The Doors, the E Street Band, Patti Smith, Dr. Dre, Dionne Warwick and the Band were honored this past weekend at the fourth annual American Music Honors. Presented by the Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music, the event celebrates artists who have demonstrated artistic excellence, creative integrity and a longstanding commitment to the value of music in our national consciousness.
“I didn’t get the Doors at first,” E Street Band guitarist Steve Van Zandt said during his speech honoring the L.A.-based band. Growing up in New Jersey in the 1960s, he admitted to holding a distinct East Coast prejudice against anything West Coast. “If you didn’t come from the Eric Clapton school of electric guitar playing, you were irrelevant.
“I didn’t get the Doors at first. The truth is their music was just too sophisticated for me to understand.”
— Steve Van Zandt
“The truth is their music was just too sophisticated for me to understand. They’re some of the most cinematic compositions in rock history.”
As an example, he pointed to “Light My Fire,” the group’s breakout 1967 hit. “‘Light My Fire’ alone is all you need,” he said. “Robby Krieger’s chords are insane in this song. The verse is crazy, the chorus is crazy, Ray Manzarek’s intro ties it all together with a simple melody, which is equally crazy. It comes across as a beautiful, flowing, accessible river. Very simple but extraordinarily complicated.”
Jamming was all the rage in the late ’60s, Van Zandt added, but the Doors took a different approach.
“Unlike everybody else, who were just soloing to solo, with the Doors we were witnessing the creation of live cinéma vérité. Their solos were adventurous. The written part of the composition was just the beginning.”
Although Krieger could not attend the event due to an illness in the family, the band’s founding drummer, John Densmore, accepted the award.
During his speech, Densmore recalled the Doors’ first rehearsal, where they jammed on “All Blues” by Miles Davis and a Muddy Waters song. He said he was unimpressed with singer Jim Morrison until Manzarek pulled him aside and handed him some of Morrison’s lyrics — an early version of “Soul Kitchen.” Reading them, he recognized a unique fusion.
“Poetry and rock and roll,” he said. “I’m down!”
The spry 81-year-old drummer later joined Van Zandt and Bruce Springsteen for a loose but reverential take on “Light My Fire.”
“I haven’t played this song since the CYO [Catholic Youth Organization] dance back in 1967,” Springsteen joked.
Patti Smith, meanwhile, acknowledged the importance of legendary ’60s folk guitarist Bobby Neuwirth and playwright Sam Shepard as early guiding lights in her career. Neuwirth, she said, encouraged her to transform her poems into songs.
Her music fused poetry and rock and roll in a way that felt ancient and revolutionary,”
— Bruce Springsteen (on Patti Smith)
“I never thought of that myself,” she explained. “Everything for me was poetry. And it was Sam Shepard who told me I should have some guitar behind me. These two men sent me on my way. And then it was Lenny Kaye who first played guitar for me, and things evolved organically,”
Smith later joined Springsteen for a performance of “Because the Night,” a song they ultimately co-wrote after Springsteen realized he couldn’t find the lyrical voice needed for its emotional center.
“Her music fused poetry and rock and roll in a way that felt ancient and revolutionary,” he said. “It reminds us that music can still be dangerous, it can still be sacred, and it can still be free.”
Jon Landau, who famously declared in 1974, “I have seen the future of rock and roll, and its name is Bruce Springsteen,” inducted the E Street Band.
They are the heartbeat behind some of the most powerful songs ever written. They built the sound that feels like home to millions and millions of people.”
— Jon Landau (on the E Street Band)
“They are the heartbeat behind some of the most powerful songs ever written,” Landau said. “They built the sound that feels like home to millions and millions of people.”
Landau also referenced Tom Morello’s observations about the E Street Band’s sound. The Rage Against the Machine guitarist — and a frequent E Street Band guest — was mystified by what he heard in the records.
“He said to me, ‘These arrangements shouldn’t really work, but they do. And magnificently so.’”
Springsteen also recognized the talents of New Jersey native Dionne Warwick and the immense impact she had on his music.
She was always there at the service of the song and lyric. They are performances that will live forever.”
— Bruce Springsteen (on Dionne Warwick)
“I’ve listened to her music consistently my entire life. She has the most elegant voice in the history of pop music. It is so sophisticatedly sexy, totally singular, deeply original while remaining deceptively casual.
“She was always there at the service of the song and lyric,” he added. “They are performances that will live forever. Most of them are from the greatest partnership between a singer and a writing team in pop music history — Burt Bacharach and Hal David.”
Max Weinberg paid tribute to the Band with an informative speech about their importance to the American music landscape.
“The Band conjured up a musical alchemy, a blend of rhythm and blues, rockabilly, gospel, folk, American work songs, soul, Scottish reels, blues, country and western,” he said. “There was very little they did not incorporate into their music.”
The three-and-a-half-hour show, held at Monmouth University in Long Branch, New Jersey, featured a wide range of memorable musical moments. Flavor Flav and Chuck D raised the energy in the 700-seat theater with a raucous, heavy version of Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power,” complete with Springsteen fist-pumping from the front row.
Steve Earle sang the Doors’ Morrison Hotel classic “Roadhouse Blues,” while Smith offered a sublime take on “The Crystal Ship,” from the group's debut album. Amy Helm — daughter of the Band’s Levon Helm — delivered a soulful performance of the Band classic “Up on Cripple Creek,” joined by drummer Charley Drayton.
Disciples of Soul guitarist Marc Ribler served as the event’s musical director, leading a house band of New Jersey/New York music veterans.
The Springsteen Archives museum is scheduled to open in June with a two-night grand opening concert entitled Music America: The Songs That Shaped Us. The event will feature performances reflecting the diverse history of American music. Artists scheduled to appear include Jon Bon Jovi, Jackson Browne, Jimmie Vaughan, Bruce Springsteen, Steve Van Zandt, Rosanne Cash, Kenny Chesney, Gary Clark Jr., Dion, Tony Trischka and Sister Sadie, Dropkick Murphys, Shemekia Copeland, Valerie June, Keb’ Mo’, Nils Lofgren, Darlene Love, Public Enemy, David Sancious, Mavis Staples, Trombone Shorty and the New Breed Brass Band.
