November 22, 2024
Best wishes for a wicked-cool happy birthday and many, many more to Steven Malafronte Lento Van Zandt, a.k.a. The Kid, “Sugar” Miami Steve, Little Steven, Silvio... the one and only Stevie Van Zandt! No doubt there will be some celebrating onstage in Vancouver tonight during Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band's final 2024 concert, and we at Letters To You also have a special new birthday-salute podcast exploring all things Stevie, both on and off E Street.
Earlier this week, our website's editor-publisher Shawn Poole moderated a great online conversation with contributing writer Lisa Iannucci and our very special guest Robert Lawson, author of the recently published Solidarity Forever: The Art and Soul of Stevie Van Zandt. Lawson is a veteran music writer based in Canada, a longtime major Van Zandt fan, and a rabid researcher who spent years germinating and writing Solidarity Forever. He is clearly a distinguished scholar in the field of “VanZandthropology,” a great term that he brilliantly created, and his book unearths many new insights and little-known factoids about the life and work of one of rock and roll’s greatest and, to this day, still often underrated and underappreciated figures. (And yes, it's thanks to Lawson's research that we now know that Stevie's original surname was Malafronte.)
The podcast we recorded is freely available for listening on our SoundCloud and YouTube platforms. You also can click on either of the links embedded below to listen right here:
And to all our fellow Van Zandt fans out there, if you haven't ordered one (or more) yet for yourself and/or others, by all means click here to order your copy(ies) of Robert Lawson's Solidarity Forever: The Art and Soul of Stevie Van Zandt directly from FriesenPress (eBook option included,) or click here to order your copy(ies) from Amazon (Kindle option included.)
Merry Steviemas to all! Viva Van Zandt!