Generally, Springsteen's first official 7" single is regarded Blinded By The Light / Angel (US Columbia 4-45805), released close to a half-century ago today (02/23/1973) and cut in a shortened length (3 : 58) from the debut album GREETINGS FROM ASBURY PARK, N. J. (US Columbia KC 31903). The white-label version of mono/stereo coupling was also issued for promotional purposes. Both editions have earned their status as collectors' items, with the regular stock being extremely difficult to obtain due to the scarcity and a high cost (sometimes reaching a four-digit U.S. dollar price on the collectors' market). However, as you collectors know, the phrase "first official 7" single" is not true in a strict sense because more than a month in advance of the regular release (01/12/1973), the full-length, unedited version (5 : 05) already appeared on a special 7-inch sampler (US Columbia AS 45) as part of Columbia/Epic Records' program called Play:Back.
 |
Shown are two examples of the Play:Back advertisement (below two) found on Columbia's company sleeves designed like a newspaper (titled "The Inner Sleeve"), gathering short articles and information on the label's artists. The left two images are from Volume 72A3/4 and the right two from Volume 72A4/4, both coming in two early U.S. pressings of the GREETINGS album (matrix number suffixes: -1A/-2A and -1C/-2C, respectively). Springsteen and his debut album are featured on Volume 73A1/4.
|
The
Play:Back program was a subscription-based marketing survey performed in the early/mid-1970s. In this program,
Columbia's 33 ⅓ rpm 7" EPs, which contained brand-new or yet-unreleased songs by new and established artists, were mailed to subscribers to elicit their responses and feedback to featured tracks. Typically, these discs had one number from two or more artists, carried distinctive blue labels, and came in an identical white sleeve with the
Play:Back logo and type. A series of singles were not commercially available, each with an info booklet promoting artists on
Columbia’s roster and a special questionnaire card that consists of multiple survey questions. You can find the advertisement for this program on the inner sleeves for
Columbia's vinyl albums back in the era, including the original pressing of his first LP, explaining what was intended and how to make the subscription payment ($3.00 per year).
 |
Lost in the puzzle of "Which disc came with which booklet."
|
Besides
Blinded By The Light, Springsteen was picked up on two more occasions in the series, which selected the then-unreleased
Circus Song performed live (
Columbia AS 52; released on 06/22/1973) and
Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) (
Columbia AS 66; 01/29/1974) from the second album
THE WILD, THE INNOCENT & THE E STREET SHUFFLE (
US Columbia KC 32432). Concerning the three
Play:Back issues featuring Springsteen's tunes, what made collectors puzzled for long was the correspondence of a given disc with the accompanying booklet. This was because many copies in circulation were (and still are) missing a booklet, and even if coming with it, such sets often showed questionable combinations. Moreover, some booklets do not necessarily mention or introduce featured artist(s) on the associated disc, making the situation further confused. Unfortunately, the collectors' bible
Blinded By The Light book (P. Humphries & C. Hunt, 1985, Plexus, London) does not help on the booklet matter.
 |
Among the three lineup, the Blinded set (left row) is the closest to
the complete with a questionnaire card, although still lacking a few
pieces, such as a subscription card and a self-addressed envelope
returnable to Columbia/Epic's Play:Back division.
|
If my memory is correct, it was the
Lost In The Flood website among collectors' databases that first attempted to clarify and provided the accurate information on this issue. My first e-mail correspondence to the website dating back to June 2003 was, in fact, to ask for an opinion on "Which booklet came with which disc" [By the way, according to the reply from an web administrator (Peter), I was the first collector to contact the website from the Far East]. Although not updated since 2015, according to the current listing on the website, the correct combination between the three 7" titles and accompanying booklets is like the left image, which has been the consensus among vinyl collectors (though the discs are actually not vinyl-pressing but styrene-molded).
I think, however, there is one more booklet that is considered for the Blinded By The Light single on the Play:Back series. I'm not talking about the one, most likely accompanied by the mega-rare white-label promo disc and featuring Springsteen and the band members on the black & white cover (taken during an August 1973 photo session for the second album).
— To be continued to Part 4 / back to Part 1 or Part 2.
