I met my wife in New Jersey in the spring of 1973, and one of the first things she did was play me an album by a Jersey kid named Bruce Springsteen. He only had one album at the time, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. — his second album, The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle, wasn’t released until September of that year. I was, of course, impressed, and I’ve been a fan ever since.
Bruce Springsteen is one of those artists for whom I like their early stuff the best. Eric Clapton and Joe Walsh are a couple of others that come to mind. Some artists seem to do their best work when they’re young and hungry. Springsteen’s Born in the USA album marked his ascent to the top of the music world; for me it’s a line of demarcation — my favorite stuff of his is what came before that.
My all-time #1 concert was when we saw Bruce and the E Street Band at McDonough Arena, Georgetown University (Washington DC) on December 6, 1975. The show was part of the Born to Run tour (it had been released that summer), and they played songs from the first 3 albums. They were AMAZING.