I've been listening to Roy Bittan's piano for years -- and he is regularly behind the hardest driving and most poetic acoustic rock piano such as Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Tyler, Bob Seeger, Jackson Browne, David Bowie, Dire Straits, and Meatloaf.

Any other Professor fans out there?

YES! I am a diehard Springsteen fan, I have seen him 65 times in concert. The Professor is amazing, and certainly one of my favorite rock pianists ever. One of the highlights of The Rising tour was in the first encore during Ramrod the entire band left the stage to leave Roy banging away solo, they then all returned to join him. And truly some of Bruce's classic signature sounds are the piano (beginning of Jungleland, Thunder Road, Backstreets). A lot of people dont realize he played on Meatloaf's Bat out of Hell album... listen to the piano on the oft-overlooked Heaven Can Wait. Nothing short of beautiful. Thanks for mentioning Roy, never thought I'd see him mentioned here at Piano World.

I'm another die-hard!!! I've also been to over 60 concerts - NY, NJ, PA, FL, Canada (Montreal and Toronto)...

Roy's piano is the soul of Bruce's music - notice that Bruce has NEVER been without a piano on any of his tours (well... except for the solo Tom Joad tour).

I do believe that much of the earlier work can be credited to David Sancious, though...

Does anyone know what brand of piano he plays on tour?

Is any of the music (Jungleland, Backstreets, etc.) published anywhere?

Tom, always a pleasure to "talk" to another Bruce fan. I have scanned Jungleland, Hearts of Stone, and Thunder Road onto a pdf file, I could send that to you if you'd like. It's waterered down, but you'd get the gist. And yes, anything pre-Born to Run was David Sancious on piano, who has a much jazzier style.
...Mike

Wild Innocent and E Street: I love to play piano on New York City Seranade and Incident on 57th Street.

Born to Run: Thunder Road, Jungleland, and Backstreets -- though the piano on Meeting across the River is fun!

For me, this early stuff is the best for piano -- what are your favorites?

Years ago I bought the massive Bruce Springsteen Complete (up through Born in the USA). It has somewhat simplified piano, but since I chord improv anyway, I can spend hours blasting through it!

Mike - if you could send the pdf file, I'd appreciate it.

My e-mail is in my profile - you should just be able to click on the e-mail icon above.

thanks!!!

Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuce!!

ivory - I do have a couple of early Bruce books, too... I use them for guitar, but they lack in the piano stuff...
and I'm not good enough on piano to do any improv yet..