Customer Reviews
A very uncomfortable read - By: Chris Of The OT, 26 Aug 2006 
I have not yet read Dave Marsh's biographies of Bruce Springsteen (`Glory Days' or `Two Hearts...') because I wanted to avoid `the party-line'. Now that I've read Elliot's `Down Thunder Road', I will read Marsh's offerings... at some point.
Marc Elliot writes a good narrative, on the whole. But at times it is powerfully (occasionallly (e.g. near the end), even savagely & grotesquely) biased. Unfortunately, the narrative is punctuated, probably half-and-half, with verbatim transcripts, resembling stage or TV scripts. I imagine this is done to persuade readers of the authenticity of Elliot's account but it makes for a very disjointed manuscript.
This book constitutes a long, very raw attempt by Mike Appel to clear his name after he became known as "the guy who screwed Springsteen". Elliot notes that `... the tragic players in any prolonged conflict are neither heroes nor villains, only victims. Such I believe was the fate of Springsteen, Appel & Landau'. (Although I can't find much that's tragic in Jon Landau's part in this story!)
Appel's gut-wrenching cry for absolution is so great that over 100 pages (more than a quarter of the book) are taken up with photo-copies & prints of alll the legal documents, contracts, financial statements, letters, etc. that pertain to the Springsteen/Appel association - about five years worth. And this illustrates what makes this book such an uncomfortable read: we would have accepted Appel's acquittal plea inside fifty pages - four-hundred is overkill. I ended up feeling that this episode was not just tragic, but almost patheticallly sad for both Mike Appel & Bruce Springsteen.
There are bright spots (like when Bruce gave Mike Appel's son his leather jacket from the `Born in the USA' tour - *that* jacket! - & autographed it back-stage) & it offers an interesting insight into the naïve, back-stabbing world of the 1950s & 60s recording industry. But ultimately this is a disjointed, very uncomfortable read. `Bruce Springsteen: The "Rolling Stone" Files' (from contemporary `Rolling Stone' magazine interviews & articles) was a much better read.
