In fact, it’s a decade so musically diverse, we had quite a time whittling it down to our top albums. When we polled our staff, interns and writers, over 250 albums received votes, but ultimately these 70 emerged as clear favorites.

Bruce Springsteen, Darkness on the Edge of Town-1978
In 1977, Springsteen’s songwriting made a dramatic shift, breaking with his previous romanticism to write with a hard-edged realism and in a populist vernacular about and for the working-class kids he’d grown up with and still saw in his audience. The result was some of the best songs he’d ever write: “The Promised Land,” “Badlands,” “Racing in the Street” and the title track. The fact that Springsteen insisted that he could “still believe in the promised land” after all the injustices he’d described created the dramatic tension that drove the record. And the songs blossomed from their overly studied studio versions into liberated and liberating live versions, best represented by the bonus DVD of a Houston show on the 2010 box set, The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story.—Geoffrey Himes

“Whatever happened to . . .?” is a weekly series updating some of the most newsworthy and interesting local stories covered in The Plain Dealer.

Today, we answer this question:

Whatever happened to the legendary “master tape” of Bruce Springsteen’s famed 1978 show at the Agora?

If he can get an approving nod from Springsteen’s management, visionary Agora owner Henry LoConti hopes the recording can be heard by fans, and yield a Boss-scale benefit for the city that first embraced him 40 years ago.

For now, however, the reel-to-reel tape, handled only by gloved hands, rests in a vault at the Western Reserve Historical Society, where LoConti donated it.

Visitors can hear other Springsteen material on listening stations at the society, spokeswoman Angie Lowrie said, but that tape is not in a format to be included.

The tape, more than three hours long, was for a live album that never was. The show was the WMMS 10th anniversary concert of Aug. 9, 1978, for which more than 1,200 fans, who were awarded free tickets in a postcard giveaway, packed the Agora’s original site on East 24th Street. Springsteen and the E Street Band, who had been touring since May, stayed in town for several days for it.

WMMS simulcast the concert live in stereo to a network of FM stations — more than 30 of them, in LoConti’s recollection, including Chicago and Detroit — which made it one of Springsteen’s most widely bootlegged shows. Former WMMS programmer John Gorman recalls in his book “The Buzzard” that Bob Seger told him he recorded it off the radio in Detroit, calling it “the greatest rock ‘n’ roll show I ever heard,” and drummer Max Weinberg called it the best show the E Street Band ever did.

One audio feed from the show went to a production truck outside the Agora for radio.

LoConti would like to release the boxed set to support the Western Reserve Historical Society, but so far Springsteen’s manager won’t approve the release.

Another line, LoConti said, went directly upstairs to Agency Recording Studios, and was captured on 24-track tape for a possible album. That’s the pristine master recording in the vault.

“It’s one of the biggest bootlegs out there,” LoConti said, which may explain why the album never happened. But he notes that bootlegs don’t have the full show, because Springsteen played an encore after the radio broadcast ended, “and not the quality of 24-track.”

LoConti recently made the recording into a very limited edition four-disc box set (so limited there were only 10 copies) that also included the 16-track recording of an hour long Springsteen show at the Agora from June 1974, when the E Street Band included keyboardist David Sancious.

He sent copies to Springsteen, Miami Steve Van Zandt and Springsteen’s management, asking permission to issue the set for sale, with all proceeds going to the Western Reserve Historical Society.

“Unfortunately,” he said, “the manager said no.”

But LoConti hasn’t given up the idea. He would, in fact, like to take it up a notch with a higher-cost version of the box set that would add a DVD from an Aug. 30, 1978 show at the Agora with Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. For its last 28 minutes, they’re joined onstage by Springsteen, Miami Steve and Clarence Clemons, who came from playing a show at the Richfield Coliseum.

Five cameras recorded video because the show was being shot for the “Live at the Agora” TV series. Miami Steve would not allow the 28-minute closing jam to be used in the show, however, because he did not want the high-profile guests to take attention away from Southside Johnny.

