BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

Birth name: Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen
(Also known as "The Boss")
Born: 23.09.1949

Genre(s): Rock/Pop-Rock/Alternative Rock/Heartland Rock/Folk

Instrument(s): Vocals/Guitar/Harmonica/Piano
Years active: 1965–present

Associated acts: E Street Band/The Castiles/Steel Mill/Dr. Zoom and the Sonic Boom/Bruce Springsteen Band/The Seeger Sessions Band

Website: http://www.brucespringsteen.ne

Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949) is an influential American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He has frequently recorded and toured with the E Street Band. Springsteen is most widely known for his brand of heartland rock infused with pop hooks, poetic lyrics, and Americana sentiments centered around his native New Jersey. His eloquence in expressing ordinary, everyday problems has earned him numerous awards, including fifteen Grammy Awards and an Oscar, along with an international fan base. His most famous albums, Born to Run and Born in the U.S.A., epitomize his penchant for finding grandeur in the struggles of daily life. He has sold over 60 million albums in the U.S. alone.

Springsteen had been inspired to take up music at the age of seven after seeing Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show. At 13, he bought his first guitar for $18; later, his mother took out a loan to buy the 16-year-old Springsteen a $60 Kent guitar, an event he later memorialized in his song "The Wish". In 1965, he went to the house of Tex and Marion Vinyard, who sponsored young bands in town. They helped him become the lead guitarist of The Castiles, and later lead singer of the group. The Castiles recorded two original songs at a public recording studio in Brick Township, New Jersey and played a variety of venues, including Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village. Marion Vinyard said that she believed Springsteen when, as a young man, he said he was going to make it big.

Springsteen signed a record deal with Columbia Records in 1972, with the help of John Hammond, who had signed Bob Dylan to the same record label a decade earlier. Springsteen brought many of his New Jersey-based colleagues into the studio with him, thus forming the E Street Band (although it would not be formally named as such for a couple more years). His debut album, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., released in January 1973, established him as a critical favorite,[8] though sales were slow. Because of his lyrics-heavy, folk rock-rooted music exemplified on tracks like "Blinded by the Light" and "For You," as well as the Columbia and Hammond connections, critics initially compared Springsteen to Bob Dylan. "He sings with a freshness and urgency I haven't heard since I was rocked by 'Like a Rolling Stone'," wrote Crawdaddy magazine editor Peter Knobler in Springsteen's first interview/profile, in March, 1973. Crawdaddy "discovered" Springsteen in the rock press and was his earliest champion. Famed music critic Lester Bangs wrote in Creem, 1975, that when Springsteen's first album was released....."many of us dismissed it: he wrote like Bob Dylan and Van Morrison, sang like Van Morrison and Robbie Robertson, and led a band that sounded like Van Morrison's."[9] The track "Spirit in the Night" especially showed Morrison's influence, while with "Lost in the Flood" Springsteen presented the first of his many portraits of Vietnam veterans.

In September 1973 his second album, The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle, came out again to critical acclaim but no commercial success. Springsteen's songs became grander in form and scope, with the E Street Band providing a less folky, more R&B vibe and the lyrics often romanticizing teenage street life. "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)" and "Incident on 57th Street" would become fan favorites, and the long, rousing "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)" would rank among Springsteen's most beloved concert numbers.

In the May 22, 1974 issue of Boston's The Real Paper, music critic Jon Landau wrote after seeing a performance at the Harvard Square Theater, "I saw rock and roll's 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 subsequently became Springsteen's manager and producer, helping to finish the epic new album, Born to Run. Given an enormous budget in a last-ditch effort at a commercially viable record, Springsteen became bogged down in the recording process while striving for a wall of sound production. But, fed by the release of an early mix of "Born to Run" to progressive rock radio, anticipation built toward the album's release.

