When Springsteen Happened

Photographer Nicki Germaine captured The Boss, on stage and off, right on the verge of a superstardom that would make rock ’n’ roll history.

and a little-known music act both doing what they loved.

Now, in a justpublished book titled Springsteen: Liberty Hall, Germaine has assembled 95 of the photographs she took during that four-day Houston gig. The volume also includes her written recollections, writing by longtime E Street Band bassist Garry Tallent and an introduction by Springsteen.

able around them. Backstage, they were very serious and extremely professional about their music. There were no groupies, no drugs. They were very focused on their performance, and they were going to give it their all every time they went out there. And so backstage was pretty quiet—but onstage it was explosive.

What do you see when you look at those old photos?

How at ease they are. They’re not posing; they’re just hanging out. Once you’ve been around for a while, they get comfortable with the fact that you have a camera in your hand and become less aware of it. Also, I wasn’t afraid to get up close and personal. A lot of photographers stand back and don’t get so close. But I was shooting with a wide-angle lens for many of these; to get the image you have to get really close.

Few people knew of Bruce Springsteen in March 1974, when he crossed paths with Nicki Germaine. Just off two little-noticed early albums, Springsteen and his band did a series of shows at Houston’s Liberty Hall. Germaine was an assistant to one of Houston’s leading commercial photographers. In her off hours, she took freelance shots for Rolling Stone and Texas Monthly, plus occasional photos of the acts that played Liberty Hall. Through mutual friends, she heard from a promoter for Springsteen, who invited her to photograph the band. It wasn’t a paid job, just a photographer

The daughter of an Air Force officer, Germaine spent much of her childhood abroad, including four years in Iran. She took up photography as a University of Texas student. “It was a passion I didn’t know I had until I started,” she recalls. Her early career was spent balancing parenthood (she has one daughter) with commercial photography and teaching; later she switched to real estate, using her photographer’s eye to capture beauty in the properties she handled. Now retired, she recently decided she was finally ready to revisit those days in Liberty Hall.

Why was this the right time for your photos to see the light of day?

For the first time in my life, I had the time and means to do it right.

What do you remember about the time you spent with Springsteen and his band?

It felt like I was photographing friends. Once I’d been there a couple of nights, I just felt comfort-

What are some of your favorites?

My favorite is the one of [late E Street Band saxophonist] Clarence Clemons sitting with the saxophone in his lap. I don’t often say this about my own work, but I love everything about it. There’s another of Bruce with his eyes closed at the mic. It’s a very quiet photograph—a thoughtful moment, not some wild performance shot where he’s jumping up and down onstage. That says a lot about the mood at that time, which was serious, quiet. It was a time when the feeling was: “Are we going to make it?” I don’t think I fully realized that at the time. I didn’t know CBS Records was talking about dropping Bruce from the label. What does this add to our historical appreciation of Springsteen?

There’s something special about this period when he was just starting out. That version of the band was short-lived—it wasn’t even called the E Street Band then—and two of the original members left shortly afterward.

It’s clear that Springsteen himself was on board with this project.

I was able to speak to Bruce as I was first considering it, and I told him I didn’t want to do anything without his blessing. He thanked me for that and said, “What can I do to help?” I knew that with Bruce’s blessing and cooperation, the chances of making this a success were far greater. And the timing turned out well, because we were able to get the book published ahead of his tour this year. What do you hope people get from the book?

It’s going to mean different things to different people. A lot of people have very personal feelings about Bruce and his music.

—Sonia Ketchian