LoConti hopes he now can get permission to use the video. In his vision, the money from the box sets would be used to give the historical society’s Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum its own separate home in Midtown on the Euclid Corridor.

“I put the box set together for that purpose,” he said. “It’s a good-sounding album. And it’s history.”

‘Twas the night of Saturday April 21 outside McFadden’s Citizens Bank Park, the Philadelphia bar/restaurant located right where the Phillies play (and where Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band will perform twice in early September.) It was raining “harder than a cow pissin’ on a flat rock,” to quote the colorful speech of the late, great Tex Vinyard, Bruce Springsteen’s first manager. It also was so windy that one might have expected the doors at McFadden’s to blow right off their hinges and the ghost of the Big Man himself to walk in, declaring his desire to play. While that didn’t happen, the legacies of Tex, Clarence and many others dead and alive still filled the place at the first-ever Philadelphia Springsteen Memories Roadshow.

Despite the lousy weather, a group of dedicated Springsteen fans braved the elements for this very special gathering. They all brought great memories of Philly-area encounters with Bruce and his music as old as the early ‘70s and as recent as his two shows in Philadelphia just last month. Some also brought some very cool “artifacts” to share with fellow fans. Among them were Dave and Kathi Alven of New Jersey, who brought something very appropriate indeed for an event inside a ballpark: an authentic team-member t-shirt from the legendary “E Street Kings” softball team, along with a full-color team photo.

It was a great mix of new fans and old, male and female. For some, it was even a family affair. One young fan still in grade-school came sporting his father’s treasured “You Can Trust Your Car To The Man With The Star” bootleg shirt. (Dad was very proud indeed.) Special guest Art Reilly displayed many of his amazing photos from Springsteen’s early-70s Philly-area concerts. Reilly also displayed copies of one of his most prized possessions: Clarence Clemons’ and Danny Federici’s handwritten setlists from the famous Avery Fisher Hall show, where the stage collapsed during “Quarter to Three” before Bruce and the band got to close the show with “On Broadway.”

Shawn Poole of Backstreets.com
and Lawrence Kirsch of thelightindarkness.com organized
the Philly Springsteen
Memories Roadshow.

A fun, meaningful evening was made even more special by the donations raised for two charities long supported by Bruce Springsteen: the Kristen Ann Carr Fund and Philabundance. Special thanks to published scholar on Springsteen fandom Linda K. Randall for helping to collect the donations while continuing her ongoing studies of fan communities in action.The Springsteen Memories Roadshow concept launched successfully last year with a Boston event, and the Philly event has introduced a charity-fundraising element to the proceedings. Combined, these two Roadshow events now offer a model that can be used by many other fans to launch similar events in their necks of the woods. If you’re interested in organizing a Springsteen Memories Roadshow where you live, please e-mail info@thelightindarkness.com for more information.

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In support of the Montreal General Hospital’s fundraising campaign, Lawrence Kirsch, publisher of “For You, Original Stories and Photographs by Bruce Springsteen’s Legendary Fans” and “The Light in Darkness,” is holding a raffle with a chance to win a brand new signed copy of “For You,” which has been sold out since December 2008.

GIVING
The generosity of donors, volunteers and auxiliaries has made the MUHC what it is today…these precious funds are used for the benefit of current and future patients at the MGH. We are collecting funds to benefit two MGH departments, the Emergency/Trauma, and the Neurology floor.

To help raise funds we are raffling off a brand new signed copy (by the publisher) of For You: Original Stories and Photographs by Bruce Springsteen’s Legendary Fans. 

If you missed your chance to purchase a copy of this limited-edition book, or even if you just want a second copy to keep as a collector’s item, now is your opportunity. First edition copies of “For You” often sell for hundreds of dollars on eBay, when you can find a copy.

Participants can enter the contest as many times as they wish and all proceeds go to the Montreal General Hospital. The book, autographed by the publisher, will be shipped to the winner free of charge anywhere in the world, so everyone is encouraged to enter.

