Born to Run is the third album by the American singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen. It was released on August 25, 1975 through Columbia Records. It captured the heaviness of Springsteen's earlier releases while displaying a more diverse range of influences.

Born to Run was a critical and commercial success and became Springsteen's breakthrough album. It peaked at number three on the Billboard 200, eventually selling six million copies in the US by the year 2000. Two singles were released from the album: "Born to Run" and "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out"; the first helped Springsteen to reach mainstream popularity. The tracks "Thunder Road" and "Jungleland" became staples of album-oriented rock radio and Springsteen concert high points. Being ranked number #18 on Rolling Stone Magazine's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list, it is widely regarded as his magnum opus.^{[by whom?]}

On November 14, 2005, a "30th Anniversary" remaster of the album was released as a box set including two DVDs: a production diary film and a concert movie.

History[link]

Springsteen began work on the album after touring in support of its previous album, The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle, released in 1973. 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.

Springsteen has noted a progression in his songwriting compared to his previous work. Unlike Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. and The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle, Born to Run includes few specific references to places in New Jersey, in an attempt to make the songs more identifiable to a wider audience. Springsteen has also referred to a maturation in his lyrics, calling Born to Run "the album where I left behind my adolescent definitions of love and freedom-- it was the dividing line."^[1] In addition, Springsteen spent more time in the studio refining songs than he had on the previous two albums. All in all, the album took more than 14 months to record, with six months alone spent on the song "Born to Run" itself. During this time Springsteen battled with anger and frustration over the album, saying he heard "sounds in [his] head" that he could not explain to the others in the studio. During the process, Springsteen brought in Jon Landau to help with production. This was the beginning of the breakup of Springsteen's relationship with producer and manager Mike Appel, after which Landau assumed both roles. The album was Springsteen's first to feature pianist Roy Bittan and drummer Max Weinberg (although David Sancious and Ernest "Boom" Carter played the piano and drums, respectively, on the title track).

The album is noted for its use of introductions to set the tone of each song (all of the record was composed on piano, not guitar), and for the Phil Spector-like "Wall of Sound" arrangements and production. Indeed, Springsteen has said that he wanted "Born to Run" to sound like "Roy Orbison singing Bob Dylan, produced by Spector." Most of the tracks were first recorded with a core rhythm section band comprising Springsteen, Weinberg, Bittan, and bassist Garry Tallent, with other members' contributions then added on.^[2]

In terms of the original LP's sequencing, Springsteen eventually adopted a "four corners" approach, as the songs beginning each side ("Thunder Road", "Born to Run") were uplifting odes to escape, while the songs ending each side ("Backstreets", "Jungleland") were sad epics of loss, betrayal, and defeat. (Originally, he had planned to begin and end the album with alternative versions of "Thunder Road".)

Also, original pressings have "Meeting Across the River" billed as "The Heist". The original album cover has the title printed in a graffiti style font. These copies are very rare and considered to be the "holy grail" for Springsteen collectors.

Release and reception[link]

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[3]
Blender	[4]
Robert Christgau	A[5]
Pitchfork	(10/10)[6]
Rolling Stone	(very positive)[7]
Rolling Stone Album Guide	[8]
Sputnikmusic	[9]

The album's release was accompanied by a $250,000 promotional campaign by Columbia directed at both consumers and the music industry, making good use of Landau's "I saw rock 'n' roll's future—and its name is Bruce Springsteen" quote. With much publicity, Born to Run vaulted into the top 10 in its second week on the charts and soon went Gold. Time and Newsweek magazines put Springsteen on the cover in the same week (October 27, 1975) – in Time, Jay Cocks praised Springsteen, while the Newsweek article took a cynical look at the "next Dylan" hype that haunted Springsteen until his breakthrough. The question of hype became a story in itself as critics began wondering if Springsteen was for real or the product of record company promotion.^[10][11]

Upset with Columbia's promotion department, Springsteen said the decision to label him as the "future of rock was a very big mistake and I would like to strangle the guy who thought that up." When Springsteen arrived for his first UK concert at the Hammersmith Odeon, he personally tore down the "Finally the world is ready for Bruce Springsteen" posters in the lobby and ordered that the buttons with "I have seen the future of rock 'n' roll at the Hammersmith Odeon" printed on them not be given out. Now fearing the hype might backfire, Columbia suspended all press interviews with Springsteen. When the hype died down, sales tapered off and the album was off the chart after 29 weeks. But the album had established a solid national fan base for Springsteen which he would build on with each subsequent release.

