- [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided by Panonica Foundation, Judy and Peter Blum Kovler Foundation, Ascension Seton, bp America, Laura and John Beckworth, St.

David's HealthCare, and by, and also by... A complete list of funders is available at aptonline.org and livefromlbj.org.

- I knew who I was.

I'd been playing long enough.

I knew who I didn't want to be.

And the first time I called my mom, I got a record.

They said, "What'd you change your name to?"

(group laughing) So, I didn't change it, you know?

So, that was important to me.

It was important to me to represent myself as who I was and where I came from.

(epic music) (epic music continues) (upbeat music) - Welcome to the LBJ Presidential Library.

I'm Mark Updegrove.

Since the Library was dedicated by our 36th president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, over a half a century ago, it has hosted some of the biggest names and best minds of our day to discuss our nation's rich history and the issues of our times.

Now we bring those conversations straight to you.

Tonight is part two of our interview with Bruce Springsteen at the newly opened Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music at Monmouth University in New Jersey.

We're also joined by music historian, Bob Santelli, the Springsteen Center's founding director.

Springsteen and Santelli discuss what characterizes American music, the performers who have influenced Springsteen, and their mission to inspire new generations of American musicians.

Bob, welcome.

Bruce, welcome back.

- How you doing?

- We are here at the Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music on the campus of Monmouth University in your native New Jersey, Bruce.

And we're just a stone's throw from where you wrote "Born to Run".

We're in the same county where you were born and raised.

What does New Jersey mean to you?

(Bruce laughing) - That's a tough one.

(Mark laughing) I guess when I was a kid, it was just a place to get away from.

Grew up in a little town, Freehold, your classic sort of provincial small town America.

Moved to the Jersey Shore, played my guitar and really hadn't been out of the country till I had a record deal and was 24 years old.

I'd driven across the country many times.

Now, of course, it's where I live, it's my home.

It's deeply my home.

I'm deeply connected to it here.

And lived in California part of each year for a while.

That was okay.

I like California.

- Mm.

- I learned a lot.

I wrote a lot of music about the West.

But at the end of the day, when we had to decide where our children were gonna grow up and how they were gonna grow up, we moved back to New Jersey.

We had a big family here.

They grew up around aunts, uncles, cousins, like I did when I was living on my little street where we had five houses in Freehold.

So, it's you, it's who you are.

It's in your bones.

It's in your blood.

It's a part of everything you think, say, and do.

- Mm.

- So, it's very important to me.

- And Jersey's important to you too, Bob.

You're a native New Jerseyan.

This is your alma mater.

- It is.

That's right.

- And when you first came to school here, you saw a band fronted by Bruce Springsteen - That's right.

- in your orientation week.

You've known Bruce for over 50 years.

What were your impressions of that band that you saw during your orientation?

- I had heard about the band before I saw it.

And because Bruce played - Yeah.

- in a band called Steel Mill.

And Steel Mill was, by far and away, the best band that had ever happened on the Jersey Shore.

And he was a local celebrity.

And I think it was maybe during my freshman orientation, which was pretty amazing that the band Steel Mill was playing.

I thought this was a pretty cool school to go to.

But I'd always known that I had seen him more than once after that.

And he became our hope here because as Bruce was saying before, we wanted to get out of Jersey.

- Mm.

- The thing was to go to the Promised Land, California.

And I was a surfer and I wanted to go to California.

That was it.

But when he came out with Greetings From Asbury Park, New Jersey, it gave us a sense of pride that I don't think any of us ever had before.

It felt like he represented us.

The music was about us.

He wrote about local characters here, right here on the shore.

And that meant a lot to us.

It certainly meant a lot to me, personally.

I felt for the first time, proud to say I was from New Jersey.

- Mm.

- And for me, it was just a deep sense of my identity.

- Yeah.

- When I made my first record, the company originally wanted me to say I was a New York artist.

- Mm.

- And if you go to the greetings from Asbury Park and look at the picture on the back, - Yeah.

- I'm standing in front of the ocean.

- Yeah.

- The ocean was put in later.