By the late 1970s, Springsteen had earned a reputation in the pop world as a songwriter whose material could provide hits for other bands. Manfred Mann's Earth Band had achieved a U.S. No. 1 pop hit with a heavily rearranged version of Greetings' "Blinded by the Light" in early 1977. Patti Smith reached number 13 with her take on Springsteen's unreleased "Because the Night" (which Smith co-wrote) in 1978, while The Pointer Sisters hit No. 2 in 1979 with Springsteen's also-unreleased "Fire".

In September 1979, Springsteen and the E Street Band joined the Musicians United for Safe Energy anti-nuclear power collective at Madison Square Garden for two nights, playing an abbreviated setlist while premiering two songs from his upcoming album. The subsequent No Nukes live album, as well as the following summer's No Nukes documentary film, represented the first official recordings and filmings of Springsteen's fabled live act, as well as Springsteen's first tentative dip into political involvement.

Springsteen continued to consolidate his thematic focus on working-class life with the double album The River in 1980, which finally yielded his first hit single of his own, "Hungry Heart", but also included an intentionally paradoxical range of material from good-time party rockers to emotionally intense ballads. The album sold well, and a long tour in 1980 and 1981 followed, featuring Springsteen's first extended playing of Europe and ending with a series of multi-night arena stands in major cities in the U.S.

Springsteen suddenly veered off the normal rock career course, following The River with the stark solo acoustic Nebraska in 1982. According to the Marsh biographies, Springsteen was in a depressed state when he wrote this material, and the result is a brutal depiction of American life. The title track on this album is about the murder spree of Charles Starkweather. The album actually started (according to Marsh) as a demo tape for new songs to be played with the E Street Band - but during the recording process, Springsteen and producer Landau realized they worked better as solo acoustic numbers; several attempts at re-recording the songs in a studio led them to realize that the original versions, recorded on a simple, low-tech four-track cassette deck in Springsteen's kitchen, were the best versions they were going to get.

While Nebraska did not sell especially well, it garnered widespread critical praise (including being named "Album of the Year" by Rolling Stone magazine's critics) and influenced later significant works by other major artists, including U2's album, The Joshua Tree. It helped inspire the musical genre known as lo-fi music, becoming a cult favorite among indie-rockers. Springsteen did not tour in conjunction with Nebraska's release.

Springsteen probably is best known for his album Born in the U.S.A. (1984), which sold 15 million copies in the U.S. alone and became one of the best-selling albums of all time with seven singles hitting the top 10, and the massively successful world tour that followed it. The title track was a bitter commentary on the treatment of Vietnam veterans, some of whom were Springsteen's friends and bandmates. The song was widely misinterpreted as nationalistic, and in connection with the 1984 presidential campaign became the subject of considerable folklore. Springsteen also turned down several million dollars offered by Chrysler Corporation for using the song in a car commercial. (In later years, Springsteen performed the song accompanied only with acoustic guitar to make the song's original meaning more explicitly clear. An acoustic version also appeared on Tracks, a later album.) "Dancing in the Dark" was the biggest of seven hit singles from Born in the U.S.A., peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard music charts. The music video for the song featured a young Courteney Cox dancing on stage with Springsteen, an appearance which helped kickstart the actress' career; a number of the videos for the album were made by noted film directors Brian De Palma or John Sayles.

During the "Born in the U.S.A." tour he met then model Julianne Phillips. Phillips met him in October 1984, and they were married in Lake Oswego on May 13, 1985 surrounded by intense media attention. Opposites in background, their marriage was not to be long-lived. Springsteen's 1987 album "Tunnel of Love" described some of his unhappinesses in the relationship and during the subsequent Tunnel of Love Express tour, Springsteen took up with backup singer Patti Scialfa, which Phillips found out by reading tabloids. Phillips and Springsteen filed for divorce in 1989. The divorce was finalized in 1990 and Springsteen finally married Scialfa in 1991.

