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Bruce Springsteen
Dubbed the 'blue collar hero' and the 'working man's friend' Bruce Springsteen is probably the greatest chronicler of the everyday ups and downs of the ordinary American.
When Bruce Springsteen finally broke through to national recognition in the fall of 1975 after a decade of trying, critics hailed him as the savior of rock & roll, the single artist who brought together all the exuberance of '50s rock and the thoughtfulness of '60s rock, molded into a '70s style. He rocked as hard as Jerry Lee Lewis, his lyrics were as complicated as Bob Dylan's, and his concerts were near-religious celebrations of all that was best in music. One critic became so enamored that he quit reviewing to become Springsteen's manager.
But the hosannas, when piped through the publicity machine of a major record company, were perceived as hype by a significant part of the public as well as the mainstream media — Springsteen landed on the covers of Time and Newsweek, but both magazines were covering the phenomenon, not the music. Springsteen's album, Born to Run, became a hit, and he jumped to arena status as a live act, but as many people were turned off by the press campaign as turned on by the records and shows.
Two decades later, however, Springsteen remained an established star who could look back on a career that had produced one of the best-selling albums of all time, sold-out stadium shows, Grammy Awards and an Oscar, and a group of imitators who constituted their own subgenre of popular music. If he no longer seemed divine, he remained popular enough for his Greatest Hits album to enter the charts at number one, and he had won over many of those skeptics from 1975.
Bruce Springsteen (born September 23, 1949) is an American singer and songwriter, nicknamed "The Boss". He frequently recorded with The E-Street Band.
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen was born September 23, 1949 in Freehold, New Jersey. His father, Douglas was a bus driver, and his mother, Adele Zirilli Springsteen, a legal secretary). Many people think his father was Irish. Actually SPRINGSTEEN is a Dutch surname (would be SPRINGSTONE in English), while his mother was Italian. He began performing in Richmond, VA in late 1969 and through 1970 with singer Robin Thompson in the band called Steel Mill. They went on to perform some of the most memorable shows at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA. Before being discovered nationally, he returned to Asbury Park and performed regularly at The Stone Pony and other small Asbury Park, New Jersey nightclubs. Even after gaining international notoriety, however, Springsteen never forgot his New Jersey roots and routinely would praise "the great state of New Jersey" in his live shows.
He began his recording career with the E Street Band in 1973. Upon signing a solo record deal with Columbia Records in 1972, Springsteen brought many of his New Jersey-based musician friends into the studio with him, many of them forming the E Street Band. His debut album, Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J., from January 1973 established him as a critical favorite, though sales were slow. Manfred Mann's Earth Band later turned one song from this album, "Blinded By The Light," into a number one hit.
In Boston's The Real Paper May 22, 1974, music critic Jon Landau wrote, "I saw rock and roll future, and its name is Bruce Springsteen. And on a night when I needed to feel young, he made me feel like I was hearing music for the very first time." (Landau later became Springsteen's manager and producer). With the release of his album Born to Run in 1975, Springsteen made the covers of both Time Magazine and Newsweek the same week, on October 27 of that year. However, a legal battle with former manager Mike Appel kept Springsteen out of the studio for a while, and probably also contributed to the much more somber 1978 album, Darkness on the Edge of Town.
Springsteen is probably best known for the multi-million selling Born in the U.S.A.(1984), and the successful world tour that followed it. After this commercial peak, Springsteen released the much more sedate and contemplative Tunnel of Love (1987), a mature reflection on the many faces of love found, lost and squandered. It coincided with the breakup of his first marriage to actress Julianne Phillips.
Reflecting the challenges of love, on Tunnel of Love's title song, Springsteen famously sang:
"Ought to be easy, ought to be simple enough. Man meets woman, and they fall in love. But the house is haunted, and the ride gets rough. You got to learn to live with what you can't rise above."
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Artist Biography - Bruce Springsteen
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 In 1992, after breaking up with most of the E Street Band (Roy Bittan remained), Springsteen released two albums simultaneously. Human Touch and Lucky Town were even more introspective than any of his previous work. Also different about these albums was the confidence he displayed. As opposed to his first two albums, which dreamed of happiness, and his next four, which showed him growing to fear it, these albums saw a finally satisfied and mature Springsteen.