That picture was taken in New York City.

- [Mark] Really?

(Bruce laughing) - Yeah.

- I know that picture.

Wow.

- That picture was taken on a corner in New York City somewhere.

But then I found that postcard and I said, wait a minute.

I'm from New Jersey.

I'm from Asbury Park.

I brought it to the record company.

And thank God, there was a guy named John Berg who was the head of the art department.

And he looked at it and said, "Yeah, this is great."

(Mark chuckles) And somehow, the ocean got put in on the background, picture in the back.

(Mark and Bob laughing) - But that took great courage at the time.

- Yeah.

- Because here he is, he's a brand new artist.

You don't really tell people at Columbia Records, "This is how I want it to be."

They tell you usually.

I always thought that took great courage on your part.

- I knew who I was.

I'd been playing long enough.

I knew who I didn't want to be.

And first time I called my mother, mom, I got a record.

They said, "What'd you change your name to?"

So, I didn't change it.

(Mark and Bob laughing) So, that was important to me.

It was important to me to represent myself as who I was and where I came from.

- But you're a kid.

You're in your early 20s, 25 years old.

How do you have that sense of identity at that age?

- I don't know.

I just did.

(laughs) - Huh.

- I just did.

- So, you're synonymous with New Jersey.

And Asbury Park.

But Asbury Park is broader than just Bruce Springsteen.

There was a music scene in Asbury Park that existed before you came on scene.

- Oh, yeah.

- What is the history of Asbury Park as it relates to music?

- Well, at Springwood Avenue and the West Side where there was incredible music made and there were jazz, great jazz players coming in, there were soul groups coming in, a place called the Orchid Lounge.

So, before my entry on the Asbury Park scene, Asbury Park had a rich Black musical culture, all down Springwood Avenue and on the west side of town.

So, I came in and just bumped around in the local bars and happened to catch people's attention and became synonymous with the city and the state.

- Mm.

Bob, you got to know Bruce as a journalist.

You got into music journalism.

How did you come to know Bruce?

- I don't know if he remembers this, but he would play on occasion in a small coffee house up in Red Bank.

Which not far from the- - Off Broadway.

It was called Off Broadway.

- No, Off Broad Street.

- Off Broad Street.

- Yeah, Off Broad Street.

- Off Broad Street.

Right.

- And I had just, a couple years earlier, I had moved down from West New York, New Jersey.

And we moved down to the shore.

I joined a band right away.

And coffee houses were kind of a hip thing, at least on the shore at the time.

There was one in my hometown in Point Pleasant Beach called Room Two.

I played there.

But we had heard of this coffee house in Red Bank.

And a group of us, I didn't know, really know the area.

I went up.

And I had always been telling people, I just love this guy, Tim Buckley.

And no one knew Tim Buckley down on the shore.

I knew it because I'd go to the village whenever I could as a young kid, just kind of soaking up the scene of music.

And walk in Off Broad Street, he's playing a Tim Buckley song.

- Yeah.

(Mark chuckles) - And I couldn't believe it.

And I went up to him for 10 seconds and, wow, man, you know Tim Buckley?

"Yeah, I like Tim Buckley."

Oh, I'm a deep Tim Buckley fan.

- Yeah.

- He was really influential on me around late 6, mid, late '60s.

- Yeah.

And that's what it was.

- He was incredible musician.

- Bruce, this center captures American music.

How do you characterize American music?

Where do you begin?

- It's everything.

You got to go back to the beginning of the blues and cotton fields in the South.

And of course, the wellspring of so much of American music is African American culture.

- Mm.

- Rock and roll, jazz, blues, everything.

That's where it came from.

And so, the center, and Bob does a really good job of exploring the roots of American music, showing the contributions that were made by both people who were well-known and people who were not so, - Mm.

- not celebrated.

- [Bob] Yeah.

- So, for me, the center, fundamental importance is as an educational center.

- Yeah.

- And I look forward to people being able to experience it.

- Bob, who tends to get forgotten in the story of American music?

- Too many to count.

We focus on celebrity and hit records.

