Pianist Roy Bittan has been a key player in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band for nearly 40 years

Roy Bittan

When Roy Bittan joined Bruce Springsteen’s band in August 1974, New Jersey’s favorite son was in the middle of working on a statement record, one that would either fulfill his enormous promise or send him back to his bedroom for some serious thinking.

“Born to Run” fulfilled the promise, and then some, turning Springsteen into a star when released in 1975.

Bittan’s impact on Springsteen’s music was immediate. Although he was replacing an exceptionally talented pianist in David Sancious, Bittan’s unique blend of backgrounds — classical, rock ’n’ roll, Broadway — made him ideal for the sweeping romanticism and epic emotion of “Born to Run.”

“Bruce had a particular vision, and he was trying to create a world,” Bittan said recently from his California home. “The songs and the stories he was telling were something that I recognized. To me, it was always like a rock opera, although I don’t think people looked at it quite that way.

“To me, it was very cohesive, very expressive, and the thread between all of the songs was very strong. It was one big story and one great movie.”

The same could be said for Springsteen and the E Street Band, a partnership that has enjoyed record-setting highs and survived dramatic lows over nearly 40 years of making music. Steven Van Zandt and Garry Tallent were there before it was even called the E Street Band; Bittan and Max Weinberg joined together; and Nils Lofgren and Patti Scialfa joined in 1984.

Despite the deaths in recent years of core members Clarence Clemons and Danny Federici, Springsteen and band returned in 2012 with a new album, “Wrecking Ball,” and an acclaimed tour that stops Saturday night at the KFC Yum! Center.

Federici died of cancer in 2008, and Clemons of a stroke last year. Bittan said that retiring the band in the wake of Clemons’ death wasn’t an option, despite the huge role he played in the band’s history and mythology. As everyone knows, when the Big Man joined the band, all the little pretties raised their hands.

“First of all, Bruce has this catalog of over 200 songs, and what a crime it would be to not go out and play them,” Bittan said. “It was terrible, just tragic, losing Danny and Clarence, but the core band is still there — Max, Garry, myself, Steven, Bruce, Nils. We’re still there and we can still play those songs.

“You’re never going to get anybody to replace the heart and soul of those people, you know, but Charlie Giordano has done a wonderful job with great respect for what Danny did ... and Jake Clemons, who saw his uncle play in the band when he was 9 years old, has worked incredibly hard to learn all those iconic sax solos.

“It’s a beautiful thing, very heart-warming, to see Jake up there honoring Clarence the way he does. We have to move forward, and we’re incredibly lucky to have Charlie and Jake up there.”

Springsteen has released 17 studio albums, and 11 of them have been with some form of the E Street Band. From 1975 through 1985, Springsteen and the E Street Band ruled the world, first by establishing themselves as one of history’s finest live bands (if not the finest), and then conquering commercial radio by selling nearly 20 million copies of 1984’s “Born in the U.S.A.”

When the band was at its absolute peak, with 1973’s “The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle,” “Born to Run,” 1978’s “Darkness on the Edge of Town” and 1980’s “The River,” the combination of Springsteen’s writing and the band’s seemingly bottomless capacity to support and interpret the songs was untouchable.

Here was a band that proved its party credentials night after night with four-hour sets that were essentially club shows relocated to arenas. But beginning with “Darkness,” Springsteen’s songs began to dig into the realities of life in America, detailing with a sometimes alarming urgency how the working class was being marginalized.

When Springsteen put the E Street Band on indefinite hiatus in 1989, it signaled a new way of working that continues in some ways until now. While the band fitfully reunited in 1995 (although it would be four more years until they toured), Springsteen has continued to do occasional side projects such as 2005’s “Devils & Dust” and 2006’s “We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions.”

Other than a handful of instances, however, Bittan has been along for the ride; since joining the band, he’s performed on 11 of the 14 albums that feature a band.

“I think it goes back to what the piano means in the band, and I’ve been lucky enough to be that guy,” Bittan said. “The piano was always a very defining instrument in the E Street Band, it was always the thing that would stick out and play that riff, so I think it was important for him to maintain some of that in his work without the band.

“Of course, I’d like to think that he also respected and desired my talents. He and I have had a really phenomenal creative relationship over the years, and I feel like he’s allowed me to interpret and magnify and illuminate his ideas. He’s been very gracious about that, some times more than others, but it’s been a wonderful, amazing trip over the last 38 years and I just hope that it continues until we can’t do it anymore.”

Reporter Jeffrey Lee Puckett cane be reached at (502) 582-4160.