A multiple Grammy Award winner, he also won an Academy Award in 1993 for his song "Streets of Philadelphia," which appeared in the soundtrack to the film Philadelphia.
In 1995, after temporarily re-organizing the E Street Band for a few new songs recorded for his first Greatest Hits album (a recording session that was chronicled in the film "Blood Brothers"), he released his second solo guitar album, The Ghost of Tom Joad. In 1998, another precursor to the E Street Band's upcoming re-birth appeared in the form of a sprawling, four-disc box set of outtakes, Tracks.
In 1999, the Band officially re-united and went on an extensive world tour, lasting over a year in length and finishing with ten straight sold out shows at New York's Madison Square Garden. The E-United World Tour resulted in a CBS Concert, with corresponding DVD and album releases as Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band: Live In New York City. Drawing on his strong fan base in Philadelphia, Springsteen chose to celebrate his 50th birthday with a live show at the Philadelphia Spectrum, which he opened with his hit "Growing Up."
In 2002, Springsteen released his first studio effort with the full band in 18 years, The Rising. The album, mostly a reflection on the September 11 attacks, was a critical and popular success, and hailed the return of "The Boss". In 2004, Springsteen announced that he and the E Street Band would participate in a series of concerts, all to be held in swing states, to benefit MoveOn.org and encourage people to vote against George W. Bush. This led to both criticism and praise from the expected partisan sources. Springsteen responded to the criticism with a blistering 43-minute guitar solo at the tour's kickoff show in Philadelphia, during which the members of the E Street Band reenacted the 2000 Election.
Like all the best artists in pop music, Bruce Springsteen continues moving forward, approaching his craft with an intelligence and desire for improvement that puts most of his contemporaries to shame. "You make your record like it's the last record you'll ever make," he said in 1980. "[When I] go out and play at night, I don't think, 'If I don't play good tonight, at least I played good last night.' It's like there are no tomorrows or yesterdays. There's only right now."
Current members of the E Street Band:
Roy Bittan - piano (replaced David Sancious in 1975)
Clarence Clemons - saxophone
Danny Federici - organ, glockenspiel, keyboard
Nils Lofgren - guitar (replaced Steven van Zandt in 1984; remained in group after van Zandt returned)
Patti Scialfa - guitar (Springsteen's wife - added in 1984)
Gary W. Tallent - bass guitar
Soozie Tyrell - violin (recorded with Springsteen in 1995, joined the band in 2002 with "The Rising" album and tour)
Steven van Zandt - guitar, mandolin (replaced Sukia Levy [violin] in 1975; left in 1984 to go solo as Little Steven; rejoined in 1995), also stars in the hit drama "The Sopranos" on HBO
Max Weinberg - drums (replaced Clarence "Boom" Carter in 1975, who replaced Vinnie "Mad Dog" Lopez in 1974 or 1975)
Discography
Year Title Label
January 5 - 1973 Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. Columbia Records
November 5 - 1973 The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle Columbia Records
September 1 - 1975 Born to Run Columbia Records
June 2 - 1978 Darkness on the Edge of Town Columbia Records
October 17 - 1980 The River Columbia Records
September 20 - 1982 Nebraska Columbia Records
June 4 - 1984 Born in the U.S.A. Columbia Records
November 4 - 1986 Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band Live/1975-85 Columbia Records
October 6 - 1987 Tunnel of Love Columbia Records
March 31 - 1992 Human Touch Columbia Records
March 31 - 1992 Lucky Town Columbia Records
1993 In Concert/MTV Plugged Columbia Records
March 18 - 1995 Greatest Hits Columbia Records
November 25 - 1995 The Ghost of Tom Joad Columbia Records
November 10 - 1998 Tracks Columbia Records
April 13 - 1999 18 Tracks Columbia Records
April 3 - 2001 Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band: Live in New York City' Columbia Records
March 27 - 2001 Live in New York City Sony
July 30 - 2002 The Rising Sony
November 11 - 2003 The Essential Bruce Springsteen Sony
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For more information , enjoy the official homepage of Bruce Springsteen
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