How cool is it that Steven Van Zandt, aka Little Steven, aka Miami Steve, has been the consigliere for two of the most iconic pop culture figures of our lifetime, one real and one fictional: Bruce Springsteen, aka the Boss (he’s the real-life one), and Tony Soprano, aka the boss of a certain New Jersey-based crime crew.
In the comprehensive, entertaining and star-studded documentary “Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple,” premiering Saturday on HBO, we’re also reminded of the myriad of other triumphs, setbacks and adventures in Stevie’s storied career, from co-founding Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes to his solo endeavors to a long and impressive record of political and social activism to being the program director for two channels on Sirius/XM. The running time for the doc is a robust 2 hours and 27 minutes, but hey, the 73-year-old Van Zandt has lived too much life for it to be encapsulated in a zippy hour or so.
Directed by Bill Teck and featuring interviews with Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Southside Johnny, Jackson Browne, Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones, Eddie Vedder and Joan Jett, among other luminaries, “Disciple” also benefits from a steady supply of archival photos and clips. It’s actually kind of remarkable how often someone had a still or movie camera at those early gigs in New Jersey, when Van Zandt and Springsteen were playing in a variety of different bands.) Springsteen recalls first seeing Van Zandt at a club in Middletown, N.J.: “He had on this huge paisley tie. ... He just became my rock ‘n’ roll brother, instantly.”
Clad in a trademark scarf and pirate-style ensemble, Van Zandt also offers honest and often funny and self-deprecating openness, as when he notes that his longtime partnership with Springsteen started to feel less equal in the early 1980s, and he quit the E Street Band just before they went from big-time popular to the highest stratosphere: “Somewhere in ’83, it started to feel like Bruce had stopped listening. Fifteen years, we finally made it. And I quit, the night before payday. That was f- - -ing with destiny big time ...”
Interspersed with segments chronicling high-profile moments in Van Zandt’s career, e.g., the anti-apartheid activism that led to Van Zandt spearheading the 1985 protest song “Sun City,” we see glimpses of his private life and are reminded of his 40-year-marriage to Maureen Van Zandt (Little Richard performed the ceremony), who played Silvio Dante’s wife Gabriella on “The Sopranos.”
We also hear from “Sopranos” creator David Chase, who said that when he saw Stevie kill with an introduction of the Rascals into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he immediately thought of casting him on a new show he was working on. Lance Freed, son of the legendary DJ Alan Freed and a music publisher who is close with Van Zandt, recalls trying to talk him out of doing TV, telling him, “Steven, you can’t be in television. Think of Donny & Marie. Are you the Partridge Family? No! You’re Stevie Van Zandt, you’re a f- - -ing rock ‘n’ roll idol. ... [This is] going to ruin everything.”
Van Zandt’s reply: “Well, I’m also broke.”
Spoiler alert: Things worked out with Stevie and that TV show. And he’s still a f- - -ing rock ‘n’ roll idol.