The album debuted on the Billboard album chart on September 13, 1975 at #84. The following week it made an impressive increase entering the top 10 at #8, then spent two weeks at #4, and finally, during the weeks of October 11 and October 18, Born to Run reached its peak position of #3.

Born to Run continued to be a strong catalog seller through the years, re-entering the Billboard chart in late 1980 after The River was released, and again after the blockbuster success of Born in the U.S.A., spending most of 1985 on the chart. It was certified triple-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in 1986, the first year in which pre-1976 releases were eligible for platinum and multi-platinum awards.

In 1987, Born to Run was ranked #8 by Rolling Stone in its "100 Best Albums of the Last Twenty Years"^[12] and in 2003, in its "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" ranked Born to Run at number 18.^[13] In 2001, the TV network VH1 named it the 27th-greatest album of all time,^[14] and in 2003, it was ranked as the most popular album in the first Zagat Survey Music Guide.^[15]

Born to Run is listed in the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry of historic recordings.^[16]

In December 2005, U.S. Representative Frank Pallone (who represents Asbury Park) and 21 co-sponsors sponsored H.Res. 628, "Congratulating Bruce Springsteen of New Jersey on the 30th anniversary of his masterpiece record album 'Born to Run', and commending him on a career that has touched the lives of millions of Americans." In general, resolutions honoring native sons are passed with a simple voice vote. This bill, however, was referred to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and died there.^[17]

Live performance[link]

Songs from Born to Run were performed live as early as mid-1974 and by 1975, all had made their way into Springsteen's shows and (with the rare exception of "Meeting Across the River") continued to be a regular staple of his concerts on subsequent tours through 2009. Springsteen and the E Street Band performed Born to Run in its entirety and in order for the first time at a benefit performance at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, New Jersey, on May 7, 2008. It was again performed during their September 20, 2009, show at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois,^[18] as well as several other shows on the fall 2009 leg of the Working on a Dream Tour.

Album cover[link]

The cover art of Born to Run is one of rock music's most popular and iconic images.^[19] It was taken by Eric Meola, who shot 900 frames in his three-hour session.^[19] These photos have been compiled in Born to Run: The Unseen Photos.^[19]

The photo shows Springsteen holding a Fender Broadcaster while leaning against saxophonist Clarence Clemons.^[19] That image became famous as the cover art. "Other things happened," says Meola, "but when we saw the contact sheets, that one just sort of popped.^[19] Instantly, we knew that was the shot." Ultra-thin lettering graced the mass-produced version: an unusual touch then; a design classic since.^[19]

The Springsteen and Clemons cover pose has been imitated often, from Cheap Trick on the album Next Position Please, to Tom and Ray Magliozzi on the cover of the Car Talk compilation Born Not to Run: More Disrespectful Car Songs, to Kevin & Kell on a Sunday strip entitled "Born to Migrate" featuring Kevin Dewclaw as Bruce with a carrot and Kell Dewclaw as Clarence with a pile of bones, to Bert and the Cookie Monster on the cover of the Sesame Street album Born to Add.^[19] It has also been used as the cover art for Frank Turner's cover of Thunder Road

Track listing[link]

All songs written by Bruce Springsteen

Side one[link]

1. "Thunder Road" – 4:49
2. "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" – 3:11
3. "Night" – 3:00
4. "Backstreets" – 6:30

Side two[link]

1. "Born to Run" – 4:31
2. "She's the One" – 4:30
3. "Meeting Across the River" – 3:18
4. "Jungleland" – 9:34

30th Anniversary Edition[link]

On November 14, 2005, Columbia Records released Born to Run 30th Anniversary Edition in box set form. The package included:

• a remastered CD version of the original album – the CD is all black (including playback side) with the label side replicating the original vinyl disc having four bands (the original LP had four tracks per side) and including a modified red Columbia label listing all 8 tracks
• the DVD Wings For Wheels, a lengthy documentary on the making of the album, which later won the 2007 Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video
  • with bonus film of three songs recorded live on May 1, 1973 at the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles
• the DVD Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band Hammersmith Odeon, London '75, a full-length concert film recorded on November 18, 1975 at the Hammersmith Odeon in London during the brief European portion of their Born to Run tours.
  • this live recording was subsequently released as the CD Hammersmith Odeon London '75

Packages from retailer Best Buy also included:

• a CD single replica of the original "Born to Run" 45 single.

