Springsteen 1988

LA Sports Arena, California 1988 is a live album by Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band with The Horns of Love, released in July 2015 and the sixth official release through the Bruce Springsteen Archives.

The Tunnel of Love tour again? That’s surely a sentiment some are expressing with this month’s release of New York 5/16/88, the outstanding opening night performance from the final, five-show stand on the US leg of the 1988 tour.

Folkways: A Vision Shared - A Tribute To Woody Guthrie & Leadbelly is a 1988 all-star tribute album to the music of Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly, featuring covers by Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, U2, Fishbone and others. This was released by Columbia Records.

Like Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Neil Young and a few others, Bruce Springsteen transcends the boundaries of the musical genre in which one would try to encase him. Over the years, the New Jersey kid has become a symbol, both musical and ideological. Following in the footsteps of his idol Dylan, the Boss embarked on often poignant snapshots of this crumpled star banner, of the often abused American dream, in short the chronicle of an America on the fringes, of which he remains one of the most sparkling ambassadors… Few musicians have an aura as developed with their audience as he does. Since the beginning of his career in the mid-70s, he has not stopped touring, tirelessly filling stadiums and the largest halls in the world. In his early 60s, the Boss always puts so much soul into his concerts and on record, which explains the constant interest that his many fans have.

The Tunnel of Love Express Tour's five-show station stop in Los Angeles wraps with this peak '88 performance on April 28. The core Tunnel setlist, including "Be True," "Brilliant Disguise," "Tougher Than The Rest," "I'm A Coward" and "Part Man, Part Monkey," has never sounded better. An irresistible encore features Arthur Conley's "Sweet Soul Music" and a deserving homage to Northwest garage rock, as Bruce covers The Sonics' "Have Love, Will Travel." Rarer still and even more meaningful is the seminal cover of Ry Cooder's majestic masterpiece, "Across The Borderline," the sound of which echoes through Springsteen's writing ever since.

Bruce Springsteen once said he intended to make an album with words like Bob Dylan that sounded like Phil Spector where he sang like Roy Orbison, a nifty summary of many, but not all, of his artistic ambitions and a key to his appeal. Unlike any other singer/songwriters saddled with the appellation of "the new Dylan" in the early '70s, Springsteen never hid how he was raised on '60s AM radio.