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Springsteen at 60: The Boss still rocks, experts say

Go ahead and wish Bruce Springsteen a happy 60th birthday Wednesday, but don’t expect him to act like an old man any time soon.

“I think turning 60 is a milestone of some sort,” says rock ‘n’ roll photographer Danny Clinch. “It sure makes people who are 45 like me look bad when he can run around on a stage for 3 1/2 hours a night.”

Tim Donnelly, who produced Clinch’s current Asbury Park, N.J., exhibition “Be True: Bruce Springsteen in New Jersey 1999-2009,” agrees.

“When you see him perform, you know he can rock at any age, that you can’t put a number on it,” he says.

So why are people making such a big deal about it?

Not only is Springsteen on the cover of AARP magazine, hundreds of educators, journalists, historians and fans are expected to descend this week on the Stone Pony bar in Asbury Park and Monmouth University in West Long Branch for “Glory Days, a Bruce Springsteen Symposium.”

Among them will be Robert Santelli, currently the executive director of the new Grammy Museum in Los Angeles. Recently he signed to be the curator of the Michael Jackson Touring Exhibition opening in London and traveling to Tokyo and New York City.

“Bruce is a significant American music artist,” says Santelli. “He’s among American music titans such as Dylan, Muddy Waters, Woody Guthrie and Robert Johnson.

“Both his life and his legacy have impacted the American culture,” Santelli says. “But most of those people have passed or been embedded into American music history. Bruce is still making history. He’s active and participating.”

Still relevant

Santelli was a Monmouth University student when the Stone Pony opened in 1974.

“I spent at least three nights a week there, religiously getting a music education seeing Springsteen and Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes,” says Santelli.

Also there in the early years was Lee Mrowicki, whom Santelli nicknamed “The Voice of the Stone Pony.” Mrowicki says he was playing demo tapes of Springsteen’s music on Monmouth University’s radio station long before his first record came out.

“Springsteen’s music is still relevant today,” Mrowicki says. “He’s made the transition without really saying that he feels older. He’s writing for us as he always has, whether we’re in our 20s, 30s, 40s ... and now 60s.

“Everything we have in our lives he’s written about — the situations, the romance, the ups and downs, we can all relate to that.”

So can about 84,000 other New Jersey residents expected to turn 60 this year as well. When they were born in 1949, Communism was on the march around the world, the Red Scare was gaining ground in the United States with celebrities such as Helen Keller being implicated. David Ben-Gurion became Israel’s first prime minister and both the Federal Republic of Germany and Republic of Ireland were founded.

“Any time you have a birthday with a zero at the end, it’s a milestone,” says Mark Bernhard, director of continuing and professional education at Virginia Tech and the “Glory Days” conference planner. “I think the older we get, the less the number really means and we can certainly see that, in concert, Bruce doesn’t act 60.

“It’s amazing he’s been so relevant and vibrant for so many years,” he says. “His music and lyrics have influenced our culture and that’s pretty neat.”

Healing powers

Donna Dolphin, a professor at Monmouth University with expertise in American roots music, sees Springsteen as our national healer.

“In times of our greatest crisis, Bruce Springsteen speaks up for us and articulates our collective pain and suffering,” says Dolphin. “He’s becoming for us a great empathic educator.”

Although Springsteen may seem ageless, she says, his music has matured as he’s grown older and he’s embraced the “hurt song,” seen in “The Rising” after the Sept. 11 attacks and “The Seeger Sessions” after Hurricane Katrina.

“His music has become politicized, but not the finger-pointing, critical kind of stuff,” she says. “He’s trying to heal wounds and fractured communities by making us all feel the experience.”

In other words, she adds, “He’s just getting better and better and better.”

Now, what 60-year old wouldn’t mind getting that as a present?