Talk About a Dream: The Essential Interviews of Bruce Springsteen
*Starred Review* There have been other collections of Springsteen interviews, but this excellent volume is the most up-to-date with 40 interviews beginning with the February 9, 1973, issue of the now-defunct Asbury Park Evening Press and running to his conversation with Robert Santelli at the Grammy Museum in February 2013. Print interviews are matched by transcripts from press conferences and radio and television interviews, including interviews with Scott Pelley and Elvis Costello. Each interview is preceded by a brief introduction that places it in a historical context. The so-called Lost Interviews of 1975, conducted by European journalists, are published here in their entirety for the first time. What is most significant about the anthology is the changes in Springsteen himself, as he matures from a shy and inarticulate leader of a Jersey Shore bar band to the loquacious and intelligent observer of the human condition that he is today. It is a remarkable transformation, and Phillips, the editor and publisher of the Springsteen magazine, Backstreets, and Masur, author of Runaway Dream: Born to Run and Bruce Springsteen’s American Vision (2010), have lovingly put it all together in one amazing volume. A worthy edition to the Springsteen literary canon. --June Sawyers