The box set debuted on the Billboard 200 album chart on December 3, 2005 at number 18 with sales of 53,206 copies.^[20] It spent 6 weeks on the chart.

Personnel[link]

The E Street Band[link]

• Bruce Springsteen – lead vocals, lead and rhythm guitars, harmonica, percussion
• Roy Bittan – piano, organ, Fender Rhodes, background vocals
• Ernest "Boom" Carter – drums on "Born to Run"
• Clarence Clemons – saxophones, tambourine, background vocals
• Danny Federici – organ, glockenspiel on "Born to Run"
• Suki Lahav – violin on "Jungleland"
• David Sancious – piano, organ on "Born to Run"
• Garry W. Tallent – bass guitar
• Steven Van Zandt – background vocals on "Thunder Road", horn arrangements
• Max Weinberg – drums

Additional musicians[link]

• Wayne Andre – trombone
• Mike Appel – background vocals
• Michael Brecker – tenor saxophone
• Randy Brecker – trumpet, flugelhorn
• Richard Davis – double bass
• David Sanborn – baritone saxophone

Production[link]

• John Berg – album design
• Greg Calbi – mastering
• Charles Calello – conductor, string arrangements
• Andy Engel – album design
• Bob Ludwig – remastering
• Eric Meola – photography
• Steven Van Zandt – horn arrangements on "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out"

Engineers[link]

• Andy Abrams
• Angie Arcuri
• Ricky Delena
• Jimmy Iovine
• Louis Lahav
• Thom Panunzio
• Corky Stasiak
• David Thoener

Chart positions[link]

Album[link]

Singles[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Album lyrics and audio samples
• Collection of album reviews
• Born To Run Photographs

Bruce Springsteen
Springsteen in 2009; Working on a Dream Tour in Valladolid, Spain
Background information
Also known as	The Boss, Bad Scooter
Born	(1949-09-23) September 23, 1949 (age 62) Long Branch, New Jersey, United States
Genres	Rock, folk rock, heartland rock, hard rock, roots rock
Occupations	Musician, Songwriter
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, harmonica, bass guitar, piano, percussion, banjo, drums, keyboards
Years active	1969–present
Labels	Columbia
Associated acts	The E Street Band, Steel Mill, Miami Horns, The Sessions Band
Website	www.brucespringsteen.net
Notable instruments
Fender Telecaster Takamine Guitars Gibson J-45 Hohner Marine Band Harmonica Gibson J-200 Gibson ES-335 Gibson Hummingbird

Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949), nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter-performer who records and tours with the E Street Band. Springsteen is widely known for his brand of heartland rock, poetic lyrics, and Americana sentiments centered on his native New Jersey.^[1]

Springsteen's recordings have included both commercially accessible rock albums and more somber folk-oriented works. His most successful studio albums, Born in the U.S.A. and Born to Run, showcase a talent for finding grandeur in the struggles of daily American life; he has sold more than 65 million albums in the United States and more than 120 million worldwide^[2] and he has earned numerous awards for his work, including 21 Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes and an Academy Award. He is widely regarded by many as one of the most influential songwriters of the 20th century, and in 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him as the 23rd Greatest Artist of all time.

Early life[link]

Springsteen was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, and spent his childhood and high school years in Freehold Borough. He lived on South Street in Freehold Borough and attended Freehold Borough High School. His father, Douglas Frederick Springsteen, was of Dutch and Irish ancestry and worked, among other vocations, as a bus driver, although he was frequently unemployed; his surname is Dutch for jump stone.^[3] His mother, Adele Ann (née Zerilli), was a legal secretary and was of Italian ancestry.^[4] His maternal grandfather was born in Vico Equense, a city near Naples. He has two younger sisters, Virginia and Pamela. Pamela had a brief film career, but left acting to pursue still photography full time; she took photos for the Human Touch and Lucky Town albums.

