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He’s raised a ruckus with the Boss, smashed segregation in South Africa and sparkled in The Sopranos – this entertaining documentary showcases a wild lifeRock’n’roll needs its sidemen, collaborators and co-writers. It needs its archivists and advocates, its arrangers and backing singers. There are endless positions other than megastar, and Steven Van Zandt has fulfilled most of them. Disciple, a sprawling biography of one of rock’s most likable veterans, is a document of several lives, all well lived by the same man.Van Zandt was part of the New Jersey music scene of the early 1970s, which had its own signature sound: classic rock’n’roll beefed up with the punchy horns of Atlantic and Stax. Bruce Springsteen already had a record deal, but he kept coming back to play in Asbury Park’s sweat-soaked clubs. One day, when he felt one of the songs on his next album might need a bit of home-town grit, he called his old pal Steve. Van Zandt breezed into the studio, agreed that the track sucked, and 20 minutes later Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out had been revitalised, smothered in that loose Jersey brass. It was one of the highlights of Born to Run, Springsteen’s 1975 breakthrough. After then, Van Zandt became a key member of Bruce’s backing group, the E Street Band.Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple aired on Sky Documentaries and is available on NOW. Continue reading...