It's over-written, and the author veers off on some weird film noir-ish tangents, but it has some great quotes. This is my favorite:

"Hey, man," he said. "I don't consider myself a writer, like a novel writer or a poetry writer. Writing songs is just something I do. It's a real, natural, basic urge. The only thing I can compare it to is when you get hungry. You feel it and you do something about it."

I especially love this piece about a Springsteen impersonator who showed up at a Baltimore disco with a chick and a fake bouncer and ran up this big tab. The bar owner grew suspect and called the cops. 

Here's an excerpt from a review of a 1980 Springsteen show a the Capital Centre (full story here):

Springsteen is one of the heroes left in rock. His songs are simple, sometimes even monotonous in their repetition of highway and working-class themes. Springsteen, however, makes them live. He does not so much sing them as inhabit them.

In 1985, Sun writers Jack Dawson and David Simon (the latter of which you may recognize from a certain HBO TV series) did a great article about fans camping out for Springsteen tickets. Here's a link to the piece. Here's an excerpt:

Fans are limited to a purchase of eight tickets each. The tickets are being dispensed by a computer on a first-come, first served basis from several locations simultaneously, including RFK Stadium, the Capital Centre, the Baltimore Civic Center and Hecht Co.'s Ticketcenter outlets.

All 53,306 seats for the event are reserved and cost $18.50, regardless of whether the buyer is in the nosebleed seats or one of 12,000 on the field. A sell-out is predicted within three hours.

See you Friday, Bruce!

(Photos from Baltimore Sun archives)