E Street Shuffle Archive

Talk about a pedigree: Jimmy Reed’s “Big Boss Man” may only have been a modest hit when it was first released in 1960 (it only reached #78 on the Billboard Hot 100, although it made it to #13 on the R&B chart)…

…but it’s been covered in the studio over the years by artists no less than Elvis Presley, B.B. King, The Grateful Dead, Tom Petty, Steve Miller, and Jerry Lee Lewis, to name just a few.

So of course Bruce covered it too, right?

Well, sort of. He’s never “officially” performed it in concert, but if you were lucky enough to be lurking in the Tacoma Dome during the soundcheck for Bruce’s Tunnel of Love Express show on May 6, 1988 (and someone certainly was, because we’ve got the recording), you’d have heard the E Street Band giving “Big Boss Man” their only known recorded run-through.

How in the world The Boss resisted a rock and roll classic that seems tailor-made for him all these years is a question I can’t answer. But at least we have this “unofficial” performance.

Big Boss Man
First performed (soundcheck only)**: May 6, 1988 (Tacoma, WA) Last performed (soundcheck only): May 6, 1988 (Tacoma, WA)