We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions

Released

Springsteen has never taken as many left turns as Dylan: he found a lane early, changed it up enough to keep it interesting, and never made a Christmas or standards album. The Seeger Sessions record is one the biggest and most successful of his detours. It’s not unlike the two back-to-basics folk-song records that Dylan made in the early 90s, except that Springsteen never was a folk singer.  The record is thus a showcase for yet another corner of Springsteen’s vast performative gift: though he might never have set foot in a Greenwich Village coffee house in his youth, he inhabits this selection of antique material (“John Henry,” “Erie Canal,” “Pay Me My Money Down”) like an old hand.  And he brings a savvy as a bandleader that Dylan never had to the table: the E Street Band is absent, but he still whips the “Sessions Band” up into a party over and over again.  His rowdy minor-key version of “O Mary Don’t You Weep,” for instance, shows him at work as an expert arranger.  Where other big-name musicians’ folk turns are more contemplative or “authentic,” Springsteen’s hums with a spirit of festivity and renewed creative energy.

Sean Wood