Eric Meola – Bruce Springsteen: Last Man Standing (1977)

Announcing the launch of a new limited edition.

Eric Meola’s photographs of Bruce Springsteen are some of the most popular pieces we offer. Even though I have been working with Eric for 15 years now, he still manages to surprise me. A couple of days ago he shared with me this beautiful colour photograph of Bruce from 1977. As regular gallery visitors will know, Eric’s sessions with Bruce were almost exclusively shot in black and white, so to see one of Eric’s photographs of Bruce in glorious saturated colour is something to behold. I couldn’t wait to share it with you, and offer you the chance to have a signed limited edition in your collection.

I asked Eric to share the background to this photograph, and this is what he told me:

“I made this image of Bruce Springsteen in 1977, at the sprawling old farmhouse on Telegraph Hill Road near Holmdel, New Jersey where he was writing and recording nearly a hundred songs after his 1975 breakout album Born to Run. As a photographer I always saw Bruce in black-and-white, but this image was one of the rare times I photographed him in color. It’s the stance, the body language in this photograph that compelled me to place him in front of the cruciform of the closed barn doors.“

“In an interview on “60 Minutes” in 2007 he said “When it gets dark you’re supposed to be singing. It’s dark right now. The American idea is a beautiful idea. It needs to be preserved, served, protected and sung out”.  Asked by Scott Pelley about his craft, “You have got to be…wild guess…worth north of a $100 million. Why are you still touring?” Springsteen shot back “You play the music and grown men cry and women dance. The ‘star’ thing I can live with, the music I can’t live without. That’s how it lays out for me…it gives me meaning, it gives me purpose.”  ” 

“Shortly before I made this photograph I heard the lyrics “I’ll be on that hill ’cause I can’t stop, I’ll be on that hill with everything that I got.” Staring directly into the camera, hand thrust into his jacket, legs pinned to the ground, I could feel his eyes pierce into me as if he had some place to go and he needed to walk that walk.”

In a couple of weeks Bruce Springsteen will release his latest album Letter to You, which includes the song “Last Man Standing.” It seemed an apt title for this photograph.

If you would like one, just hit the button below and you can make a purchase online. Please allow 2-3 weeks between order and delivery.