You can help the fund raising efforts for the 2012 campaign by participating in the raffle for a copy of For You. All monies collected will be donated to the Montreal General Hospital.

The Montreal General Hospital, founded in 1821, enjoys a distinguished world reputation, as well as an impressive history of community service. The Montreal General Hospital, a pioneer hospital in North America, introduced teaching at the bedside and founded the first medical school in Canada — the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University.

The hospital has remained allied as a teaching hospital for the century and a half of the Faculty’s existence. The Montreal General Hospital is dedicated to patient care through diagnosis, treatment, research and teaching.

“Through the years, I’ve read almost every book written about Springsteen. Some are great and many are not. Over time, I’ve even become cynical when I hear about new books. In the last few years, there have been a plethora of coffee table book releases in the Springsteen world. Each one in itself is a gorgeous work of art that will glisten on your polished coffee table. However, chances are you are still missing the ultimate Bruce Springsteen keepsake: For You.When I heard about this book a year ago, I dismissed it thinking I didn’t really need yet another glorified coffee table book. I was wrong, dead wrong. For You takes the reader on a magical, mystical and poignant journey through forty years of Bruce Springsteen’s life. It’s a time machine to the past where tickets were once $7, the E Street Band was a boy’s only club, Steve Van Zandt looked like a member of Jimmy Buffet’s band and most of the members of the E Street Band could have begun their own television show – ‘Stashin.’ I wasn’t impressed with the book, I was bowled over.

Anthony Kuzminski
antimusic.com

“In reading For You, at first it’s hard to believe that one performer could possibly have touched this many people this deeply – lifted them from depression, kept them from suicide, helped them through divorce or the death of a parent, or worse, a child. But story after story reveals just how much Springsteen’s music and his almost superhuman presence on the concert stage have penetrated people’s lives and, in as much as it is possible for music to do so, made them whole.

In fact, there’s a running theme of these reminiscences, one that is sure to warm any Bruce fan’s heart: that you are not crazy. Not crazy for seeing dozens or even hundreds of concerts; not crazy for feeling that Springsteen’s songs and lyrics have actually helped carry you through some of life’s toughest moments; not crazy to think that this man whom you’ve never met has and continues to fill some kind of void in your life.”

Peter Chianca
Excerpt from Blogness on the Edge of Town

Good Luck!

www.thelightinDarkness.com
www.Foryoubruce.com

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Backstreets and Lawrence Kirsch are pleased to present a celebration evening of longtime Philadelphia favorite, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Bruce Springsteen. Fans from Philadelphia and elsewhere are invited to attend the first-ever Philadelphia Springsteen Memories Roadshow.

With the ongoing display of the Hall of Fame’s Springsteen exhibit at the National Constitution Center, we invite all Springsteen fans, old and new, to visit the exhibit during the day and then come and party with us on the evening of Saturday, April 21 at McFadden’s Citizens Bank Park. Admission will be free (along with special incentives for all who register online in advance to attend at www.mcfaddensballpark.com/roadshow). Fans who attend also will be asked to make voluntary donations in support of two charitable organizations long supported by Bruce Springsteen: the Kristen Ann Carr Fund for research and treatment of sarcoma cancers and Philabundance, the Delaware Valley’s largest hunger-relief organization. On this special night, please donate whatever you can afford, large or small (cash only, please), to help fill our “wrecking ball” against hunger and illness.

We invite you to bring your Bruce Springsteen mementos, photos, t-shirts, posters, books, ticket stubs, albums and especially your Bruce stories and memories to share with other fans who have appreciated Bruce Springsteen’s appearances in the Philadelphia area since 1973. Springsteen cemented his long-standing ties to the city with his Academy Award-winning song “The Streets of Philadelphia”. From famous and historic Philly-area shows at The Tower Theater and The Main Point to Bruce’s record setting performances including his final four concerts at the gone-but-not-forgotten Spectrum arena in October 2009, Philadelphia has a special place in the hearts of Springsteen fans.