- Yeah.

- Very often, some of the best artists don't make hit records.

They don't have massive tours.

And you have to dig deep sometimes to find them.

Today, especially because with the internet, there is just an avalanche of music almost every day that's available to young people.

They can't sometimes.

They have no clue how to find what is really authentic and what is really meaningful, what would be meaningful to their lives.

I hope the center essentially allows them to be a portal for great music.

I want to teach them how to listen for great music, how to understand artists who they can appreciate and find meaning in their lives by listening to those songs.

So, it's just here.

As Bruce said, it's gonna be a pilgrimage site for Bruce fans.

- Yeah.

- There's no question about it.

But I think the most important thing for me here on the twilight of my career, I want to make sure that, not just his, but American music is available for people who want to learn about it and then have it be brought into their lives in a meaningful way.

And I'm talking about young kids.

- Yeah.

- I mean, the thing that will make me most happy are a bunch of school buses outside and kids coming through those exhibits, and watching the movies that we made so that they get an understanding.

And music becomes as important to them as it was for me as a kid.

- Black artists tend to get forgotten in the story of marriage, particularly country music, for instance.

They don't- - Right.

- Until recently gotten the credit that they've deserved for the evolution of country music.

Who are the Black artists who influenced you, Bruce?

- Well, I was a rock and roll kid.

So, of course, initially, it was Little Richard, the real king of rock and roll.

The greatest voice, the greatest, in my opinion, the greatest rock and roll voice that ever existed.

I had the pleasure of being at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame one night while Richard was introduced, - Mm.

- was inducting Otis Redding, I think.

And he stood at the podium and he's got a whole thing going on.

But in the middle of it, he starts to sing.

And the minute he started to sing, you simply, you realized you were in the presence.

You were just in the presence, one of greatness.

(Mark chuckles) True greatness.

♪ I can't help my baby ♪ - He said, "Ooh, Richard, I just love... ♪ My baby ♪ ♪ Ah, baby ♪ ♪ Woo ♪ (indistinct) ♪ Woo ♪ - And the essence of rock and roll music, just that incredible, you know.

- What is it about the voice of Little Richard that captures you?

- It's just tonight, it was just the rawness and thrill, sexuality, the transgressiveness of it.

Just all those wonderful, wonderful elements.

And then, of course, for me, there was the sole artist, Sam and Dave.

I knew Sam more quite well, one of the most incredible band leaders of all time.

James Brown, I had the pleasure of sitting in with James Brown - Mm.

- one night in Los Angeles.

Just there's just a wealth of, such a wealth of talent that were really influential on me that came out of the African American community.

- When you came up, Bruce Springsteen was the new Dylan.

- Right.

- What does Bob Dylan mean to you?

- Oh, Bob's the best.

I always say, I always call him the father of my country because when I heard Bob, it was the first time I really heard a vision of America with the veil pulled back - [Mark] Mm.

- I said, Yeah, that's the place that I live.

- Mm.

- That's the country I live in.

And so, Bob was an incredible mentor and like an older brother to me.

- Mm.

- I can't overemphasize his importance in my life and in my work.

- Bob, where does Bruce Springsteen fit into the story of American music?

- When I went to Bruce first with the idea of creating this place and I went out there, and you probably remember when I walked Jon Landau, and we went out there, and John said to me, he said, "Tell him."

(chuckles) And I said, okay.

(group laughing) And so, I started to, I had just done the Woody Guthrie Center, and I said, I wanted to do this.

And he stopped me, after listening intently, and he said, "I'm humbled by this, but the story is a bigger story than mine."

He said something to the effect of, "I'm like a chapter in this ongoing story of American music.

If you could make it about that and me being a part of that, then I'd be interested in that."

- Mm.

- And it was right then and there that I, we came up with the concept of, let's broaden the mission of what we want to do.

Because after all, as he knows, he, and living in New Jersey, very fortunate, he could drink from a variety of musical wells here.

There was available - Mm.

- to him, soul, gospel, blues.

