The Boss to give more "Darkness" for Christmas

The Rolling Stones just pulled this off with their classic Exile on Main Street album. The songs on the original double-album were remastered, several outtakes were added to the original list of songs and it was re-released a couple of months ago. It is still No. 28 on Amazon's Best Seller list after 106 days in the Top 100.

Now Bruce Springsteen is going to do something similar with his 1978 album Darkness on the Edge of Town. He is re-recording some of the vocals on the album, adding some outtakes and plans to release it in time for the Christmas sales season.

No word yet on what the outtakes are although two popular Springsteen compositions from those sessions - Fire, which became a hit for the Pointer Sisters, and Because the Night, a big-seller for Patti Smith - would seem like prime contenders. Guitarist Steve Van Zandt told Rolling Stones that as many as 10 outtakes could be included.

Darkness is the album that contained such Springsteen classics as Badlands, The Promised Land and Prove It All Night. The album is not an easy one to listen to. It's about working class characters with little to call their own and in danger of losing even that. It is, however, one of my favorites and contains in Racing in the Streets, one of the songs I always loved hearing Bruce perform live (an almost 10-minute version is available on the new London Calling DVD.)