Come meet local photographer Art Reilly. Art has been a Bruce Springsteen fan since 1972 and photographed him in concert at historic venues such as Widener College, Kutztown State College, and The Roxy Theatre in Philadelphia’s Roxborough section. Art also worked with MacAvoy Stage Lighting on Marc Brickman’s crew as Assistant LD for Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band on the road from 1972 through 1974. He also has photographed The Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and more. Some of Art’s Bruce photos have appeared in the Springsteen book For You: Original Stories and Photographs by Bruce Springsteen’s Legendary Fans.

Also meet Lawrence Kirsch, professional music photographer for seventeen years and publisher of the Springsteen book For You: Original Stories and Photographs by Bruce Springsteen’s Legendary Fans. Lawrence also pioneered the “Springsteen Memories Roadshow” concept with a successful Boston event last November and more events planned this year for various locations, including the Philadelphia Roadshow. Lawrence will be signing copies of the limited edition book The Light in Darkness, which serves as an unofficial companion volume to Bruce’s box-set The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story. The Light in Darkness will be available for sale during the evening at McFadden’s on April 21.

Backstreets, the premier Springsteen fan magazine/website, is a proud sponsor of the Philadelphia Springsteen Memories Roadshow and a Backstreets representative will be on hand for this special event.

From Philadelphia photographer Phil Ceccola to early Springsteen supporter and radio personality Ed Sciaky, Philadelphia has an incredibly rich history in documenting the career of Bruce Springsteen. Come join us for an evening of Bruce Springsteen memories and discover fans and friends who have the same passion as you! A limited number of Philadelphia Springsteen Memories Roadshow commemorative posters also will be distributed to attendees on a first-come, first-served basis.

ROADSHOW UPDATE:
Please note: Fans of all ages are welcome.  Please be advised, however, that under Pennsylvania law concerning establishments serving alcohol, NO ONE under 21 yrs. of age may attend without accompaniment by a parent or legal guardian and ALL persons under 21 yrs. of age must vacate the premises no later than 9:00 p.m.

“While Springsteen was officially a Jersey boy, he’s part of our local DNA, on par with our cracked symbol of liberty and the cheesesteak.”
Geekadelphia.com

“Now, my home away from home’s here in the City of Brotherly Love,
Where they make cheesesteaks as big as airplanes….”
-Bruce Springsteen, altered lyrics to “Wrecking Ball” (as performed at his final Spectrum concert on October 20, 2009)

Saturday, April 21, 2012 6.30PM
McFadden’s, Citizens Bank Park
1 Citizens Bank Way, Philadelphia, PA
(215) 952-0300
Free Admission, Charitable Donations requested/encouraged.

Fans who pre-register online to attend at www.mcfaddensballpark.com/roadshow also will receive a $3-per-ticket discount on tickets to the National Constitution Center’s exhibition of From Asbury Park to the Promised Land: The Life and Music of Bruce Springsteen and a 20% dinner/drinks discount at McFadden’s on the night of the Memories Roadshow event. Out-of-town attendees who pre-register online also will be offered discounted hotel-room rates at the Holiday Inn Stadium hotel, within walking distance of McFadden’s and public-transit routes to and from the National Constitution Center.

For more information and interviews, contact:
Shawn Poole (Philadelphia-based writer for Backstreets.com): shawnjpoole@gmail.com
Art Reilly: a2togo@gmail.com
Lawrence Kirsch: info@theLightinDarkness.com
Visit the following websites online for more details:
www.Backstreets.com/news.html
www.theLightinDarkness.com/news/

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DOCUMENTARY SCREENING ABOUT THE MAKING OF

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN’S ICONIC ALBUM

DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN

“Extraordinary… fascinating.” – Rolling Stone Magazine

Philadelphia, PA (February 23, 2012) – In connection with the must-see exhibition From Asbury Park to the Promised Land: The Life and Music of Bruce Springsteen, the National Constitution Center will host a special screening of the acclaimed documentary The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town on Wednesday, March 14, 2012 at 5:00 p.m.  The 90-minute documentary, directed by Grammy and Emmy-winning filmmaker Thom Zimny, follows Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band through each step of the musical  process and chronicles the demands of producing a follow-up album to the breakout hit Born to Run.

