BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN • Only The Strong Survive • DoLP

It was a surprise when Bruce Springsteen announced a new album with the E Street Band in September 2020 for October of the same year. And it was the same two years later when the 73-year-old announced a new collection of soul classics.

For the first time in his long career, the Boss has worked with other people's compositions over the length of an album. On "We Shall Overcome - The Seeger Sessions", Springsteen paid tribute to Pete Seeger and original American folk music with a large band almost 20 years ago. So it seems only logical that the man from New Jersey should dedicate his second project with cover versions to a musical area that is at least as important and influential: the soul music of the 60s and 70s. The unofficial soundtrack to the black civil rights movement in the USA.

Back in 2012, Bruce Springsteen explained what the soul music of this period meant to him: "It was a music of gritty determination. A music of the blues, the church, the earth and the sex-soaked sky. It was a sweaty music of sodden demands for pleasure and respect. It was music for grown-ups, made healthy by soul men and women - not teen idols."

Bruce Springsteen now pays his respects to precisely these soul men and women with "Only The Strong Survive". Stax and Motown classics by Jerry Butler, the Four Tops, Diana Ross & The Supremes and many more. Springsteen celebrates these hits together with his long-time producer Ron Aniello, who was also responsible for the majority of the instrumentation this time. Also featured are guest vocalist Sam Moore and the horn section of the E Street Horns, as well as string arrangements by Rob Mathes and backing vocals by Soozie Tyrell, Lisa Lowell, Michelle Moore, Curtis King Jr, Fonzi Thornton and Dennis Collins.