Bruce Springsteen is back in Atlanta on Thursday, but just over 22 years ago, he spent some time working here. In February 2002, Atlanta residents were suddenly reporting sightings of the Boss around town.
Springsteen was in town to record much of his 2002 album, “The Rising,” at Southern Tracks studio. The studio, located on Clairmont Road between I-85 and Buford Highway, was demolished in 2022 to make way for a hotel. Among the artists who recorded there are Pearl Jam, Kansas, Fleetwood Mac and Aretha Franklin.
Springsteen has been back to Atlanta many times since then, most recently in 2023, when he played at State Farm Arena.
“A bit grayer than he was last time he was in town, he remained an indefatigable, centrifugal force on stage, emanating enough energy to light up the entire Jersey Shore,” wrote The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Rodney Ho in a review. “His voice remained rock-solid, never wavering from its core purpose: to reach inside the hearts of every attendee and elicit a spectrum of emotions, be it pure joy (’Kitty’s Back’), a wee bit of melancholy (a cover of the Commodores’ ‘Night Shift’) or spiritual inspiration (’The Rising’).”
Now, he’ll be back to headline Vice President Kamala Harris’ first joint rally with former President Barack Obama in Atlanta on Thursday, kicking off a series of concerts in battleground states.
Credit: Robb Cohen for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: Robb Cohen for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Here’s a look back at some of the AJC’s coverage of Springsteen’s fleeting 2002 moment in Atlanta, most of it reported in our Peach Buzz column, followed by our review of the album that resulted.
Published Feb. 6, 2002
Rocker Bruce Springsteen’s local fans are no longer in danger of being detained on stalking charges. After an eight-day stay at the Four Seasons hotel in Midtown, Springsteen has checked out. Before exiting the Olympic City, Springsteen was having dinner with his wife, singer Patti Scialfa, and friends at the hotel’s Park 75 restaurant. He was invited by one fan to check out the restaurant’s prestigious chef’s table in the kitchen presided over by executive chef Kevin Hickey. Springsteen delighted the fans at the chef’s table by popping his head into the kitchen to say hello.
Meanwhile, Springsteen’s E Street Band guitarist Nils Lofgren has confirmed via ESPN Radio that the act has been toiling here, cutting some new tracks. “Last week in Atlanta we got together,” said Lofgren. “It was supposed to be a big secret, but it’s all over every website there is. There were spies in the [recording studio] parking lot when we were down there, from Italy.”
Lofgren says the Atlanta recording dates are “the first step of what would have to be many” before a new album would be completed.
Published Feb. 28, 2002
Those local Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band celebrity sightings could translate into a new studio album from the Boss this fall. The rocker and members of his band, including wife and singer Patti Scialfa, were spotted in town last month dining in and working out in the gym at the Four Seasons hotel in Midtown and recording with local producer Brendan O’Brien at Southern Tracks.
Now, an untitled Springsteen studio project has been added to this fall’s release schedule on the Sony Music Austria Web site. The site has a tentative release date of Oct. 14 for the project.
While folks in Springsteen’s camp and Sony remain tight-lipped about any upcoming release, Springsteen was here likely recording a batch of new songs he’s been performing live, including “My City of Ruins” (from last fall’s post-Sept. 11 televised “A Tribute to Heroes” fundraiser), “American Skin (41 Shots),” “Another Thin Line,” “Land of Hopes,” and “Code of Silence.”
Springsteen rep Marilyn Laverty called us back from the Bronx Wednesday to report, “We have no scheduled release date yet on a new album. The album that’s been worked on is not finished. At this time it would be a disservice to lead anyone to expect a new album on Oct. 14.”
Published June 4, 2002
What Buzz has dutifully reported for months was finally confirmed Monday afternoon — Bruce Springsteen will release his first new studio recording with the E Street Band since 1984 on July 30.
The album, titled “The Rising,” was produced at Southern Tracks in Atlanta by Brendan O’Brien and will include 14 new songs, including an E Street rendition of Springsteen’s Sept. 11 tribute “My City of Ruins.” Other songs familiar to fans posting messages on the internet will include: “Lonesome Day,” “Into the Fire,” “Waitin’ on a Sunny Day,” “Nothing Man,” “Countin’ on a Miracle,” “Empty Sky,” “Mary’s Place” and the title track.
