Fifty Years of ‘Makin’ This Guitar Talk: A Bruce Springsteen Forum

Please Note that tickets including lunch are no longer available. You will still be able to purchase lunch separately at the Student Center during the forum or go off campus on your own.

As a young child in the 1950s, Bruce Springsteen saw Elvis Presley perform on The Ed Sullivan Show, turned towards his mother and said, “I wanna be just…like…that.” It wasn’t until he was a teenager in 1964, however, during the first summer after the British Invasion began to transform U.S. popular culture, that Springsteen took his first serious steps towards a life in music. According to Peter Ames Carlin’s biography BRUCE, that summer he used money earned from painting his aunt’s house to purchase an $18 acoustic guitar, a copy of 100 Greatest American Folk Songs and then “committed himself to mastering the instrument.” Fifty years have passed since that fateful summer, and Bruce Springsteen is now one of popular music’s most beloved, significant and enduring artists.

The Friends and Monmouth University will sponsor a unique Springsteen-themed forum entitled in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Bruce Springsteen’s first major steps towards becoming a professional musician.
The structure of the forum will be centered around a series of moderated panel discussions on various Springsteen-related topics, allowing the audience to hear from and interact with a variety of authors and scholars. As of this writing, the confirmed panelists who will be in attendance are:

Jim Beviglia, Author, Counting Down Bruce Springsteen: His 100 Finest Songs

Kenneth Campbell, Monmouth University, Author, “Bruce Springsteen, Songs From The Rising, Introduction” to published in Western Civilization in a Global Context: The Modern – Sources and Documents.

Jonathan D. Cohen, University of Virginia, Managing Editor, BOSS: The Bi-Annual Online Journal of Springsteen Studies

Donna M. Dolphin, Monmouth University, Contributor, Bruce Springsteen, Cultural Studies, and the Runaway American Dream and Associate Producer, Asbury Park Musical Memories Part 1

Stan Goldstein, Co-Author, Rock & Roll Tour of the Jersey Shore and Blogger, NJ.com

Jean Mikle, Co-Author, Rock & Roll Tour of the Jersey Shore and Contributor, Asbury Park Press

Marianne Murawski, Stockton College, Contributor, Bruce Springsteen and the American Soul

Christopher Phillips, Editor/Publisher, Backstreets Magazine & Backstreets.com and Co-Editor, Talk About A Dream: The Essential Interviews of Bruce Springsteen

Shawn Poole, Contributor, Backstreets Magazine & Backstreets.com

Holly Cara Price, Contributor, Huffington Post and BruceSpringsteen.net

Linda K. Randall, Author, Finding Grace in the Concert Hall: Community & Meaning Among Springsteen Fans

Barry Schneier, Photographer, Monmouth University Exhibition – Glory Bound – Photographs by Barry Schneier

Special Group Panel of Authors and Co-Publishers of the forthcoming anthology Trouble In The Heartland: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Bruce Springsteen – Jamez Chang, Jen Conley, Mark Krajnak, James Petersen and Chuck Regan

William I. Wolff, Rowan University, Contributor, BOSS: The Bi-Annual Online Journal of Springsteen Studies

Azzan Yadin-Israel, Rutgers University, Course Designer/Instructor, Bruce Springsteen’s Theology

Panel topics, as well as more authors and scholars, will be announced as they are confirmed. Topics currently under consideration include “Bruce Springsteen’s Evolving Relationship With His Audience(s),” “Springsteen’s Best Songs,” “Springsteen & Live Performance,” “Springsteen & Media Through the Years,” etc.

Panel topics, as well as more authors and scholars, will be announced as they are confirmed. Topics currently under consideration include “Bruce Springsteen’s Evolving Relationship With His Audience(s),” “Springsteen’s Best Songs,” “Springsteen & Live Performance,” “Springsteen & Media Through the Years,” etc.

Among our confirmed panel moderators is broadcaster Tom Cunningham, creator and host of the long-running weekly Springsteen-themed radio program The Bruce Brunch on 105.7 The Hawk (WCHR-FM.)

There will be time and space allotted for authors’ book sales/signings.

The day’s agenda also will include several live performances of Springsteen’s music by students from Monmouth University and Asbury Park, NJ’s Lakehouse Music Academy.

All ticket-sale proceeds will benefit Monmouth University and Friends of
The Bruce Springsteen Special Collection.