The Promise gives viewers an unprecedented, behind-the-scenes look into Bruce Springsteen’s creative mindset and his role as a bandleader during an important turning point in his career.  The documentary debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2010 and combines rare archival footage of Springsteen and the E Street Band shot between 1976 and 1978, including home rehearsals and studio sessions, shots of young Springsteen and Steve Van Zandt at the piano, as well as interviews with Springsteen, band members, manager Jon Landau, former manager Mike Appel, and others closely involved in the making of the classic album.  Director Zimny has collaborated with Springsteen on various projects including London Calling: Live From Hyde Park, Wings for Wheels: The Making of Born to Run, Live in New York City, Live in Barcelona, and VH-1 Storytellers.

Tickets to the screening are $20 for general public and $15 for museum members.  Admission includes access to From Asbury Park to the Promised Land following the screening until 8:00 p.m.  A cash bar and movie snacks also will be available.  A limited number of tickets to the screening are still available and can be purchased online at www.constitutioncenter.org or by calling 215.409.6700.  This is the first of three behind-the scenes documentary screenings planned during the run of the exhibition.  For a complete listing of Springsteen special events and activities, please visit http://www.constitutioncenter.org/springsteen/.

Through September 3, 2012, the National Constitution Center is hosting From Asbury Park to the Promised Land: The Life and Music of Bruce Springsteen – never before seen outside of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.  This first major exhibition about the American songwriter takes a comprehensive look at Springsteen’s career and catalog, from such early bands as Child, the Castiles and Steel Mill through his work with the E Street Band and as a solo artist.  Visitors will have the rare opportunity to view more than 150 artifacts, including the Fender Esquire from the cover of Born to Run, the outfit Springsteen wore on the cover of Born in the U.S.A., numerous handwritten lyric manuscripts, and Springsteen’s 1960 Chevrolet Corvette.

While you are touring the Bruce Springsteen exhibit, do not miss your opportunity to visit the NCC gift shop and pick up your signed copy of the limited edition book, The Light in Darkness, a companion book to Springsteen’s the Promise boxed set focusing on the Darkness on the Edge of Town album and tour.

Bruce Springsteen kicked open the 2012 Grammys with his newest single, “We Take Care of Our Own.” But it was a box set reissue of his 30-plus-year classic, “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” that garnered Grammy gold for Port Washington resident and Sony Music Design Director Dave Bett.

Bett was nominated along with colleague Michelle Holme for Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package for the box set reissue “The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story.”

The six-disc set includes a remastered version of the Springsteen classic, “Darkness on the Edge of Town” and a new two-CD album, “The Promise,” comprised of 21 previously unreleased outtakes from the original recording sessions. Rounding out the set is a documentary titled “The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town” and two DVDs of live performances.

The box set is a whole lotta Springsteen and Bett and Holme designed packaging imbued with that same “more is more” approach, creating an 80-page spiral-bound reproduction of Springsteen’s original notebooks that pulls back the curtain on the recording sessions’ creative process.

“We went page by page; it’s like a map of the process,” said Bett. “The track lists, song titles, changes in lyrics, you saw him working it out.”

Bett and Holme spent three years on the project, meticulously researching every line, design and component of the packaging.

“We did a lot of research; you didn’t want to put anything on it that rang false to a fan,” said Bett.  “He was such a perfectionist. In the documentary, you really see that thinking process. We took the same approach.”

One thing Bett didn’t need to research was Springsteen fandom. “It was one of my favorite albums when it came out,” said Bett. “I’m a Jersey Shore kid. He was in a band with the one of one of my mother’s pinochle partners,” Bett added with a laugh.

Bett attended the Grammy ceremony with his wife and three kids and called the experience “surreal.”

