and clubs at night. With the Wild Ideas, he released an independent single with twooriginal songs, “All American Angel” and “Turn It Up.” It went nowhere.There was no reason to expect Bruce to be anywhere near the fairgrounds, let alonesitting next to me and my fiancée. Yet when I looked to my left, I saw someone who lookedmighty familiar. He wore blue jeans, a flannel shirt and a yellow cap that said CAT -- short for Caterpillar, the farm-equipment maker. He was chatting up a woman I didn’t recognize. Nobodywas bothering him, and I didn’t either.A few minutes later, as dusk set in, the concert started. Sonny and the band made their way onto a trailer-like stage at one end of the field. When the lights came up, there they were.And there was Bruce, jamming with them.They played Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen,” Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally,”