Roy Bittan is So Much More Than Just Springsteen’s Piano Man
The Professor will see you now
When you think of Roy Bittan (if you think of him at all), you probably assume he is simply the piano player for Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. That’s a lot like saying someone is simply the third baseman for the New York Yankees, but it’s not inaccurate. It is, however, incomplete.
Let’s start with some obvious facts about the man Bruce dubbed “The Professor” and who has been tickling the ivories for E Street Nation since 1975. First, as great as David Sancious (the pianist on Bruce’s first two records) was, Roy Bittan taking over just in time for the Born to Run album was an immense upgrade. This is especially true when you consider that Born to Run is actually a piano driven album (I wrote about that here). If Roy had never done anything but the piano parts on “Thunder Road,” “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” “Jungleland,” and “Backstreets” he would be a legend; he did those and so much more over the past 48 years.
His importance to the E Street Band is obvious on albums like Darkness on the Edge of Town, The River, and Born in the U.S.A., but perhaps even more telling was what happened when Bruce (foolishly) broke up the E Street Band and started a whole new group for his 1992 albums Human Touch and Lucky Town: the only member of the E Street Band he kept in the new lineup (besides Mrs. Springsteen, of course) was Roy. Thankfully, Bruce brought the E Street Band back in 1999, and Roy has been a solid fixture ever since.
That’s the E Street Band part of Roy Bittan’s career, but there is so much more. Even before joining Springsteen in 1975, he was playing in Broadway musicals as well as local bands. Then, in 1977, during the period between Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town, he played piano and keyboards on one of the greatest albums of the 1970s, Meat Loaf’s classic Bat Out of Hell. That awesome piano on “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night),” “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad,” and “Paradise by the Dashboard Light?” All 100% Roy Bittan.
But wait, there’s even more. He played piano and organ on David Bowie’s 1976 album Station to Station and piano on four tracks from Stevie Nicks’ 1981 album Bella Donna. He both played on and produced former Scandal lead singer Patty Smyth’s self-titled second solo album. And as proof even the best go wrong sometimes, he also played on and co-produced Celine Dion’s 1996 single (and tragic earworm) “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now.”
But I’ve saved the two best (after his work with Bruce and Meat Loaf) for last. In June of 1980, just a little more than a month after recording The River with Bruce and his fellow E Street bandmates, Roy went back in the studio with Dire Straits to play keyboards on their third album, Making Movies. That’s him on one of my favorite Dire Straits songs below:
Nearly 20 years later, in 1998, he both played on and co-produced one of the most underrated albums of the decade, Lucinda Williams’ brilliant Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. If you don’t know Lucinda, you need to. Start with the best song from the album below:
That would be one hell of a career even without his time in the E Street Band, though of course that time is what he will rightly be remembered for 100 years from now. The only thing he wasn’t able to do was play on the studio version of The Greatest Song Ever, “Born to Run;” the song was recorded before David Sancious left the band. However, he has played it live nearly 1800 times, so the song belongs to him as much as anyone else in the band, and that’s no small thing. No small thing at all.
If you enjoyed this story, you can support my writing directly by joining Medium here. You’ll get access to all of my articles (including my weekly rants and numerous Springsteen stories) as well as those of all the other great writers here. You can also get my articles in your inbox by subscribing here.
