Credit: Danny ClinchBruce Springsteen gave his first live performance of 2019 on Saturday night, when he made a surprise appearance with photographer/musician Danny Clinch‘s Tangiers Blues Band at a charity event in New York City.
RollingStone.com reports that The Boss hit the stage at New York’s Tribeca Grill to sing two songs with the Tangiers Blues Band: covers of the 1957 Huey “Piano” Smith tune “Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu” and the 1940 Will Bradley Trio hit “Down the Road a Piece,” which later was recorded by Chuck Berry, The Rolling Stones and many others.
It was Bruce’s first time playing in public since the final performance of his Springsteen on Broadway show this past December. You can watch fan-shot video of the Tribeca Grill performance on YouTube.
The performance was part of the Kristen Ann Carr Foundation’s annual A Night to Remember benefit, which raises funds to aid the fight against sarcoma cancers. Clinch was honored at the event for his support of the organization, which is named after the late daughter of Springsteen’s co-manager Barbara Carr.
Bruce has performed with the Tangiers Blues Band on numerous occasions, including at the June 2018 concert celebrating the re-opening of the Asbury Lanes venue in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Springsteen and Clinch’s group also played “Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu” and “Down the Road a Piece,” at that show, among other songs.
As previously reported, Springsteen announced in December that he wouldn’t be touring with the E Street Band in 2019 and would instead be focusing on “various recording projects.” Among the projects, apparently, is a solo album that he told Variety in an October 2017 interview is “influenced by Southern California pop music of the ’70s.”
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