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BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN’S LONG BRANCH
Music tourists to the Jersey Shore too frequently bypass Long Branch.  They shouldn’t.  Jazz trumpeters June Clark and Bobby Martin, concert violinist Joan Field, country music singer-songwriter Cliff Black, Grateful Dead keyboardist Tom Constanten, jazz drummer Sonny Greer, and Parliament-Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell all wrote chapters in Long Branch history.  In recent years, Monmouth University in West Long Branch has emerged as a major concert venue.

Bruce Springsteen stamped his own mark on Long Branch during his early years as a performer.  At least 24 of his concert appearances between 1968 and 1974 were in Long Branch communities, with many more a stonesthrow away.  Long Branch, and its contiguous neighbor West Long Branch, hosted most of Springsteen’s early bands, including The Castiles, Earth, Child, Steel Mill, and The Bruce Springsteen Band, at venues ranging from sandy beaches to gymnasiums. Most of those venues are now gone; those remaining include Monmouth College (now a University), the Italian American Men’s Association Club House (now known as the Italian American Memorial Association), Garfield Park (now part of Pier Village), and St. Jerome School.

Not to be overlooked are Monmouth Memorial Hospital (now Monmouth Medical Center) and the bungalow at 7-1/2 West End Court.  Springsteen was born in the former on Sept. 23, 1949, and lived in the latter during the writing of Born to Run.  (Strange twist of fate: in 2009, a novice police officer arrested a “suspicious acting” Bob Dylan near the bunglow as he was out walking in a driving rain.)

With thanks to brucebase.wikispaces.com, and Backstreets  these are the known dates and locations of Springsteen concerts in Long Branch and West Long Branch:

LONG BRANCH YMCA
410 Broadway, current the site of Seashore Day Camp and School
June 18, 1968    The Castiles
WEST END CASINO
West End Avenue, near the ocean
June 28, 1968    The Castiles
July 5, 1968       The Castiles
ITALIAN AMERICAN MEN’S ASSOCIATION CLUB HOUSE
195 West End Avenue
Feb. 14, 1969      Earth
WEST END PARK
Corner of Brighton and Ocean Avenues
May 5, 1969      Child
MONMOUTH COLLEGE
West Long Branch
May 11, 1969    Child
Oct. 16, 1969    Child
Nov. 14, 1969    Child
Dec. 12, 1969   Steel Mill
April 24, 1970    Steel Mill
May 10, 1970    Steel Mill
Oct. 17, 1970    Steel Mill
Feb. 16, 1973    The E Street Band
April 18, 1974    The E Street Band
THE AUCTION COFFEE HOUSE
Unknown Long Branch location
June 13, 1969    Child
June 14, 1969    Child
EAST LONG BRANCH BEACH
Unknown location
Sept. 1, 1969     Child
June 14, 1970    Steel Mill
GARFIELD PARK
51 Ocean Blvd., at Laird St.
Summer 1971    Impromptu jam
Sept. 1, 1971     The Bruce Springsteen Band
ST. JEROME SCHOOL
250 Wall St., West Long Branch.
Oct. 19, 1971    The Bruce Springsteen Band
NATIONAL GUARD ARMORY
Ocean and Cooper Avenues
Oct. 31, 1971    The Bruce Springsteen Band
Oct. 29, 1972    The E Street Band