I’d flown to America with a BBC television film crew, to interview Bruce and to capture the excitement of this once-in-a-lifetime moment for The Old Grey Whistle Test, the legendary TV music show I was presenting at the time.

It felt like Bruce was unleashed from the management restrictions that had prevented him from playing live for far too long and, as an intro to his own ‘She’s the One’, he and the E Street Band tore into an inspired version of Buddy Holly’s ‘Not Fade Away’, originally released as the B-side to ‘Oh, Boy!’ back in 1957. Their version was authentic and fantastic, and they included rock and roll songs in the set for the rest of that huge, sweeping Darkness on the Edge of Town tour, still widely regarded as Bruce’s best tour ever.

The set was peppered with a selection of rock and roll classics – ‘Summertime Blues’, ‘Around and Around’, ‘Lucille’, ‘Good Rockin’ Tonight’ and other great Bruce favourites.

Buddy Holly was across American culture in the summer of 1978. The hit movie The Buddy Holly Story opened in May, and Bruce and his little sister Pam caught it at a screening in Los Angeles on 2 July. It made a big impression, and three days later, on stage at the Los Angeles Forum, he delivered his review:

‘It’s funny,’ he said, ‘because I could never really picture Buddy Holly moving. To me, he was always just that guy with the bow tie on the album cover. I liked the picture because it made him a lot more real for me.’

Then, the following night, if you’d been passing the Sundance Saloon in Calabasas and fancied a country-rock night out, you would have caught Oklahoma’s Old Dog Band doing Chuck Berry’s ‘Carol’, with two very special guests joining them on stage – Bruce and actor Gary Busey, who played the part of

Buddy Holly in that self-same film.

The very next night Springsteen played ‘Rave On’ for the first time on the tour. ‘Not Fade Away’ popped up two days later and ‘Oh, Boy!’ was a regular in the set by the end of the month.

And then, in August, came the double-whammy. Bruce played two shows in Philadelphia on the 18 and 19, and who should turn up as a special guest on stage for both of those iconic gigs?

Gary Busey, who joined in on the Gary U.S. Bonds classic ‘Quarter to Three’ on the first night and performed fabulous versions of ‘Rave On’ on both nights.

It was a moment that was destined to happen, and for a very good reason: 1950s rock and roll was still a very big thing in 1978 and Bruce had evolved an important pre-stage ritual that included Buddy’s music. 

Bob Harris