Long before he joined Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, Garry Tallent played his bass guitar to the strains of 1950s rockabilly, R&B and blues that emanated from the radio stations broadcasting near the Jersey shore towns that would one day make he and The Boss’ bandmates world-famous.
Mr. Tallent’s current solo album, “Break Time,” pays homage to that ’50s sound, with Mr. Tallent and his backing musicians not so much covering as channeling the likes of Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry on cuts like “Ooh La La” and “Bayou Love.”
“The album is my homage to the rock ’n’ roll that I fell in love with as a kid,” Mr. Tallent, 67, told The Washington Times via phone before taking the stage at Daryl’s House Club, a juke joint in upstate New York owned by Daryl Hall of Hall & Oats fame. “They’re original songs but arranged in that ’50s rock, New Orleans R&B, Memphis rockabilly [style]. Not doo-wop, but loose.”
Mr. Tallent and his band will take the stage at AMP by Strathmore in North Bethesda, Maryland, Sunday evening, where they aim to recreate the sounds of the era of poodle skirts and leather jackets, but in a contemporary atmosphere.
“No matter how hard I try to duplicate someone’s work, it always comes out filtered through me,” Mr. Tallent said of his original compositions. “So you just [take] what you sound [like] and go with that.”
Unlike the theatrics and first-class accommodations that accompany Mr. Tallent’s globetrotting with Mr. Springsteen, his solo tour is a considerably humbler affair, seeing him playing to hundreds or even dozens versus the rabid thousands that jam stadiums to see his day job gigs.
But there’s no moroseness over the far, far smaller crowds. Rather, Mr. Tallent said, playing to tiny clubs is a humbling throwback to his days of struggle.
“It reminds me of the old days when [The E Street Band] would play these clubs, and instead of having people scream and yell, they’re curious,” he said.
“I like the fact that you have to ’win them over’ instead of walking on stage and it immediately going crazy,” Mr. Tallent said. “That’s nice, but it seems a little shallow sometimes, shall we say. Not that we don’t appreciate people’s enthusiasm, because we do.”
Mr. Tallent, who joined up with Mr. Springsteen while still in high school, left the Garden State for Nashville in 1989. His coterie of backup musicians for his current tour includes a roster of Music City regulars like drummer Jimmy Lester, guitarist Eddie Angel, upright bassist Mark Winchester, pianist and District native Kevin McKendree, as well as husband-and-wife team of multi-instrumentalist Fats Kaplin and vocalist Kristi Rose.
“They’re all great guys, and we’re having a blast,” Mr. Tallent said of his ensemble.
Being able to hand-select his own side band shows just far Mr. Tallent has come since those days struggling to find an audience at The Stone Pony — where Mr. Tallent will perform Friday — and the other roadhouses in Asbury Park, New Jersey, beside Mr. Springsteen, a native of nearby Freehold. (Mr. Tallent was reared in the close-by town of Neptune.)
“The scene was just really a bunch of hippies, and it was very interesting,” Mr. Tallent said of the early-’70s as Mr. Springsteen and his coterie slowly gained traction up and down the Jersey shore. “The first time you’d show up, there’d be five people in the audience, and then next time there’d be 10. And that’s how you build up a following.”
He said bar owners in those days would typically hire bands to bring in crowds in order to boost drink sales. However, smoke breaks and bar patrons sipping on water all night long made the proprietors nervous about their bottom lines.
“So they stopped paying the bands because nobody was drinking,” Mr. Tallent recalls.
The solution was pure capitalism: Charge a dollar at the door for the band’s take, which assured the bars paying customers at the well.
As The E Street Band amassed a following in and around New Jersey, bigger gigs and airplay followed. Mr. Tallent recalls a special evening at The Main Point club in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, on the night of February 5, 1975, that was broadcast live by Philadelphia’s WMMR. For decades the broadcast had only been available on bootleg recordings until the advent of YouTube.
At The Main Point show, Mr. Springsteen and the band rolled through such early works as “Growin’ Up,” “Incident on 57th Street” and even “Born to Run,” the title song of the same year’s album. In between songs, Mr. Springsteen, his voice still nasal with youth, can be heard kibitzing with the crowd, at one point even inviting audience members to the mic to send well wishes out to whomever they choose.
“It was really, romantically speaking, ’the great days,’” Mr. Tallent said, before adding that, fiscally, “they were pretty dismal. But that’s the life of a rock ’n’ roll band.”
While those halcyon days of penury — but with much more life still afore him — are long since gone, Mr. Tallent expresses thanks for not only the tremendous success of Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band, but that he can afford to travel the world as a solo act without an attendant need to work up a large till from which to sup.
“It’s nothing to take too seriously; just have a good time,” Mr. Tallent said of the rockabilly tracks of “Break Time” that he and his band will share with audiences Sunday evening. (No Springsteen songs will be in the set list.)
“Nobody has to analyze any lyrics. Just like the good old days,” he said with a laugh.
Garry Tallent plays the AMP by Strathmore in North Bethesda, Maryland, Sunday at 8 p.m. with opening act Shun Ng. Tickets are $30 to $40 by going to AMPbyStrathmore.com.
• Entertainment Editor Eric Althoff is a New Jersey native. He interviewed E Street Band member “Little Stephen” Van Zandt in March for The Washington Times.
• Eric Althoff can be reached at twt@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.