The Born in the U.S.A. period represented the height of Springsteen's visibility in popular culture and the broadest audience demographic he would ever reach (this was further helped by releasing Arthur Baker dance mixes of three of the singles). Live/1975–85, a five-record box set (also released on three cassettes or three CDs), was released near the end of 1986 and also became a huge success, selling 13 million units in the U.S. and becoming the first box set to debut at No. 1 on the U.S. album charts. It is one of the best selling live albums of all time. It summed up Springsteen's career to that point and displayed some of the elements that made his shows so powerful to his fans: the switching from mournful dirges to party rockers and back; the communal sense of purpose between artist and audience; the long, intense spoken passages before songs, including those describing Springsteen's difficult relationship with his father; and the instrumental prowess of the E Street Band, such as in the long coda to "Racing in the Street". Despite its popularity, some fans and critics felt the album's song selection could have been better. Springsteen concerts are the subjects of frequent bootleg recording and trading among fans.

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, which only selectively used the E Street Band.

The subsequent Tunnel of Love Express tour shook up fans with changes to the stage layout, favorites dropped from the set list, and horn-based arrangements; during the European leg in 1988, Springsteen's relationship with E Street Band backup singer Patti Scialfa became public. Later in 1988, Springsteen headlined the truly worldwide Human Rights Now! Tour for Amnesty International. In the fall of 1989, he dissolved the E Street Band, and he and Scialfa relocated to California.

In 1992, after risking charges of "going Hollywood" by moving to Los Angeles (a radical move for someone so linked to the blue-collar life of the Jersey Shore) and working with session musicians, Springsteen released two albums at once. 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, at points during the Lucky Town album, Springsteen actually claims happiness for himself.

Some E Street Band fans voiced (and continue to voice) a low opinion of these albums, (especially Human Touch), and did not follow the subsequent "Other Band" Tour. For other fans, however, who had only come to know Springsteen after the 1975 consolidation of the E Street Band, the "Other Band" Tour was an exciting opportunity to see Springsteen develop a working onstage relationship with a different group of musicians, and to see him explore the Asbury Park soul-and-gospel base in some of his classic material.

It was also during this tour that fans generally became aware of Springsteen using a teleprompter so as to not forget his lyrics, a practice that has continued ever since. An electric band appearance on the acoustic MTV Unplugged television program (that was later released as In Concert/MTV Plugged) was poorly received and further cemented fan dissatisfaction. Springsteen seemed to realize this a few years hence when he spoke humorously of his late father during his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame acceptance speech:

"I've gotta thank him because — what would I conceivably have written about without him? I mean, you can imagine that if everything had gone great between us, we would have had disaster. I would have written just happy songs – and I tried it in the early '90s and it didn't work; the public didn't like it."

A multiple Grammy Award winner, Springsteen also won an Academy Award in 1994 for his song "Streets of Philadelphia", which appeared in the soundtrack to the film Philadelphia. The song, along with the film, was applauded by many for its sympathetic portrayal of a gay man dying of AIDS. The music video for the song shows Springsteen's actual vocal performance, recorded using a hidden microphone, to a prerecorded instrumental track. This was a technique developed on the "Brilliant Disguise" video.

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 documentary Blood Brothers), he released his second (mostly) solo guitar album, The Ghost of Tom Joad. This was generally less well-received than the similar Nebraska, due to the minimal melody, twangy vocals, and didactic nature of most of the songs, although some praised it for giving voice to immigrants and others who rarely have one in American culture. The lengthy, worldwide, small-venue solo acoustic Ghost of Tom Joad Tour that followed successfully featured many of his older songs in drastically reshaped acoustic form, although Springsteen had to explicitly remind his audiences to be quiet during the performances.

Following the tour, Springsteen moved back to New Jersey with his family. 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 out-takes, Tracks. In 1999, Springsteen and the E Street Band officially came together again and went on the extensive Reunion Tour, lasting over a year. Highlights included a record sold-out, 15-show run at Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey to kick off the American leg of the tour.

