Music

To be truthful, I wasn’t looking forward to this. Springsteen’s last two – ‘The Rising’ and ‘Devils And Dust’ – were professional, occasionally brilliant affairs, but also deathly dry and at times downright depressing. How drearily worthy, then, would he render an album of songs associated with folk martyr Pete Seeger, a black hole of anti-fun who famously attacked Dylan’s cables with an axe after he went electric at Newport?

In fact, ‘We Shall Overcome…’ is Bruce’s most musically uptempo album since ‘Born In The USA’, a jaunty, uproarious affair in which Bruce and a bunch of musos throw a boozy party to celebrate America’s weird old music. Gunslinging ode ‘Jessie James’ crackles with vim and juice; gorgeous spiritual ‘Oh, Mary, Don’t You Weep’ whips along like something by the Sugababes, while the brassy ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ comes off like a New Orleans jazz funeral march. When Bruce lets rip on ‘John Henry’ his voice – never previously imbued with much authority – shows new maturity, rasping like Dylan, but with a joyous liveliness. This is a terrific album – Springsteen’s ‘Basement Tapes’ – full of happiness,  resilience, wit and liberation. One can’t help but wonder what Pete Seeger makes of it all.