Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple review – seeing Springsteen’s sidekick take on apartheid is an air-punch moment

Rock’n’roll needs its sidemen, collaborators and co-writers. It needs its archivists and advocates, its arrangers and backing singers. There are endless positions other than megastar, and Steven Van Zandt has fulfilled most of them. Disciple, a sprawling biography of one of rock’s most likable veterans, is a document of several lives, all well lived by the same man.

Van Zandt was part of the New Jersey music scene of the early 1970s, which had its own signature sound: classic rock’n’roll beefed up with the punchy horns of Atlantic and Stax. Bruce Springsteen already had a record deal, but he kept coming back to play in Asbury Park’s sweat-soaked clubs. One day, when he felt one of the songs on his next album might need a bit of home-town grit, he called his old pal Steve. Van Zandt breezed into the studio, agreed that the track sucked, and 20 minutes later Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out had been revitalised, smothered in that loose Jersey brass. It was one of the highlights of Born to Run, Springsteen’s 1975 breakthrough. After then, Van Zandt became a key member of Bruce’s backing group, the E Street Band.

Our man was at this point known as Miami Steve, on account of the time he returned from a stint playing gigs in Miami, sporting colourful clothing that he then kept wearing in the far less sunny New Jersey. Interviewed here, he recalls his thought process: “Fuck winter, I’m done. I’m tropical from now on!” It’s one of countless irrepressible anecdotes doled out by the Van Zandt of today, filmed leaning on the back of a turned-around chair like a cool supply teacher. The tie-dye top he’s wearing is, by his standards, restrained: one of the glories of his career and of this film is his unique styling. Assembled underneath the trademark wide bandana that has kept the top of Van Zandt’s head from public view for five decades, the Miami Steve look evolved into an aesthetic that was roughly “Purple Rain-era Prince losing a fight with a fairground clairvoyant”: variously we see leather waistcoats, white tank tops, and a trenchcoat apparently made of five different carpets; fingerless gloves, voluminous blouses, tasselled earrings and so, so many silk scarves.

Immunity to ridicule is a quality shared by all the best pop stars, and in the 1980s Van Zandt fearlessly invited mockery in a new way. Just as Springsteen was hitting paydirt with Born in the USA, Van Zandt split from him and rebranded under the banner Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, singing political songs. Disciple is perhaps too kind to Van Zandt’s activist era, giving the impression that the campaigns were more impactful and the records more listenable than they were. Now and again, however, Little Steven made a big impression.

By far Van Zandt’s biggest success on the political stage was Artists United Against Apartheid, a Band Aid-style supergroup whose 1985 song Sun City promoted a creative boycott of apartheid South Africa. Van Zandt assembled an unbelievable roster for the recording: the footage of Melle Mel, Ringo Starr, Pat Benatar, Bono, Keith Richards, Lou Reed, Bobby Womack, Jimmy Cliff, George Clinton and scores more is impressive enough, even before Miles Davis wanders in to lay down a bit of trumpet. The clip of Van Zandt at one of the spin-off live gigs, swathed in textiles of every conceivable colour, addressing a stadium full of fans with the words, “We the people will no longer tolerate the terrorism of the government of South Africa. We will no longer do business with those who do business with the terrorist government of South Africa.” It’s an air-punch moment and an illustration of the sort of money-meets-mouth moral fortitude that music could use more of today. But the truth was that Van Zandt was generally more effective as a facilitator of other people’s genius. With his music too eclectic to maintain a fanbase and his lyrics too strident for him to be loved by record companies, his solo career stalled.

Van Zandt took time off (“I went out into the wilderness, man; I walked my dog for seven years”) before rejoining Springsteen and the E Street Band, returning to the role of the dependable sidekick. That might have been that, but then Sopranos creator David Chase had a flash of inspiration, hiring one of rock’s great consiglieri to play the mafia version of the same. Silvio Dante was just like Steve, on the edge of the spotlight but always giving the end product extra sparkle and guts.

The Sopranos was a surprise third act for Van Zandt, yet it had been well earned by a man whose expertise and passion has put smiles on faces for nearly half a century. Disciple, meandering and exhausting – but with more entertaining moments than dull ones – is an appropriate tribute.

• Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple aired on Sky Documentaries and is available on NOW.