Springsteen's Reunion Tour with the E Street Band ended with a triumphant 10-night, sold-out engagement at New York City's Madison Square Garden in mid-2000 and controversy over a new song, "American Skin (41 Shots)", about the police shooting of Amadou Diallo. The final shows at Madison Square Garden were recorded and resulted in an HBO Concert, with corresponding DVD and album releases as Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band: Live In New York City.

In 2002, Springsteen released his first studio effort with the full band in 18 years, The Rising, produced by Brendan O'Brien. The album, mostly a reflection on the September 11 attacks, was a critical and popular success. The title track gained airplay in several radio formats, and the record became Springsteen's best-selling album of new material in 15 years. Kicked off by an early-morning Asbury Park appearance on The Today Show, The Rising Tour commenced, barnstorming through a series of single-night arena stands in the U.S. and Europe to promote the album in 2002, then returning for large-scale, multiple-night stadium shows in 2003. While Springsteen had maintained a loyal hardcore fan base everywhere (and particularly in Europe), his general popularity had dipped over the years in some southern and midwestern regions of the U.S. But it was still strong in Europe and along the U.S. coasts, and he played an unprecedented 10 nights in Giants Stadium in New Jersey, a ticket-selling feat to which no other musical act has come close. During these shows Springsteen thanked those fans who were attending multiple shows and those who were coming from long distances or another country; the advent of robust Bruce-oriented online communities had made such practices more common. The Rising Tour came to a final conclusion with three nights in Shea Stadium, highlighted by renewed controversy over "American Skin" and a guest appearance by Bob Dylan.

During the 2000s, Springsteen became a visible advocate for the revitalization of Asbury Park, and he's played an annual series of winter holiday concerts there to benefit various local businesses, organizations and causes. These shows are explicitly intended for the faithful, featuring numbers such as the unreleased (until Tracks) E Street Shuffle outtake "Thundercrack", a rollicking group-participation song that would mystify casual Springsteen fans. He also frequently rehearses for tours in Asbury Park; some of his most devoted followers even go so far as to stand outside the building to hear what fragments they can of the upcoming shows.

At the Grammy Awards of 2003, Springsteen performed The Clash's "London Calling" along with Elvis Costello, Dave Grohl, and E Street Band member Steven van Zandt in tribute to the late Joe Strummer; Springsteen and the Clash had once been considered multiple-album-dueling rivals at the time of the double The River and the triple Sandinista!

In 2004, Springsteen announced that he and the E Street Band would participate in a politically motivated "Vote for Change" tour, in conjunction with John Mellencamp, John Fogerty, the Dixie Chicks, R.E.M., Jurassic 5, Dave Matthews Band, Jackson Browne and other musicians. All concerts were to be held in swing states, to benefit MoveOn.org and to encourage people to vote against George W. Bush. A finale was held in Washington, D.C., bringing many of the artists together. Several days later, Springsteen held one more such concert in New Jersey, when polls showed that state surprisingly close. While in past years Springsteen had played benefits for causes in which he believed – against nuclear energy, for Vietnam veterans, Amnesty International and the Christic Institute – he had always refrained from explicitly endorsing candidates for political office (indeed he had rejected the efforts of Walter Mondale to attract an endorsement during the 1984 Reagan "Born in the U.S.A." flap). This new stance led to criticism and praise from the expected partisan sources. Springsteen's "No Surrender" became the main campaign theme song for John Kerry's unsuccessful presidential campaign; in the last days of the campaign, he performed acoustic versions of the song and some of his other old songs at Kerry rallies. Springsteen's stance coincided with a reduction in his fan base over the next two years, but how much was due to his politics versus his noncommercial music choices was unclear.

