Classic Vinyl Bootleg Revisited: LIVE on Coral Records

LIVE on Coral Records: the first ever professionally looking Springsteen bootleg prompts CBS Records to file a suit against a record retailer in New York City to halt selling the copies in the summer of 1976.

Released in late 1975 or early 1976, LIVE on Coral Records (NR-909-2) was probably the most famous bootleg of Springsteen throughout the vinyl era. As already introduced in the last blog, this title captures one of the most important concerts in his career that is performed 41 years ago tonight and aired through radio broadcast on WNEW-FM in Manhattan, New York City. Unlike the contemporary Bruceleg releases back then, this double-disc release came out in an attractive gate-fold and full-color sleeve (outer sleeve only) with the custom black & silver labels. However, what makes its existence widely recognized to music fans and industry people is the fact that CBS Records, involving Springsteen and The Bottom Line club from where the bootlegged performance was aired, accused a City's record store of displaying and selling many copies of this underground artifact.

A repressed copy on the Black-Gold Concerts label has much simpler
appearance than the original Coral Records version. Lower left panel
shows the credits as found on the rear sleeve of each releases.

An overview of the lawsuit is summarized in two consecutive issues of the Billboard magazine in the summer of 1976. According to the first article reported in the August 14 issue, the defendant in the action launched in New York City Supreme Court, was The Record Breaker, located in Greenwich Village area of the City and offering this bootleg to customers at $7.99 (equivalent to $34.05 in 2016, using inflation calculator on the DollarTimes website). The plaintiffs including Springsteen filed a suit against this retailer shop on August 6th to halt the sale of the bootleg record. In the following issue (published on August 21, 1976), the magazine reports that the suit was amicably resolved on August 10th*, less than a week after the court action was initiated, for an undisclosed monetary settlement, and that The Record Breaker agreed to discontinue the sale of the alleged bootleg. The magazine continues that the record shop is said to have bought a quantity of the bootleg from a street vender who is not an established wholesaler.
*Hunt's bootleg section of Blinded By The Light (P. Humphries & C. Hunt, 1985, Plexus, London) describes the date as September 10th, but I think this being incorrect in light of Billboard's reports.

Hand-etched matrix numbers indicate that both the original Coral
Records (left, with custom label) and reissue Black-Gold Concerts
(right, with blank label) vinyl discs are pressed from the same
stampers (shown are those found on the dead wax space on Side 2)

It is of note that this case was filed against a retailer, thus leaving bootlegger(s) unconfirmed or unidentified. The rear sleeve states that the album is produced by Alberto Pittigliani and released by "Coral Records Ltda. Av. Borges de Medeiros 1121, Rio de Janeiro (which is, by the way, a real address according to Google Maps)". However, generally any credit statement or copyright notice on bootleg record is not to be trusted and this bootleg is purportedly of East Coast origin. As a result of the lawsuit settlement, many of the copies have reportedly been seized, which further restricted the availability and made it quite rare. Later, it was repressed on the Black-Gold Concerts label (BG-909-2) and reissued under a more specific title (LIVE AT THE BOTTOM LINE; Do not confuse with another similar bootleg title featured in the last blog) using the same stampers from which the original was pressed. The record labels are plain blank and the single pocket sleeve is black & white, with similar and different cover designs on front and rear, respectively, to the Coral Records version. Found on the bottom right corner on the rear sleeve is a small credit on the location of the label as "Toronto, Ontario M5A 2L1".

Copies of LIVE on Coral Records were an object of envy to Bruceleg collectors
even here in Japan back in the 1980's (from a domestic bootleg dealer's catalog)

Back in the mid-to-late 1980s when Springsteen's popularity peaked here, the original edition of LIVE on Coral Records was one of the most, if not the most, sought-after classic bootleg among Bruceleg collectors. Shown on the right is a part of the scanned image of a mail-order catalog I received circa 1986-1987 from a well-known Bruceleg dealer in Japan. As you can see, the two used copies were listed on the catalog and offered for sale to collectors at insane prices (in Japanese Yen) that would be incredibly profitable to the seller (Or the out-of-norm prices might reflect exceptionally high wholesale prices fixed by greedy export distributors of bootleg records abroad).

Custom label on Disc 1 from the Coral Records release.
Putting three tracks on Side 2 results in severe editing
of the slow, long version of The E Street Shuffle
probably due to the disc capacity

As mentioned on the last blog, it is almost certain that LIVE on Coral Records is the second vinyl-bootleg release of this Bottom Line concert, following LIVE AT THE BOTTOM LINE 75/8/15 that is underrated in my opinion. So, aside from packaging, what are the notable differences, if any, between these two bootlegs of the same show? Track listing indicates that LIVE comprises the whole show (14 song) while THE BOTTOM LINE omits the lengthy Kitty's Back. On the former bootleg, however, DJ's talk is completely eliminated (see the last blog). Moreover, some of the performed songs are heavily edited on the Coral Records version. First, about the first two thirds of the rap part (about first 6 min of a total of 9 min) is cut on The E Street Shuffle, most probably due to space limitation (i.e. Side 2 contains two more tracks beside this slow long performance that is 20-min long if not edited out). Second, excluding the beginning and ending, the most part of Born To Run is replaced by the official studio recording. The reason for this is not clear. One possibility is that there were defects in the recorded live tape that might cause the live track to be patched seamlessly with the official source (as exemplified by THE JERSEY DEVIL, the first known vinyl Bruceleg, where the defective live recording on what is later known as Thunder Road is modified in the same way). In fact, careful listening suggests that the source tapes used for vinyl pressing are different between the two releases. Finally, the final encore song Quarter To Three, while incomplete on both bootleg releases, is chopped off much earlier on the Coral Records version (running only for 2.5 min and suddenly cut; THE BOTTOM LINE version is over 4 min long though still short; it must be about 6 min long if left unedited). In conclusion, LIVE on Coral Records is far more attractive in terms of packaging, but as for content-wise, I cannot rate it higher than the THE BOTTOM LINE set.

I remember back on the last day of 1999, I bought a mixed bag of promotional US 12" vinyls from an eBay seller in Arizona, Phoenix, that included a copy of Born In The U.S.A. Upon opening the box parcel when it arrived to me, to my surprise, the seller included a bit tatty copy of LIVE on Coral Records as a bonus record! A small exciting moment, even though I then already owned two copies of this particular bootleg. At the same time, I couldn't help thinking about how the situation had changed surrounding vinyl bootleg (i.e., one of the most highly valued titles in the 1980s was available for free at the end of the 1990s), although generally, vinyl records were already low-valued due to the rise of CD. Still, as shown at the top of this page, all three copies have been kept in my collection.