Raised a Roman Catholic,^[5] Springsteen attended the St. Rose of Lima Catholic school in Freehold Borough, where he was at odds with the nuns and rejected the strictures imposed upon him, even though some of his later music reflects a Catholic ethos and included a few rock-influenced, traditional Irish-Catholic hymns.^[6] Recently in Paris (2012) before the launch of his latest album, Wrecking Ball, he explained that it was his Catholic upbringing rather than political ideology that most influenced his music. He noted in the interview that his faith had given him a "very active spiritual life," although he joked that this "made it very difficult sexually." He added: "Once a Catholic, always a Catholic."^[7]

In ninth grade, he transferred to the public Freehold Regional High School, but did not fit in there, either. Old teachers have said he was a "loner, who wanted nothing more than to play his guitar." He completed high school, but felt so uncomfortable that he skipped his own graduation ceremony.^[8] He briefly attended Ocean County College, but dropped out.^[6]

Career history[link]

1962–1972: Early years[link]

Springsteen had been inspired to take up music at the age of seven after seeing Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show. At 13, his mother bought him his first guitar for $18; later, she took out a loan to buy the 16-year-old Springsteen a $60 Kent guitar, as 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 and subsequently the lead singer of The Castiles. The Castiles recorded two original songs at a public recording studio in Brick Township and played a variety of venues, including Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village. Marion Vinyard said that she believed the young Springsteen when he promised he would make it big.^[9]

Called for induction when he was 18, Springsteen failed his physical examination and did not serve in Vietnam. In an interview in Rolling Stone magazine in 1984, he said, "When I got on the bus to go take my physical, I thought one thing: I ain't goin'." He had suffered a concussion in a motorcycle accident when he was 17, and this together with his "crazy" behaviour at induction and not taking the tests, was enough to get him a 4F.^[10]

New Jersey beach towns such as Asbury Park inspired the themes of ordinary life in Bruce Springsteen's music.

In the late 1960s, Springsteen performed briefly in a power trio known as Earth, playing in clubs in New Jersey. Springsteen acquired the nickname "The Boss" during this period as when he played club gigs with a band he took on the task of collecting the band's nightly pay and distributing it amongst his bandmates.^[11] Springsteen is not fond of this nickname, due to his dislike of bosses,^[12] but seems to have since given it a tacit acceptance. Previously he had the nickname "Doctor".^[13] From 1969 through early 1971, Springsteen performed with Steel Mill, which also featured Danny Federici, Vini Lopez, Vinnie Roslin and later Steve Van Zandt and Robbin Thompson. They went on to play the mid-Atlantic college circuit, and also briefly in California. In January 1970 well-known San Francisco Examiner music critic Philip Elwood gave Springsteen credibility in his glowing assessment of Steel Mill: "I have never been so overwhelmed by totally unknown talent." Elwood went on to praise their "cohesive musicality" and, in particular, singled out Springsteen as "a most impressive composer." During this time Springsteen also performed regularly at small clubs in Canton, Massachusetts, Richmond, Virginia, Asbury Park and along the Jersey Shore, quickly gathering a cult following. Other acts followed over the next two years, as Springsteen sought to shape a unique and genuine musical and lyrical style: Dr. Zoom & the Sonic Boom (early–mid 1971), Sundance Blues Band (mid 1971), and The Bruce Springsteen Band (mid 1971–mid 1972). With the addition of pianist David Sancious, the core of what would later become the E Street Band was formed, with occasional temporary additions such as horn sections, "The Zoomettes" (a group of female backing vocalists for "Dr. Zoom") and Southside Johnny Lyon on harmonica. Musical genres explored included blues, R&B, jazz, church music, early rock 'n' roll, and soul. His prolific songwriting ability, with "More words in some individual songs than other artists had in whole albums", as his future record label would describe it in early publicity campaigns, brought his skill to the attention of several people who were about to change his life: new managers Mike Appel and Jim Cretecos, and legendary Columbia Records talent scout John Hammond, who, under Appel's pressure, auditioned Springsteen in May 1972.

Even after Springsteen gained international acclaim, his New Jersey roots showed through in his music, and he often praised "the great state of New Jersey" in his live shows. Drawing on his extensive local appeal, he routinely sold out consecutive nights in major New Jersey, Philadelphia and New York venues. He also made many surprise appearances at The Stone Pony and other shore nightclubs over the years, becoming the foremost exponent of the Jersey Shore sound.