Devils & Dust was released on April 26, 2005, and was recorded without the E Street Band. It is a low-key, mostly acoustic album, in the same vein as Nebraska and The Ghost of Tom Joad although with a little more instrumentation. Some of the material was written almost 10 years earlier during, or shortly after, the Ghost of Tom Joad Tour, a couple of them being performed then but never released. The title track concerns an ordinary soldier's feelings and fears during the Iraq War. Starbucks rejected a co-branding deal for the album, due in part to some sexually explicit content but also because of Springsteen's anti-corporate politics. Nonetheless, the album entered the album charts at No. 1 in 10 countries (United States, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Ireland). Springsteen began the solo Devils & Dust Tour at the same time as the album's release, playing both small and large venues. Attendance was disappointing in a few regions, and everywhere (other than in Europe) tickets were easier to get than in the past. Unlike his mid-1990s solo tour, he performed on piano, electric piano, pump organ, autoharp, ukulele, banjo, electric guitar and stomping board, as well as acoustic guitar and harmonica, adding variety to the solo sound. (Offstage synthesizer, guitar and percussion also are used for some songs.) Unearthly renditions of "Reason to Believe", "The Promised Land", and Suicide's "Dream Baby Dream" jolted audiences to attention, while rarities, frequent set list changes, and a willingness to keep trying even through audible piano mistakes kept most of his loyal audiences happy.

In November 2005, New Jersey Senators Frank Lautenberg and Jon Corzine sponsored a U.S. Senate resolution to honor Springsteen on the 30th anniversary of the release of his Born to Run album. In general, resolutions honoring native sons are passed with a simple voice vote. For unstated reasons, this resolution was killed in committee. Also in November 2005, Sirius Satellite Radio started a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week radio station on Channel 10 called "E Street Radio." This channel, which has since been discontinued, featured commercial-free Bruce Springsteen music, including rare tracks, interviews and daily concerts of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band recorded throughout their career.

In April 2006, Springsteen released another radical departure, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, an American roots music project focused around a big folk sound treatment of 15 songs popularized by the radical musical activism of Pete Seeger. It was recorded with a large ensemble of musicians, including only Patti Scialfa, Soozie Tyrell, and The Miami Horns from past efforts. In contrast to previous albums, this was recorded in only three one-day sessions, and frequently one can hear Springsteen calling out key changes live as the band explores its way through the tracks. The Bruce Springsteen with The Seeger Sessions Band Tour began the same month, featuring the 18-strong ensemble of musicians dubbed the Seeger Sessions Band (and later shortened to the Sessions Band). Seeger Sessions material was heavily featured, as well as a handful of (usually drastically rearranged) Springsteen numbers. The tour proved very popular in Europe, selling out everywhere and receiving some excellent reviews[19], but newspapers reported that a number of U.S. shows suffered from sparse attendance. By the end of 2006, the Seeger Sessions tour toured Europe twice and toured America for only a short span. Bruce Springsteen with The Sessions Band: Live in Dublin, containing selections from three nights of November 2006 shows at the The Point Theatre in Dublin, Ireland, was released the following June.

Springsteen's most recent album, titled Magic, was released on October 2, 2007. Recorded with the E Street Band, it featured 10 new Springsteen songs plus "Long Walk Home," performed once with the Sessions band, and a hidden track (the first included on a Springsteen studio release), "Terry's Song," a tribute to Springsteen's long-time assistant Terry Magovern who died on July 30, 2007.[24] The first single "Radio Nowhere" was made available for a free download on August 28. On October 7, Magic debuted at number 1 in Ireland and the UK. Greatest Hits reentered the Irish charts at number 57, and Live in Dublin almost cracked the top 20 in Norway again. On October 20, 2007 Media Traffic reported that Springsteen's Magic sold 563,000 copies around the world in its first week, making it the best-selling record in the world for that particular week. The next world chart saw Bruce remain at the top, selling another 279,000 copies of Magic and bringing the total for that album to 842,000 copies worldwide. Sirius Satellite Radio also restarted "E Street Radio" on Channel 10, on September 27, 2007 in anticipation of Magic.Radio conglomerate Clear Channel Communications reportedly decided to not play the new album, sending an edict to its classic rock stations to not play any songs from the new album, while continuing to play older Springsteen material.

An accompanying tour with the E Street Band began at the Hartford Civic Center with the album's release and was routed to North America and Europe. Springsteen and the band performed live on NBC's Today Show in advance of the opener.

