Page 30 - ARUBA TODAY

A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Tuesday 11 June 2019
‘Western Stars’ new path for Bruce Springsteen

By GREGORY KATZ characters from Spring-
Associated Press steen’s imagination: the
Bruce Springsteen, “West- failed country music song-
ern Stars” (Columbia) writer, his lyrics rejected at
Bruce Springsteen’s new every turn, the busted up
studio release breaks fresh B-movie stuntman held to-
ground for the veteran gether by rods and pins,
rocker, who turns his back even a rundown hotel with
not only on the blistering an empty swimming pool
sound of the E Street Band with dandelions pushing
but also abandons the up through the cracked
haunting acoustic moods concrete takes on a life of
pioneered on “Nebraska” its own as a character in
and fine-tuned on later solo “Moonlight Motel.”
efforts. But it’s not all heartbreak.
After the soul-searching, There are small celebra-
confessional tone of his tions, too, notably in
best-selling autobiography “Sleepy Joe’s Café,” where
and sold-out Broadway working men and women
show, Springsteen’s “West- can find solace on the
ern Stars” relies on an unfa- dance floor when weekend
miliar orchestral approach comes. It’s a dreamy place
that somewhat masks the where Monday morning is
singer and is devoid of driv- far, far away, and Spring-
ing beats, sax solos and steen has placed it in the
rock ‘n’ roll tropes. In this Nov. 5, 2018 file photo, Bruce Springsteen performs at the 12th annual Stand Up For Heroes context of the postwar
Instead, he draws on the benefit concert at the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York. economic boom that pow-
rich tradition of California- Associated Press ered America for decades:
styled, pre-Beatles pop. presented in a different song stands alone as a self- album opens with “Hitch “Joe came home in ‘45
There are hints of Roy Or- way. He’s paying homage contained story; taken as a Hikin’” and this straightfor- and took out a G.I. loan/
bison’s soaring vocals and to an era when the single whole it’s a panorama of ward image of a loner in On a sleepy little spot an
Brian Wilson’s pocket sym- reigned, and radio airtime loneliness and heartbreak. perpetual motion: “Thumb Army cook could call his
phonies, but the lyrics are went a long way to deter- The protagonists are mostly stuck out as I go/I’m just own/He married May, the
pure Springsteen. Beneath mining an artist’s success men, and mostly beaten travelin’ up the road/Maps highway come in and they
the glossy sheen are the or oblivion, but Springsteen down, but there are oc- don’t do much for me, woke up to find they were
taut narratives, introspec- is not looking for No.1 hits casional whiffs of freedom, friend/I follow the weather sitting on top of a pretty
tion and ambiguous mo- with easy hooks. “Western usually tied to the joys of the and the wind.” It’s a recur- little gold mine.” It’s a nos-
ments familiar to longtime Stars” is understated, with- open road, that most en- ring image dating back to talgic vision, yes, but those
listeners. His storytelling skills out over-the-top orches- during of American myths. the days of Woody Guthrie. roadhouses still exist. You
are as strong as ever, just tration or hyperbole. Each It is no accident that the There are other fully-formed just have to drive a bit.q

Rapper Bushwick Bill of the Geto Boys dies at 52

By The Associated Press new music because, “I no- Can’t Be Stopped” fea-
Bushwick Bill, the diminu- tice when most celebrities tures him on a gurney with
tive, one-eyed rapper who pass, they really don’t have a garish eye wound. Later,
with the Geto Boys helped nothing set up for their chil- he would compare him-
put the South’s stamp on dren and everything’s in self to the horror charac-
rap with hits like “Mind Play- disarray so I figure, old mu- ter Chucky, even writing a
ing Tricks On Me” and “Six sic will sell but if I have new song about it.
Feet Deep,” died on Sun- music for them ... at least On another of the group’s
day at the age of 52, ac- they will have residual in- tracks, “Damn It Feels
cording to his publicist. come from those things.” Good to be a Gangsta,”
Dawn P. told The Associ- The Houston-based Geto he rapped about be-
ated Press that the rapper Boys was a trio consisting of ing a smart gangster who
died Sunday at 9:35 p.m., Bushwick Bill, Scarface and was positioning himself
local time, at a Colorado Willie D that launched in the for success and longevity
hospital. The publicist says late 1980s. Their gritty verses rather than a violent early
the rapper, whose legal punctuated by tales of vio- death. The song was fea-
name is Richard Shaw, was lence, misogyny and hus- tured in Mike Judge’s 1999
surrounded by family when In this March 18, 2016, photo Bushwick Bill, right, joins Deftones’ tling made them platinum workplace satire “Office
he died. Chino Moreno onstage at the SPIN Party at Stubb’s during the sensations and showed Space.”
His Dallas-based business South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas. that rap had strength out- The Jamaica-born rapper
manager, Pete Marrero, Associated Press side the strongholds of New was widely reported to
said the rapper was diag- Bushwick Bill said he wasn’t eye when he was high on York, where it got its start, have died earlier Sunday
nosed with stage 4 pancre- afraid of dying, referenc- drugs. and later Los Angeles. after a bandmate wrote
atic cancer in February. He ing one of his songs, “Ever “I died and came back al- Bushwick Bill was the a post on Instagram sug-
had been planning to go So Clear,” from his 1992 ready on June 19, 1991 so group’s most explosive gesting so, but his publicist
on tour around the time he solo album, where he talks I know what it’s like on the member, and played up had said Sunday afternoon
was hospitalized. about shooting himself in other side,” he said. his real-life chaos: The cov- that those reports were
In an interview with TMZ, the head and losing an He said he was working on er of the Geto Boys “We premature.q