1972–1974: Initial struggle for success[link]

Springsteen signed a record deal with Columbia Records in 1972, with the help of John Hammond, who had signed Bob Dylan to the same 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 several more years). His debut album, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., released in January 1973, established him as a critical favorite,^[14] though sales were slow. Because of Springsteen's lyrical poeticism and folk rock–rooted music exemplified on tracks like "Blinded by the Light", (which would later be a hit for Manfred Mann and go to No. 1, making it the only time Springsteen had a No. 1 single as a songwriter), 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.^[15] (Springsteen and the E Street Band acknowledged by giving a private performance at the Crawdaddy 10th Anniversary Party in New York City in June 1976.)^[16] Music critic Lester Bangs wrote in Creem in 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."^[17] The track "Spirit in the Night" especially showed Morrison's influence, while "Lost in the Flood" was the first of many portraits of Vietnam veterans and "Growin' Up", his first take on the recurring theme of adolescence.

In September 1973 his second album, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, was released, 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 romanticized 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)" continues to 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."^[18] 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. All in all the album took more than 14 months to record, with six months alone spent on the song "Born To Run". During this time Springsteen battled with anger and frustration over the album, saying he heard "sounds in [his] head" that he could not explain to the others in the studio. It was during these recording sessions that "Miami" Steve Van Zandt would stumble into the studio just in time to help Springsteen organize the horn section on "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" (it is his only written contribution to the album), and eventually led to his joining the E Street Band.^{[citation needed]} Van Zandt had been a long-time friend of Springsteen, as well as a collaborator on earlier musical projects, and understood where he was coming from, which helped him to translate some of the sounds Springsteen was hearing. Still, by the end of the grueling recording sessions, Springsteen was not satisfied, and, upon first hearing the finished album, threw the record into the alley and told Jon Landau he would rather just cut the album live at The Bottom Line, a place he often played.^[19]

1975–1983: Breakthrough[link]

On August 13, 1975, Springsteen and the E Street Band began a five-night, 10-show stand at New York's Bottom Line club. The engagement attracted major media attention, was broadcast live on WNEW-FM, and convinced many skeptics that Springsteen was for real. (Decades later, Rolling Stone magazine would name the stand as one of the 50 Moments That Changed Rock and Roll.^[20]) With the release of Born to Run on August 25, 1975, Springsteen finally found success. The album peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, and while there were no hit singles, "Born to Run" (Billboard No. 23), "Thunder Road", "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" (Billboard No. 83), and "Jungleland" all received massive album-oriented rock airplay and remain perennial favorites on many classic rock stations. The songwriting and recording was more disciplined than before, while still maintaining an epic feel. With its panoramic imagery, thundering production and desperate optimism, Born to Run is considered by some fans to be among the best rock and roll albums of all time and Springsteen's finest work. It established him as a sincere and dynamic rock and roll personality who spoke for and in the voice of a large part of the rock audience. To cap off the triumph, Springsteen appeared on the covers of both Time and Newsweek in the same week, on October 27 of that year. So great did the wave of publicity become that Springsteen eventually rebelled against it during his first venture overseas, tearing down promotional posters before a concert appearance in London.

A legal battle with former manager Mike Appel kept Springsteen out of the studio for nearly a year, during which time he kept the E Street Band together through extensive touring across the U.S. Despite the optimistic fervor with which he often performed, his new songs had taken a more somber tone than much of his previous work. Reaching settlement with Appel in 1977, Springsteen returned to the studio, and the subsequent sessions produced Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978). Musically, this album was a turning point in Springsteen's career. Gone were the raw, rapid-fire lyrics, outsized characters and long, multi-part musical compositions of the first two albums; now the songs were leaner and more carefully drawn and began to reflect Springsteen's growing intellectual and political awareness. The cross-country 1978 tour to promote the album would become legendary for the intensity and length of its shows.^{[citation needed]}

Springsteen at Félix Houphouët-Boigny International Airport in Ivory Coast during Amnesty International's 1988 Human Rights Now! Tour.

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 No. 13 with her take on Springsteen's unreleased "Because the Night" (with revised lyrics by Smith) 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 set 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 footage 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 20-song double album The River in 1980, which included an intentionally paradoxical range of material from good-time party rockers to emotionally intense ballads, and finally yielded his first hit Top Ten single as a performer, "Hungry Heart". This album marked a shift in Springsteen's music toward a pop-rock sound that was all but missing from any of his earlier work.^{[citation needed]}This is apparent in the stylistic adoption of certain eighties pop-rock hallmarks like the reverberating-tenor drums, very basic percussion/guitar and repetitive lyrics apparent in many of the tracks. The title song pointed to Springsteen's intellectual direction, while a couple of the lesser-known tracks presaged his musical direction. The album sold well, becoming his first topper on the Billboard Pop Albums chart, 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.

