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Steve Van Zandt was born in 1950 in a remote village north of Boston…
He crossed paths with Springsteen in Ashbury Park in the late 60s, long before the Boss took off. He played bass with him in Steel Mill, a band that has now fallen into oblivion…
“Miami Steve” or “Little Steven”, Van Zandt collects nicknames as much as he collects six strings. A prominent member of Springsteen’s E Street Band since 1975, for almost half a century, he brought his electric know-how to the first successes of his friend and employer. Back then, the desire to concoct a more personal project tickled him. This is how the ephemeral Disciples Of Soul were born with the black bassist with the Iroquois crest Jean Beauvoir. “Men Without Women” in 1982, their only album together, remains in my opinion the best of the turbulent guitarist. With titles like “I’ve Been Waiting” and especially “Princess Of Little Italy”. Those who remember Mink DeVille will not contradict me.
Unable to stay in one place for long and a tireless activist, he notably formed Artists United Against Apartheid in 1985. In his fight against segregation in South Africa, he was joined by artists as varied as Bono (U2), Peter Gabriel or Run DMC. Author of seven studio albums with sometimes explicit titles such as “Voice of America” (1984), “Revolution” (1989) or “Born Again Savage” (1999), his fame however goes far beyond the fathers’ thanks to a few appearances in feature films and especially his role as Silvio Dante for the series “The Sopranos” between 1999 and 2007. He plays the childhood friend of Tony Soprano, the mafia boss.
In 2020, in the company of Bruce himself, he recorded “Songs Under Cover, Vol 2”. On the cover of “Drift Away,” a title composed by the Englishman Mike Berry in 1972, he shouted ad libitum, in the same hoarse voice as the Boss: “Give me the beat, boys, and free my soul / I kinda get lost in your rock’n roll and rift away”. For Little Steven, these are more than just lyrics of a song, they are a real credo! Of course, we can criticize Little Steven’s music for its invigorating side, with its abundant brass, a mammoth rhythm and a good dose of electricity, but the 74-year-old guy is built like this today: a heart on his sleeve, an unfailing honesty and sometimes a desire to do too well that harms the subtlety of the message…
