Saved
By Mitch Berg
For almost thirty years, the stories have been floating about among music fans; Steven “Miami Steve” Van Zandt – perhaps best known today as “Silvio Dante” – supposedly spent the “video” budget for his debut album on an abortive feature-length movie.
He did this when he was riding about as high as a sideman rides; coming off a couple of legendary tours (Darkness and The River) as one of Springsteen’s onstage foils, he left the E Streeet Band to go out on his own. He started a “band” of sorts – a collection of all-stars and unkowns he called “Little Steven And The Disciples Of Soul”. And he recorded – mostly live, around a couple of mikes in one big room – a debut album, Men Without Women, which earned about every critical plaudit that mattered, and still is one of my three favorite albums of the rock and roll era.
Buit I have never seen the movie. Even my old drummer, as enthusiastic a bootlegger as I’ve ever met, had never seen it.
And even though Youtube’s been on the air for years and years, only the tiniest bits of the video – a terrible transfer of the single, “Forever” – made it onto YouTube…
…until very, very recently.
Someone finally hit the jackpot. They clipped out the segment for the song “Save Me”, which on any given day may be my favorite single song of the rock and roll era, and yes, that means up there with “Racing In The Street”, “The Card Cheat”, “Freedom Park” and “Have A Good Time But Get Out Alive”.
Ignore the pointless two-minute ramp, and the atrocious technical quality and, for that matter, the atrocious idea of basing a feature film around an album (which, as Van Zandt notes with a rueful chuckle these days, never actually had a script, and it shows); the song starts around 1:45 or so:
The thirtieth anniversary of the album is coming up in a few months. More when we get there.
People remember all the wrong music from the eighties.
