On Sept. 16, 1967, a 17-year-old Bruce Springsteen belted out a powerhouse Sam & Dave soul song to a room full of New Jersey teenagers. Still playing with his high-school band, The Castiles, he showed off a musical range that offered an early glimpse of the rock legend he would become.
At the Castiles Live at Left Foot show, Springsteen and his young band moved between Jimi Hendrix, Donovan, Moby Grape, the Yardbirds, The Beatles, Leonard Cohen, and Southern soul. Handling lead vocals and guitar on most of the songs, Springsteen was the focal point. But one song in particular really gave him a platform to shine.
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Sam & Dave’s 1966 soul anthem, “Hold On, I’m Comin’,” which has quite the inspired origin story, became one of the duo’s signature songs, peaking at No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 and climbing all the way to the top of the R&B chart. Not bad for a Stax classic inspired by a trip to the bathroom.
According to American Songwriter, songwriter/producer David Porter was using the gentleman’s when songwriting partner Isaac Hayes hurried him up. Porter’s response, “Hold on, man, I’m coming,” then became the basis for their next great song. Porter later recounted the same story himself, explaining that the exchange took place at Stax Studios and immediately sparked the song’s title.
In 1988, the song was even named among Rolling Stone’s Best 100 Songs of the Last 25 Years.
That night at the “over 13, under 18” club in Freehold, New Jersey, the club’s manager and St. Peter’s priest, Fred Coleman, captured Springsteen’s performance on a reel-to-reel tape recorder. The surviving recording offers a rare glimpse of Springsteen during his teenage garage-band years, long before he became a household name.
It would be another six years before Springsteen released his solo debut, Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J., in 1973. By then, the high schooler who once sang Sam & Dave songs at a teen club was on his way to becoming one of rock’s biggest stars.
Fast-forward to 2009, Springsteen famously returned to “Hold On, I’m Comin’,” performing the soulful anthem with Sam Moore and the E Street Band at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s 25th Anniversary Concert at Madison Square Garden. A masterclass of translating Stax rhythm and blues into high-octane E Street energy, the performance was one for the books.
Springsteen has long spoken about the deep connection between rock and soul music along the Jersey Shore, where he came of age, saying that soul was essential to the local scene.
“There are just places where they cross over. The intensity,” he explained to NPR. “Where it connected for us was that soul music was very popular along the Shore. … If you had a set where you didn’t play any soul music, it was almost impossible. You couldn’t survive on Saturday night. People wanted to hear “Hold On, I’m Comin’.”
And they still do.
Related: 1971 Soft Rock Smash, Forever Linked to ‘Urban Cowboy,’ Gave a Band Its Final Top 10 Hit
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