Springsteen Schools Modern Bands in SXSW Keynote Speech

15 Mar 2012

(AP) Springsteen gives music history lesson at SXSWBy CHRIS TALBOTTAP Entertainment WriterAUSTIN, TexasThey call him The Boss for a reason.

Showing there’s no need for a backing band to bring out his outsized charisma on stage, Bruce Springsteen took a rapt audience on a personal music history journey. He also gave young rockers insightful advice in an often hilarious tour-de-force keynote speech that was one of the most anticipated events at the South By Southwest Music Conference and Festival this year.

The Boss on Thursday takes over Austin. Besides the speech, he’s putting on an exclusive show later in the evening. He got off to an often riotous start as he name-checked all the musicians that have inspired him over theJuanes, the Colombian rock star who saw Springsteen live for the first time just last Friday at The Apollo. He loved Springsteen’s riff on creativity most of all.

Springsteen marveled at the diversity in 21st century pop music, almost rapping a long list of genres that would have boggled the mind of that young boy in New Jersey in the 1960s who had just 10 years of rock `n’ roll history to draw his influences from.

He talked about first seeing Elvis and his pelvis on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” the exquisite agony of Roy Orbison, the way The Beatles, Bob Dylan and The Animals set music free, and the rise of punk rock and soul music as forces of change in the 1970s. He related often hilarious and poignant