Jim Cullen, blogger and author of Born in the U.S.A.: Bruce Springsteen and the American Tradition, reviews The Promise. He basically concludes that this is Springsteen’s Italian album.
Here is a taste of the review:
More specifically, though, there was an east coast, urban — and, more specifically still, an Italian — strain in Springsteen’s music of the seventies. Ethnically, he’s pure American mutt; “Springsteen” is a Dutch name, but his father was mostly Irish. His mother Adele’s maiden name was Zirilli — Irish/Italian marriages where what passed for multiculturalism in the mid-twentieth century — and it’s his Zirilli side that that decisively shaped his persona. That may be why one influence that hovers over many of the songs in this collection is Dion (as in DiMucci), who enjoyed a string of hits in the late fifties with the Belmonts and as a solo act in the early sixties with songs like “Runaround Sue” and “The Wanderer.” The Promise evokes another Jersey Boy, Frankie Valli, whose work with the Four Seasons is discernible in tracks such as “Gotta Get that Feeling,” even if Springsteen is smart enough not to even try emulating Valli’s unforgettable falsetto.
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