Bruce Springsteen has paid tribute to one of his early managers, who recently passed away.

The New Jersey rocker shared a post about Carl Virgil “Tinker” West, who was the manager of Springsteen’s late ’60s/early ’70s band Steel Mill, which also included E Streeters Stevie Van Zandt and Danny Federici.

In his post, Springsteen calls Tinker “one of the most important people of my young life.”

“In 1970 when I had nothing, nowhere to live, was broke with nowhere to go, he recognized my talent and took me in,” Springsteen writes. “We lived together in one tiny room of his Wanamassa, New Jersey Challenger Eastern Surfboard Factory. His mattress was on one side of the room and mine was six feet away on the other.”

Springsteen calls Tinker a “natural born misanthrope” and recalls their times driving across the country together, noting, “He also insisted I, without skills or license, drive my share. That’s how Tinker taught you something. He just made you do it.”

Springsteen writes that after he found fame, “Tinker asked me for exactly nothing.”

“He was forever alone, working, off the grid and independent,” he shares, “I was always satisfied when I would be the recipient of Tink’s highest compliment. ‘Springsteen, you don’t f*** around.'”

“No, I didn’t and neither did Carl Virgil West,” Springsteen adds, recalling the last time they saw each other, in the hospital as Tinker was dying from throat cancer. “I hung out for a while, he pulled me close and his voice raspy and nearly gone whispered ‘We sure had some adventures didn’t we?’ I answered ‘we sure did.'”

“When I was about to leave, I saw something I never thought I’d see in this life or the next,” Springsteen concludes the post. “He cried. I loved him.”

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