The River was followed in 1982 by the stark solo acoustic Nebraska. Recording sessions had been held to expand on a demo tape Springsteen had made at his home on a simple, low-tech four-track tape deck. However during the recording process Springsteen and producer Landau realized the songs worked better as solo acoustic numbers than full band renditions and the original demo tape was released as the album. Although the recordings of the E Street Band were shelved, other songs from these sessions would later be released, including "Born in the U.S.A." and "Glory Days". 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. While Nebraska did not sell as well as Springsteen's two previous albums, 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.

1984–1991: Commercial and popular phenomenon[link]

Springsteen probably is best known for his album Born in the U.S.A. (1984), which sold 15 million copies in the U.S. 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 lyrics in the verses were entirely unambiguous when listened to, but the anthemic music and the title of the song made it hard for many, from politicians to the common person, to get the lyrics—except those in the chorus, which could be read many ways.^[21] The song was widely misinterpreted as jingoistic, and in connection with the 1984 presidential campaign became the subject of considerable folklore. Springsteen also turned down several million dollars offered by the Chrysler Corporation to use the song in a car commercial. (In later years, to eliminate the bombast and make the song's original meaning more explicitly clear, Springsteen performed the song accompanied only by acoustic guitar. 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's career. The song "Cover Me" was written by Springsteen for Donna Summer, but his record company persuaded him to keep it for the new album. A big fan of Summer's work, Springsteen wrote another song for her, "Protection". Videos for the album were made by noted film directors Brian De Palma and John Sayles. Springsteen was featured on the "We Are the World" song and album in 1985. His live single "Trapped" from that album received moderate airplay on U.S. Top 40 stations as well as reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Top Rock Tracks chart.^[22]

During the Born in the U.S.A. Tour, Springsteen met actress Julianne Phillips, whom he would marry in 1985.

Springsteen performing on the Tunnel of Love Express at the Radrennbahn Weißensee in East Berlin on July 19, 1988.

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 (aided by the release of Arthur Baker's dance mixes of three of the singles). Live/1975–85, a five-record box set (also on three cassettes or three CDs), was released near the end of 1986 and became the first box set to debut at No. 1 on the U.S. album charts. It is one of the most commercially successful live albums of all time, ultimately selling 13 million units in the U.S. Live/1975–85 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.

During the 1980s, several Springsteen fanzines were launched, including Backstreets magazine, which started in Seattle and continues today as a glossy publication, now in communication with Springsteen's management and official website.

After this commercial peak, Springsteen released the much more sedate and contemplative Tunnel of Love album (1987), a mature reflection on the many faces of love found, lost and squandered, which only selectively used the E Street Band. It presaged the breakup of his marriage to Julianne Phillips and described some of his unhappinesses in the relationship. Reflecting the challenges of love in "Brilliant Disguise", Springsteen sang:

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 backup singer Patti Scialfa became public and Phillips and Springsteen filed for divorce in 1988.^[23] Later in 1988, Springsteen headlined the worldwide Human Rights Now! tour for Amnesty International. In late 1989 he dissolved the E Street Band, and he and Scialfa relocated to California, marrying in 1991.

1992–2001: Artistic and commercial ups and downs[link]

In 1992, after risking fan accusations 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 and displayed a newly revealed confidence. 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.

An electric band appearance on the acoustic MTV Unplugged television program (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:

A multiple Grammy Award winner, Springsteen also won an Academy Award in 1994 for his song "Streets of Philadelphia", which appeared 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.^{[citation needed]} The music video for the song shows Springsteen's actual vocal performance, recorded using a hidden microphone, to a prerecorded instrumental track.^{[citation needed]} This technique was 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, inspired by John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and by Journey to Nowhere: The Saga of the New Underclass, a book by Pulitzer Prize-winners author Dale Maharidge and photographer Michael Williamson. This was generally less well-received than the similar Nebraska, due to the minimal melody, twangy vocals, and political 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 and not to clap during the performances.

