A Good Life

Bruce Springsteen has always worked as an artist. Joe Grushecky, who once led Pittsburgh’s Iron City Houserockers, has spent much of the last twenty years as a special education teacher. They’ve worked together and are a natural fit. Both are obsessed with understanding the lives of working people and both sing with sandpaper growls. Springsteen guests on three cuts here, battling for the mike on the thrilling opener “Code of Silence” and settling further in the background for “Is She the One” and the title track, where Grushecky lays it out: “Just because they sign my check/ that don’t mean they own my soul.” The album is filled with these simple, sturdy observations, backed with the same utilitarian rock that Grushecky’s always favored: tough lead guitars, a driving rhythm section and no time for frills. But his best moments may be his most reflective. The ballad “Beauty Fades” allows him to soften his rasp and plays out like a classic soul ballad telling a working class tale with a minimum of fuss. Grushecky gets older, he matures, but he never grows up.