With the poor sales of Bruce's first album "Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ", (only 25.000 copies sold in 12 months) Columbia send Bruce out on the road in order to drum up interest. During 1973 and 1974 Bruce played many live shows enhancing his reputation as a live performer. For a while, Springsteen also played as the "opening act" for artists such as Bob Marley, Chicago, Chuck Berry, Bonnie Raitt, and Dr. John but none of those shows helped album sales. Sometimes he didn't even sell enough tickets.
"We're at the lowest we've ever been right now. It means that if we don't play every week of the year, then we don't have money. Right now we've just come off the road and the guys are getting thrown out of their houses. Hopefully I'll be getting some money from Columbia, and maybe with David Bowie doing some of the songs, that'll be good. But that's the only problem right now, it's sort of a shame. I'd just like to be a little more secure, that's all."
Despite poor album sales, Bruce was growing in confidence. With each live show he gained a larger following and Bruce also perfected his songwriting abilities. However, Bruce knew he needed that killer album to show for his live performances. "The Wild, The Innocent & The E-Street Shuffle" was not that killer album he'd been hoping for. The album was viewed as transitional, allowing Springsteen to progress from the raw rollicking of "Greetings" to the more ordered and biographical "4th of July (Sandy)" and the classic "Incident on 57th Street". Then there is the concert favorite "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)" which fans loved in 1973 and still ask for to this day. Even with the added success, Bruce was still not a chart topper. "Greetings" and the two singles released from it, combined with his new album, did not sell a combined total of 90,000 copies.
Fortunately Bruce's luck was about to change. On May 9th, 1974, he opened for Bonnie Raitt in Cambridge, Massachusetts and happened to talk with an impressed young journalist. He also chose that show to debut a new song, which was titled "Born to Run." The ex-Rolling Stone writer, rock critic and sometimes producer, Jon Landau watched the show and wrote an article that proved to be very prophetic. His article, "Growing Young with Rock n Roll", appeared in Boston's "Real Paper" and described Springsteen as a "rock and roll punk, a Latin street poet, a ballet dancer, an actor, a joker"... Landau lamented, "Today I listen to music with a certain sense of detachment. I'm a professional and I make my living commenting on it...I'm twenty seven today, feeling old, listening to my records and remembering that things were different a decade ago...On a night when I needed to feel young, Springsteen made me feel like I was hearing music for the first time...I saw rock and roll future...AND ITS NAME IS BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN!" The "future of rock n'n roll" quote would later be used in a very extensive promotional campaign.
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