Following the tour, Springsteen moved back to New Jersey with his family.^[25] In 1998, Springsteen released the sprawling, four-disc box set of out-takes, Tracks. Subsequently, Springsteen would acknowledge that the 1990s were a "lost period" for him: "I didn't do a lot of work. Some people would say I didn't do my best work."^[26]

Springsteen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999 by Bono of U2, a favor he returned in 2005.

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 and a ten-night, sold-out engagement at New York City's Madison Square Garden which ended the tour. The final two shows were recorded for an HBO Concert, with corresponding DVD and album releases as Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band: Live in New York City. A new song, "American Skin (41 Shots)", about the police shooting of Amadou Diallo which was played at these shows proved controversial.

In November 2000, Springsteen filed legal action against Jeff Burgar which accused him of registering the domain brucespringsteen.com (along with several other celebrity domains) in bad faith to funnel web users to his Celebrity 1000 portal site. Once the legal complaint was filed, Burgar pointed the domain to a Springsteen biography and message board. In February 2001, Springsteen lost his dispute with Burgar. A WIPO panel ruled 2 to 1 in favor of Burgar.^[27][28]

On Labor Day 2001 Springsteen played at Donovan's Reef in Sea Bright, NJ, surprising a local cover band named Brian Kirk and the Jerks and performed "Rosalita" with them showing his support and love.

2002–2007: Return to success[link]

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. (Many of the songs were influenced by phone conversations Springsteen had with family members of victims of the attacks who in their obituaries had mentioned how his music touched their lives.) 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.^[29] 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 early 2000s, Springsteen became a visible advocate for the revitalization of Asbury Park, and played an annual series of winter holiday concerts there to benefit various local businesses, organizations, and causes. These shows were explicitly intended for the devoted fans, featuring numbers such as the 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. The song "My City of Ruins" was originally written about Asbury Park, in honor of the attempts to revitalize the city. Looking for an appropriate song for a post-Sept. 11 benefit concert honoring New York City, he selected "My City of Ruins", which was immediately recognized as an emotional highlight of the concert, with its gospel themes and its heartfelt exhortations to "Rise up!" The song became associated with post-9/11 New York, and he chose it to close The Rising album and as an encore on the subsequent tour.

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 and No Doubt's bassist, Tony Kanal, in tribute to 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 and the E Street Band participated in the "Vote for Change" tour, along with John Mellencamp, John Fogerty, the Dixie Chicks, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., Bright Eyes, the Dave Matthews Band, Jackson Browne, and other musicians. All concerts were to be held in swing states, to benefit the liberalism political organization group America Coming Together and to encourage people to register and vote. 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.

An acoustic guitar number during the solo Devils & Dust Tour performance at the Festhalle Frankfurt, June 15, 2005.

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.^[30] 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. 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 were also 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, Sirius Satellite Radio started a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week radio station on Channel 10 called E Street Radio. This channel featured commercial-free Bruce Springsteen music, including rare tracks, interviews, and daily concerts of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band recorded throughout their career.

Springsteen and The Sessions Band performing on their tour at the Fila Forum, Milan, Italy on May 12, 2006.

In April 2006, Springsteen released 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,^[31] but newspapers reported that a number of U.S. shows suffered from sparse attendance.^[32][33][34] 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 Point Theatre in Dublin, Ireland, was released the following June.

Springsteen's next 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.^[35] The first single, "Radio Nowhere", was made available for a free download on August 28. On October 7, Magic debuted at No. 1 in Ireland and the UK. Greatest Hits reentered the Irish charts at No. 57, and Live in Dublin almost cracked the top 20 in Norway again. Sirius Satellite Radio also restarted E Street Radio on Channel 10 on September 27, 2007, in anticipation of Magic.^[36] Radio conglomerate Clear Channel Communications was alleged to have sent an edict to its classic rock stations to not play any songs from the new album, while continuing to play older Springsteen material. However, Clear Channel Adult Alternative (or "AAA") station KBCO did play tracks from the album, undermining the allegations of a corporate blackout.^[37] The Springsteen and E Street Band Magic Tour began at the Hartford Civic Center with the album's release and continued through North America and Europe. Springsteen and the band performed live^[38] on NBC's Today Show in advance of the opener. Longtime E Street Band organist Danny Federici left the tour in November 2007 to pursue treatment for melanoma^[39] from which he would die in 2008.^[40]

2008–present: Recent activities[link]