We had a place called Convention Hall on the boardwalk, not far from here in Asbury Park, where we would get to see tons of bands every summer.

It was like going to college for popular music.

- [Bruce] Well, you could see the Four Tops one week, - Yeah.

- The Temptations the next week, Smokey Robinson the week after that.

The Rolling Stones.

Yeah, The Doors, The Who, everybody came.

If you look at a poster for who was coming through - That's right.

- over the course of one summer, it will simply just blow your mind.

The artists that were coming through Asbury Park at that time.

- So, it was a stop between New York and Philly.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, yeah.

And we were so lucky.

Nobody in the country outside of New York, the major metropolitan areas, but we had this here on the shore.

- Yeah.

- It was incredible.

Half of those bands you saw, as did I. We got to see The Doors.

- Yeah.

- We got to see Led Zeppelin.

- Oh yeah.

- We got to see... I know you didn't get to see The Stones.

- Didn't see them.

The groups I saw at the convention, I saw The Doors, I saw The Who on their first tour - Yeah.

- of America.

And it was just something.

It was incredibly inspirational.

- Let me go back to another inspiration for you.

Reading your memoir, "Born to Run", when you first saw Elvis Presley on "The Ed Sullivan Show", and it is a riveting passage in the book.

Talk about that moment and what it meant to you.

- I don't know.

It's funny because I go back now, I realize I was such a little kid.

I was probably only six or seven.

But it still galvanized me.

And the base, the fundamental thing, I said, wow, there's a world bigger than my hometown."

- Hmm.

- You know?

And as I grew older, I realized it's a world that you can be a part of.

- Hmm.

- You know?

That you can have... That you can act in and have impact in.

And you are not, where you are not, where the boundaries of your social status and standing, where they can be exceeded.

And you can be freed from just your small provincial life at the time- - You felt that accessibility as a little kid in Freehold, New Jersey?

- I don't think, I don't think.

The only thing I knew at that, when I first saw this, was I want a guitar.

- Yeah.

(group laughing) - That was all, I didn't know any of this stuff.

This is all in hindsight.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(Bruce laughing) - At the time, all I knew was, I like that.

I want a guitar.

That was it.

- Turns out that's all you need.

- That was it.

So, it was a good start.

- Bob, you've got a list of accomplishments in the music industry as long as my arm, and including being involved in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the the beginning of the Grammy music.

What will make this different than those institutions?

- Well, I think for me, this is both personal and professional.

- Mm.

- Professional because I feel that a center like this is necessary in America.

We should have a Smithsonian history of American music.

That's a sin that we don't want.

It's our most precious cultural resource, in my opinion.

And it's personal for me because I'm from Jersey.

I grew up on the Jersey Shore.

I went to Monmouth and I wrote his coattails as a journalist.

- Mm.

- I had access to him when perhaps others didn't.

I got a chance to write a book with him, a book called "Songs We Did Together".

And for me, it's kind of like full circle.

I think you get a point, there's a point in your life where you feel necessary to give back, to do something useful with all the opportunities and luck that you had in your life.

And for me, that's what this is.

This is, of all the ones, this is my ninth museum.

It's hard to believe - Mm.

- when I think about it, but this is the, by far and away, the most important.

It touches my heart.

- Yeah.

- I had to leave my family for three years to come here and do this.

- And I think ultimately, one of the differences is this is gonna be primarily a cultural, an educational center.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Right now, I got my place and my fans will come, and that's great, but I think as time passes by, - Yeah.

- [Bruce] and my own relevance will certainly decrease, this building and its mission will always be here.

- That's right.

Yeah.

- So, that's something unique and special about the place.

- What do you want, you talked about the educational component.

What do you want people, particularly young people, to take away from the experience they get here?

- Oh, they're gonna come in, they're gonna get a sense of American culture, American music.

Culture shapes the nation.

Culture empowers you.

So, they're gonna get a sense of American history.

- [Mark] Mm.

- And their place in it.

I would like it to inspire them to think about their place in it.

And to see all of these acts, the majority of them, people who came from nowhere - Mm.

- with nothing.