All members of the E Street Band, including Springsteen’s wife Patti Scialfa, keyboardist Roy Bittan, guitarist and “Sopranos” actor Steven Van Zandt, guitarist Nils Lofgren, saxophonist Clarence Clemons and drummer and “Late Night With Conan O’Brien” cohort Max Weinberg, participated in the sessions.
Springsteen sightings in and around Atlanta have been plentiful in recent months, even as reps for the performer deflected questions about his lengthy stays at Midtown’s Four Seasons hotel and reports from Columbia Records that a new project was in the works.
Published June 25, 2002
AOL subscribers got a sneak preview Monday of “The Rising” — Bruce Springsteen’s first single from his new album of the same name — which hits radio stations today and alludes to the 9/11 tragedies.
Springsteen recorded the song and much of the album in Atlanta earlier this year with Atlanta-based producer Brendan O’Brien, who has worked with hard rock bands such as Pearl Jam and Rage Against the Machine. “The Rising,” though, is signature Springsteen, with spiritual lyricism and imagery, plus a hopeful “la la” chorus.
“It sounds great,” says Frank Jaxon, program director for classic rock station Z93, which occasionally plays new songs by “classic” artists like Springsteen. “I like the driving percussion.” Jaxon plans to play “The Rising” as soon as he gets the single today.
The album is scheduled to arrive in stores July 30. “The Rising” will be Springsteen’s first studio album since 1992 and his first effort with the full E Street Band since 1984.
NBC’s ‘’Today’' show will sponsor a live performance by Springsteen and his band in Asbury Park, N.J., July 30, to coincide with the album’s release. The entire three-hour program will be broadcast from there and will feature at least four songs from Springsteen.
Published July 30, 2002
“The Rising”
Bruce Springsteen
(Columbia, 15 tracks)
Grade: A
It’d be a shame if Bruce Springsteen’s rocking new album “The Rising,” out today, became known simply as his 9/11 album. Sure, all but two of the tunes were penned after that fateful day. But their relevance isn’t confined to history.
Fundamentally, “The Rising” is an accomplished meditation on loss that’s applicable for anytime someone faces the absence of a person they risked to love. “Without you/I’m workin’ with the rain fallin’ down/I’m half a party in a one dog town,” Springsteen howls on the gripping “Waitin’ on a Sunny Day.”
Some songs find him vengeful. “I want an eye for an eye,” he declares on the broody “Empty Sky.” But most often he’s hopeful. “This too shall pass/I’m gonna pray,” he sings on the album’s opener “Lonesome Day.”
The sound of the album matches the largely optimistic vibe. The songs rock like nothing the Boss has done since 1987′s “Tunnel of Love.” Chalk this up to two things: the return of the ever-vibrant E Street Band (“The Rising” is Springsteen’s first studio album with the group since 1984) and Atlanta producer Brendan O’Brien, who has worked with alt-rockers Pearl Jam and Rage Against the Machine. O’Brien, who produced the album with the Boss and the gang at Atlanta’s Southern Tracks Recordings, modernizes Springsteen’s sound without changing it. The album feels big but not slick, warm but not insular.
Several of the songs pump and sway like Springsteen classics. “Waitin’ on a Sunny Day,” for instance, offers the same catchy sing-a-long rush as “Hungry Heart” or “Glory Days.”
But the strength and importance of the album is not just the music or even the songs of loss. It’s the conscience and humanity that Springsteen is returning to pop music. Where most current chart toppers — from whining rockers to boastful rappers — can’t see beyond their own pain, pleasures and material obsessions, Springsteen tries to empathize with others. When he sings of lovers facing empty beds or desolate houses, he makes it clear that their loss is our loss.
On “Paradise” he even tells the story of an impending marketplace massacre from the point of view of a young female suicide bomber. His point isn’t to sympathize, but rather to expose the humanity at the root of even the most seemingly inhumane behavior. The bomber, like the rest of us, is simply trying to find her own paradise.
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