The Boss: On The Road Alone

The trip from the dressing room to the concert stage is one Bruce Springsteen has taken many times. But this night, making his way through the underbelly of an arena in St. Paul, Minn., he has left the E Street Band behind on only his second-ever solo tour. Correspondent Anthony Mason reports for CBS News Sunday Morning.

To promote his 19th album, "Devils & Dust," Springsteen is going it alone again.

"There's only two things," he says. "There's a guitar and a guy singing."

Because of the nature of the album, he is playing smaller houses. It's got to feel different, Mason suggests.

"This is enjoyable, you know," Springsteen says. "It's fun to play smaller places."

As Mason and Springsteen went backstage, and the Boss led the reporter around the Rosemont Theater outside Chicago, the 55-year-old performer said he appreciates the intimacy.

"It's fun to sing and really, really hear your voice, you know? It's very… that's enjoyable."

And it's not scary up there, all by himself?

"Yeah, it's always scary. That's why people pay," he replies with a laugh. "They pay because there's an element of terror involved on a nightly basis, you know."

The tour's 14 U.S. dates quickly sold out.

Says one concertgoer: "He's like the voice of everyman."

Frank Hornstein, who brought his 10-year-old son, Max, to his third Bruce concert, says, "You want the E Street Band, but I respect him as an artist." (34:07)

Springsteen last toured during the presidential campaign, singing in support of John Kerry. Not everyone was happy with his performance. "I got a lot of nasty letters during the last election," he says.

Onstage, he told one audience: "Particularly my favorite was the boxes of smashed records with a dead chicken in it."

Offstage, though, he admits, "I didn't get a dead chicken, that's the joke part of it.That's my embellishment. But I got the records, you know."

When he decided to support Kerry so vigorously, did anyone say to him, "Bruce, don't do it. Some of your fans will get upset"?

Says Springsteen, "No. No. Upsetting your fans is okay to do, you know.

"As a matter of fact," he continues, "it's a good thing to do. It should be part of your job on a somewhat regular basis. Because, if not, then what are you doing? You know, it's sort of, I think you're always trying to...you're pushing and pulling people to see things in a different light, you know."

He adds, "I write music, hoping that it does touch and upset my fans to a certain degree… 'cause the other answer is that…you're just telling people that everything is okay as it is."The title track on "Devils & Dust" is a song about the Iraqi war from a soldier's perspective. How do these characters slip into Bruce Springsteen's head?

"Well, I have a familiarity with the crushing hand of fate, you know, that I grew up with and lived with as a child, you know," he says.

A guitar allowed him to rise above his working class roots and to feel the hand of fortune, too. But somehow, Springsteen says, those two hands never cancel each other out.

"If you look at the internal lives of a lot of the characters that I've written about, that heavy hand of fate…and the inability to get out from underneath it is what they have in common," he explains. "It's what I have in common with them."

There is another Springsteen, of course: the iconic rocker, who can still fill football stadiums and sold more than 20 million copies of "Born in the USA." But many of his fans forget that Springsteen was originally signed as a solo artist.

He was a young folksinger in 1972, when he submitted an audition tape to Columbia Records. The kid from Freehold, N.J., seemed to have eyes that could see through America.

Says photographer Frank Stefanko, who took the cover shots for two of Springsteen's early albums, "When I looked at those eyes, they were just so big… He was this slender, hungry guy who had all this energy and all this ambition. And that's the person I shot."

(An exhibit of Stefanko's pictures is on display through June 8 at the Morrison Hotel Gallery in New York City.)

But audiences have seen many different Springsteens: the electrifying performer, the pop superstar, the rock legend.

Mason points out to him: "I can't think of too many other artists who have the sort of burden of expectations that you seem to have. I mean people, so many people, seem invested in you in a lot of different ways."

Springsteen's reaction: "You can't think about that too much. My approach is: If I like it enough to say it's a record, I put it out, and whatever happens, happens, you know.""Devils & Dust" debuted at No. 1 in 10 countries, including the U.S. On tour, audiences are hearing a stripped-down Springsteen; just Bruce and his guitar (or guitars).

"There's a lot of guitars," he says with a laugh. "And the reason there's a lot of guitars is because there's a lot of different tunings… To have the listener's ear constantly moving to different tones and different sounds and different harmonic combinations, I use a lot of different tunings. Almost every song is a different tuning."

The Boss even brings a banjo to play "I'm On Fire."

He says, "Most of the stuff that I'm choosing, I choose on the basis of: Does it feel new? Does it sound new? And does it feel fresh? I want people to come in and rehear all the music that they think they know and hear music that they don't know."

Does it excite him to hear it fresh again? Does he get a kick out of it?

"That's the fun, you know," says Springsteen. "That's the fun of a good song. Like a sturdy song, you know, gets played all different kind of ways. And I've written a few of them. So they, it's fun to come in and rediscover them myself."

Many of the songs on his new album are about faith and family. "Long Time Comin'" is a father's love song.

Is he a better writer as a father? A different writer as a father?"

"It's hard to say," he replies, "because I'll go back to some of my early songs, and I can't say I've written better ones. You know, I've written different ones. And I write differently now.

"Your writing does change," he continues. "I can go back and play 'Thunder Road' on the piano. Well, that was a good song. You know, I hope I've written songs as good. I don't know if I've written songs better, you know."

"Thunder Road" was released 30 years ago this July on "Born to Run," the breakthrough album for the young Bruce Springsteen.

Can he believe it's been that long?

"I suppose I could, man. If I see video clips of that young man, I'm not quite sure who he is, you know."

When Mason points out he doesn't look that different, Springsteen quips, "Oh, give that man a raise, please, whoever's paying his salary."

The Boss is 55. Will he be doing this when he's 75?

"Oh yeah. Of course. Of course."

As long as he can?

"Yeah. 'Til it's over, man."

Few rock acts have endured across four decades. Fewer still keep challenging themselves and their audiences. And then there's Springsteen who, miles past "Thunder Road," is still singing hauntingly of the search for dignity in desperate lives.