Longtime E Street Band organist Danny Federici had taken a leave of absence from touring in November 2007 due to melanoma.He passed away on April 17 after a three-year battle with the disease.

Grammy Awards
Springsteen has won 18 Grammy Awards, as follows (years shown are the year the award was given for, not the year in which the ceremony was held):

* Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male, 1984, "Dancing in the Dark"
* Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male, 1987, "Tunnel of Love"
* Song of the Year, 1994, "Streets of Philadelphia"
* Best Rock Song, 1994, "Streets of Philadelphia"
* Best Rock Vocal Performance, Solo, 1994, "Streets of Philadelphia"
* Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television, 1994, "Streets of Philadelphia"
* Best Contemporary Folk Album, 1996, The Ghost of Tom Joad
* Best Rock Album, 2002, The Rising
* Best Rock Song, 2002, "The Rising"
* Best Male Rock Vocal Performance, 2002, "The Rising"
* Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, 2003, "Disorder in the House" (with Warren Zevon)
* Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance, 2004, "Code of Silence"
* Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance, 2005, "Devils & Dust"
* Best Traditional Folk Album, 2006, The Seeger Sessions: We Shall Overcome
* Best Long Form Music Video, 2006, "Wings For Wheels: The Making Of Born to Run"
* Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance, 2007, "Radio Nowhere"
* Best Rock Song, 2007, "Radio Nowhere"
* Best Rock Instrumental Performance, 2007, "Once Upon A Time In The West"
Only one of these awards has been one of the cross-genre "major" ones (Song, Record, or Album of the Year); he has been nominated a number of other times for the majors, but failed to win.

Academy Awards
* Academy Award for Best Song, 1993, "Streets of Philadelphia" from Philadelphia

Emmy Awards
* The Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band: Live In New York City HBO special won two technical Emmy Awards in 2001

Other recognition
* Polar Music Prize in 1997.
* Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1999
* Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, 1999
* "Born to Run" named "The unofficial youth anthem of New Jersey" by the New Jersey state legislature (something Springsteen always found to be ironic, considering that the song "is about leaving New Jersey")
* The minor planet 23990, discovered Sept. 4 1999 by I. P. Griffin at Auckland, New Zealand, was officially named in his honor
* Banner hung from the rafters of New Jersey's Izod Center, honoring his 15 nights of sold-out shows there in one stand in 1999
* Banner hung from the rafters of Philadelphia's Wachovia Center in the colors of the Philadelphia Flyers, honoring Springsteen's 45 Philadelphia sold-out shows.
* Ranked #23 on Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, 2004.
* In October 2007, Eye Weekly ran a cover-story that dubbed Springsteen 'Indie-Rock Icon of the Year'.
* Made TIME Magazine's 100 Most Influential People Of The Year 2008 list.

Discography (Albums in Top 20 US & UK):

1973 Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.
1973 The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle
1975 Born to Run US#3, UK#17
1978 Darkness on the Edge of Town US#5, UK#16
1980 The River US#2, UK#1
1982 Nebraska US#3, UK#3
1984 Born in the U.S.A. US#1, UK#1
1986 Live/1975-85 US#1, UK#4
1987 Tunnel of Love US#1, UK#1
1992 Human Touch US#2, UK#1
1992 Lucky Town US#3, UK#2
1993 In Concert/MTV Plugged UK#4
1995 Greatest Hits US#1, UK#1
1995 The Ghost of Tom Joad US#11, UK#16
1998 Tracks
1999 18 Tracks
2001 Live in New York City US#5, UK#12
2002 The Rising US#1, UK#1
2003 The Essential Bruce Springsteen US#14
2005 Devils & Dust US#1, UK#1
2005 Born to Run 30th Anniversary Edition US#18
2006 Hammersmith Odeon London '75
2006 We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions US#3, UK#3
2007 Bruce Springsteen with The Sessions Band: Live in Dublin
2007 Magic UK#1, US#1