“We practically sat down and then they called our names, the adrenaline was flowing like crazy,” said Bett.

“My anticipation for the release of this box set doubled with the release of The Light in Darkness, Lawrence Kirsch’s excellent chronicle of the Darkness on the Edge of Town tour. Told from the fan’s perspective, by the fans themselves, Kirsch took the numerous fan story submissions, combined them with over 200+ classic photographs from the tour, and delivered an amazing gift to Bruce fans. With time travel via DeLorean still unlikely, The Light in Darkness is the closest that you’ll ever come to attending a show on the Darkness tour.”

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To get there, you walk by the 1960 Chevrolet Corvette that Springsteen bought in 1975 after the success of Born to Run, and pass through rooms lined with fliers advertising gigs by early Springsteen bands like Steel Mill and Dr. Zoom & the Sonic Boom. There are trophies like the 1994 best-song Oscar for “Streets of Philadelphia,” and artifacts such as the jeans and T-shirt the Boss wore on the cover of 1984′s Born in the U.S.A.

One morning last week, exhibit installers from the Constitution Center and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where the exhibit originated, were busy unpacking guitars, like the black Takamine acoustic used during the recording of the 1982 album Nebraska. Grammys were lying around in bubble wrap, and the faded red baseball cap Springsteen had stuffed in his rear pocket on the cover of Born in the U.S.A. was still in its box.

Meanwhile, back in the Book of Dreams section, Constitution Center chief executive officer David Eisner was checking out a display of Springsteen’s spiral-bound notebooks, which included scribbled drafts of the lyrics to “The Rising” and “No Retreat, No Surrender.”

“So much of his thematic territory is really about the American Dream and the distance between where the American Dream is and what our aspirations are,” Eisner said in response to the question, what’s a Bruce Springsteen exhibit doing at the Constitution Center? “And when you read the lyrics to songs like ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ and ‘The River’ you can really see that that sense of chronicling where we are in the evolution of the American Dream is just dead center for him.”

James Henke, the chief curator of the Rock Hall of Fame who selected 160 or so pieces of memorabilia in the exhibit from a warehouse somewhere in New Jersey (“I can’t say where”) where the Boss keeps his stuff, agrees that if any rock songwriter belongs in the Constitution Center, which is the only institution this exhibit will travel to, Springsteen is the one.

“Bruce is a very American musician,” Henke says, on the phone from the I.M. Pei-designed Rock Hall pyramid in Cleveland. “His songs deal with a lot of American themes, much as, say, Woody Guthrie’s do. His songs talk about the working class and the things that they go through. So if you were going to pick a rock artist to do there, he makes sense.”

The Springsteen show is essentially the same in Philadelphia as it was in Cleveland. There are the childhood photos of Springsteen growing up in Freehold in Monmouth County, N.J., cutely labeled From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come), after the song Springsteen gave to Dave Edmunds in 1982.

There are the listening stations with audio selections, such as Springsteen’s 1972 and 1973 auditions for Columbia Records A&R man John Hammond, and the 1974 Cambridge, Mass., show witnessed by Springsteen’s soon-to-be-manager Jon Landau, who famously (and awkwardly) wrote later, “I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen.”

It’s uncertain whether one planned element will be in place for the show. The Fender Esquire guitar Springsteen holds on the Born to Run album cover is meant to be one of the final artifacts in the show. But before it arrived at the Constitution Center, Springsteen decided he wanted to play it on the Grammy telecast Sunday. It will make the trip from L.A. to Philadelphia this week, but there’s no telling whether the Boss will want it back for his Wrecking Ball tour.

There are key additions to the Philadelphia version of the show. One is New York’s Morrison Hotel Gallery photo exhibit “From Darkness to a Dream,” featuring the work of Springsteen shutterbugs Frank Stefanko and Danny Clinch. Their pictures, including a Stefanko shot of the Boss posing with the Corvette on the snowy streets of Haddonfield in 1978, will be hung outside the exhibit entrance.