Almost everybody in this building - Yeah.

- came from nowhere with nothing.

- Yeah.

- So true.

- So, I would like them to leave with a tremendous feeling that there's a sense of opportunity out there.

- Bob, what is under this roof?

What does this institution house?

- Yeah.

This is basically the story of America.

And the story of a person who came up through American music and continues the tradition of some of the most important storytellers in American music history, like Woody Guthrie (Bruce coughs) and Bob Dylan, Robert Johnson, Hank Williams, and others.

(Bruce coughs) And as Bruce said, he comes from nothing and he has opportunity through music.

There are kids who dream the same dreams he dreamt when he was a boy.

And I like to hear those dreams.

I want them to go through the exhibits that we have, and not just the exhibits.

This is gonna be a place that's a very active experience.

We're sitting on a stage right here, which during the evenings when the museum exhibits are closed, comes alive with lectures, film series, conversations with artists.

It's meant to be an educational experience, not just for kids, but for adults who want to further appreciate and understand the music that's meant so much to them.

This is the place to be.

There's no place like this.

- Yeah.

- No place like this in our area here on the East Coast, for sure.

And I want to make it so that it becomes a vital part of the national music's landscape.

- One of the things that's gonna be under this roof are the archives of Bruce Springsteen.

The creative process that you see from Bruce througho the course of his career.

But you've seen that process up close, Bob.

What does that look like?

What does Bruce's creative process look like?

- I had always wanted, back in the day, I always wanted to do a book about Bruce Springsteen, right?

Or with him.

And I didn't get the chance because in 1995, I had moved to Cleveland to open up the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

And I kind of, I had given up on the idea.

I was start, I left music journalism, and I was starting this new career as a music museum curator.

And so, about six or seven months into it, I got a call from my agent, who at the time was also Bruce's agent.

And she said, "Bruce wants to do a book.

Why don't you come back and help him with it?"

And I couldn't believe it.

I was like, I live in Cleveland.

And she said, "Well, come back on weekends."

So, I came back for about eight months or so on weekends.

I'd fly back and then I'd go right from Newark Airport to Bruce's house.

And for the weekend, I'd interview him.

And then, I would transcribe it, and I'd come back the next weekend and we'd work on it.

The thing that I found incredible was his attention to detail.

I'd never forget this one point where we were, we were looking at some of the sentences, and it must have been like five minutes where he was contemplating whether we should use a period or a semi-colon here.

And I'm thinking, oh my god, this is how this guy makes records.

No wonder why they took a long time back then.

But I was just struck by how much he put into it.

And I got to see that.

And he didn't do another book until he wrote his own.

And I don't know if anyone else got that inside look from a journalist point of view.

Not from music, but from writing, that I did.

- Bruce, you alluded to a famous quote from your longtime manager, Jon Landau, before he was your manager, when he was a critic, who wrote a review of you, and said, "I've seen the future of rock and roll and his name is Bruce Springsteen."

(Bruce chuckles) - Yeah.

- That was over 50 years ago.

As you look at the future of not just rock and roll, but of popular music, what do you see?

- I don't know.

That's the excitement and charm of it.

- Yeah.

- There's always gonna be a kid in his garage, either with a guitar or a computer, or.

And that's where all of this comes from.

- Yeah.

- Everything that these corporations were built around were built around some kid in Kansas or in New Jersey in his guitar, I mean, in his garage with an instrument of some sort.

So, that's never gonna change.

That's the bedrock of where all of this comes from.

- [Bob] Yeah.

- Bruce Springsteen, Bob Santelli, thank you.

And congratulations on the opening of the Bruce Springsteen Center for- - Thanks a lot.

- Thank you.

All right.

(Bruce chuckles) (epic music) (epic music continues) (epic music continues) - [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided by Panonica Foundation, Judy and Peter Blum Kovler Foundation, Ascension Seton, bp America, Laura and John Beckworth, St.

David's HealthCare, and by, and also by... A complete list of funders is available at aptonline.org and livefromlbj.org.

(no audio) (flute music) (bright music)