The River (1980)

The River is the fifth studio album by the American singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen, released as a double album on October 17, 1980, through Columbia Records. The album was Springsteen's attempt to capture the E Street Band's live sound on record. Co-produced by Springsteen, his manager Jon Landau, and bandmate Steven Van Zandt, the recording sessions lasted 18 months in New York City from March 1979 to August 1980. Springsteen originally planned to release a single LP, The Ties That Bind, in late 1979, before deciding it did not fit his vision and scrapped it. Over 50 songs were recorded, with outtakes being released as B-sides, or on compilation albums.

The River is a heartland rock and rock and roll record with a live garage-band sound, combining party songs with introspective ballads. The lyrics expand on the themes of Springsteen's previous albums Born to Run (1975) and Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978) and mainly focus on love, marriage, and family. Springsteen took inspiration from the writer Flannery O'Connor for the characterizations. The cover photograph of Springsteen was taken by Frank Stefanko, who also took the front cover photograph of Darkness on the Edge of Town.

The River became Springsteen's first album to top the Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart in the US and was his fastest-selling album yet. It was also a commercial success elsewhere, topping the chart in Canada and Norway, and reaching number two in the UK. It spawned several singles, including "Hungry Heart", a US top ten, "Fade Away", and "The River". Springsteen and the E Street Band supported the album on The River Tour from October 1980 to September 1981.

Upon release, music critics praised the songwriting, the performances of the E Street Band, and the lyrical evolution, while others believed Springsteen was recycling old material and lacking in creativity. In later decades, The River has been regarded as one of Springsteen's finest works, although many critics remain divided on the album's consistency. It has appeared on best-of lists, while several songs foreshadowed the direction Springsteen took on his next album, the solo effort Nebraska (1982). The River was reissued as an expanded box set in 2015, featuring the scrapped single LP, The Ties That Bind, and a documentary detailing the album's making.

Background

Bruce Springsteen supported his fourth studio album Darkness on the Edge of Town on the Darkness Tour from May 1978 to January 1979, performing with the E Street Band – Roy Bittan (piano), Clarence Clemons (saxophone), Danny Federici (organ), Garry Tallent (bass), Steven Van Zandt (guitar), and Max Weinberg (drums). Upon the tour's completion, he began preparations for his next studio record. Having grown closer with the E Street Band during the tour, he wanted his fifth album to be a "band" album, one that captured the feel of the band playing on stage. Springsteen stated: "I wanted to cut some music that felt very explosive. I wanted a record that combined the fun aspect of what the band did along with the story I was telling. Find a way to combine those things and create a bigger picture of what we did out in front of the people."

Rehearsals took place with the E Street Band during the early months of 1979 at a studio inside Springsteen's home in Holmdel, New Jersey. Springsteen wrote both new material and had an assortment of pre-written tracks either already recorded in the studio during the Darkness sessions or performed live on the tour, including "Independence Day", "Point Blank", "The Ties That Bind", "Ramrod", "Drive All Night", and "Sherry Darling". Springsteen used the Byrds as the basis for several songs, specifically their use of harmony vocals to unite the band as a whole. According to the author Peter Ames Carlin, the new material picked up where Darkness left off, being influenced by early rock and roll and country records, with stories capturing "snapshots of the real world as viewed through the hopes, labors, fears, joys, and strugglers of the unheralded many". Songs that took shape during this time included "Be True", "Hungry Heart", "I Wanna Be with You", "Bring on the Night", and "Roulette", which was written as a response to the Three Mile Island accident and foreshadowed Springsteen's future as a politicized singer-songwriter.