The other difference is how the introduction to each section of the show, put together by exhibition developer Erin McLeary, stresses what a political animal Springsteen has always been. (Though the Boss was reluctant to endorse a presidential candidate until he aligned himself with John Kerry with the “Vote for Change” tour in 2004, the exhibit contains a handwritten flier from a 1972 Red Bank, N.J., benefit for George McGovern.)

The Book of Dreams section leads with a pair of Springsteen quotes.

“I’m interested in what it means to be an American. I’m interested in the kind of country that we live in and leave our kids. I’m interested in trying to define what that country is,” he says in a quote from a 2007 interview on 60 Minutes. “I got the chutzpah or whatever you want to say to believe that if I write a really good song about it, it’s going to make a difference. It’s going to matter to somebody, you know?”

In a Today show interview in 2007, Springsteen said: “I try to make music that’s both — you know, you can kind of vacuum the floor to it, or you can sit down and somewhere in there should be a comment on the events of the day. And I like the songs to be read both personally and politically.”

Having an exhibit running in its only East Coast location for seven months, in a year when Springsteen will be touring with the E Street Band behind a new album — the Wrecking Ball tour is due at Wells Fargo Center on March 28 and 29 — also means big news “from a marketing perspective,” Eisner says.

The most popular Constitution Center exhibit thus far was the 2005 show “Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World,” which drew 187,000 visitors.

“We’re being conservative, but we are very excited about box office expectations,” Eisner says. “We’re hoping this takes first place.”

Before Eisner arrived at the center in 2009, it hosted traveling shows less connected to the American experience than this one, focusing on the likes of Princess Diana and Napoleon. That doesn’t mean Springsteen will appear to be a no-brainer to everyone.

“I think there are people who see us promoting an American rock-and-roll star and think, ‘What the heck does this have to do with the Constitution Center?’ ” says Eisner, who jokes that he’s “humble in calling myself a Bruce fan, because I’ve seen maybe 15 shows, and I know so many people in the Philadelphia area who’ve seen 150.

“It’s on the edge where a lot of people will say, ‘This is about freedom of speech, the American Dream, the artist as a protester,’ and others will say, ‘What does rock-and-roll have to do with the Constitution?’ The fact that we’re on that cusp and able to engage in that debate, that’s actually really constructive for us. Because it puts us in a position where we can talk about the extent of the contemporary values of the Constitution, and how it really is relevant in a broader scope of life than people might think.”

It doesn’t bother Eisner, either, that Springsteen — an active campaigner for Barack Obama in 2008 — is a self-styled left-leaning populist.

“There’s no question that he’s staked out a very partisan position on the political landscape. For us, that really is a strong example of the role an artist can play in politics, and I think it’s really interesting that the party he opposes has in many cases embraced his music and used it at rallies,” he says, referring specifically to Ronald Reagan’s attempted coopting of the song “Born in the U.S.A.” in 1984.

“There are so many interesting side tributaries you can go down around this artist with music and politics. It’s the soundtrack of the American story.”

For behind-the-scenes video of the Springsteen exhibition, go to www.philly.com/brucevid

Dan DeLuca Philadelphia Inquirer

In The Times’ appreciation of Clemons, Randy Lewis wrote, “more than once, Clemons’ solos were positioned at the end of a song, rather than stereotypically in the middle, Springsteen’s tacit acknowledgment that having expressed himself in words, Clemons’ job was to express the rest of the feeling that couldn’t be contained in words.”

Previously announced performers for the Grammy Awards include Jason Aldean;  Kelly Clarkson; Glen Campbell with the Band Perry and Blake Shelton; Coldplay with Rihanna; the Foo Fighters; Bruno Mars; Paul McCartney; Nicki Minaj; and Taylor Swift.

The Grammys are determined by about 13,000 voting members. The eligibility period for nominated recordings was Oct. 1, 2010 to Sept. 30, 2011. The 2011 awards will be televised Feb. 12 on CBS-TV from Staples Center in Los Angeles.

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