Springsteen at a rally for the presidential candidate Barack Obama

Cleveland, Ohio on November 2, 2008

Springsteen supported Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, announcing his endorsement in April 2008^[41] and going on to appear at several Obama rallies as well as performing several solo acoustic performances in support of Obama's campaign throughout 2008,^[42] culminating with a November 2 rally where he debuted "Working On A Dream" in a duet with Scialfa.^[43] At an Ohio rally, Springsteen discussed the importance of "truth, transparency and integrity in government, the right of every American to have a job, a living wage, to be educated in a decent school, and a life filled with the dignity of work, the promise and the sanctity of home...But today those freedoms have been damaged and curtailed by eight years of a thoughtless, reckless and morally-adrift administration."^[44]

Following Obama's electoral victory on November 4, Springsteen's song "The Rising" was the first song played over the loudspeakers after Obama's victory speech in Chicago's Grant Park. Springsteen was the musical opener for the Obama Inaugural Celebration on January 18, 2009 which was attended by over 400,000.^[45] He performed "The Rising" with an all-female choir. Later he performed Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" with Pete Seeger.

On June 18, 2008, Springsteen appeared live from Europe at the Tim Russert tribute at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., to play one of Russert's favorite songs, "Thunder Road". Springsteen dedicated the song to Russert, who was "one of Springsteen's biggest fans."^{[citation needed]}

On January 11, 2009, Springsteen won the Golden Globe Award for Best Song for "The Wrestler", from the Mickey Rourke film by the same name.^[46] After receiving a heartfelt letter from Mickey Rourke, Springsteen supplied the song for the film for free.^[47]

Springsteen performed at the halftime show at Super Bowl XLIII on February 1, 2009,^[48] agreeing to do it after many previous offers.^[49] A few days before the game, Springsteen gave a rare press conference, where he promised a "twelve-minute party."^[50][51] His 12:45 set, with the E Street Band and the Miami Horns, included abbreviated renditions of "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out"", "Born to Run", "Working on a Dream", and "Glory Days", the latter complete with football references. The set of appearances and promotional activities led Springsteen to say, "This has probably been the busiest month of my life."^[52]

Springsteen's Working on a Dream album was released in late January 2009^[53] and the supporting Working on a Dream Tour ran from April 2009 until November 2009. The tour featured few songs from the new album, with instead set lists dominated by classics and selections reflecting the ongoing late-2000s recession.^[54] The tour also featured Springsteen playing songs requested by audience members holding up signs as on the final stages of the Magic Tour.^[54] Drummer Max Weinberg was replaced for some shows by his 18-year-old son Jay Weinberg, so that the former could serve his role as bandleader on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien.^[54] During this tour, Springsteen and the band made their first real foray in the world of music festivals, headlining nights at the Pinkpop Festival in the Netherlands, Festival des Vieilles Charrues in France, the Bonnaroo Music Festival in the United States and the Glastonbury Festival in the UK^[55] and Hard Rock Calling in the UK.^[56] Several shows on the tour featured full album presentations of Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, or Born in the U.S.A.^[57] The band performed a stretch of five final shows at his homestate Giants Stadium, opening with a new song highlighting the historic stadium, and his Jersey roots, named "Wrecking Ball".^[58] The tour ended as scheduled in Buffalo, NY in November 2009 amid speculation that it was the last performance ever by the E Street Band, but during the show Springsteen said it was goodbye “for a little while.”^[59] A DVD from the Working on a Dream Tour entitled London Calling: Live in Hyde Park was released in 2010.

In addition to his own touring, Springsteen made a number of appearances at tribute and benefit concerts during 2009, including The Clearwater Concert, a celebration of Pete Seeger's 90th birthday, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 25th anniversary benefit concert,^[60] a benefit for the advocacy group Autism Speaks at Carnegie Hall.^[61] On January 22, 2010, he joined many well-known artists to perform on Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief,^[62] organized by George Clooney to raise money to help the victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

In 2009, Springsteen performed in The People Speak, a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.^[63]

Springsteen was among the recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors, an annual award to figures from the world of arts for their contribution to American culture, in December 2009.^[64] President Obama gave a speech in which he talked about how Springsteen has incorporated the life of regular Americans in his expansive pallette of songs and how his concerts are beyond the typical rock-and-roll concerts, how, apart from being high-energy concerts, they are "communions". He ended the remark "while I am the president, he is The Boss". Tributes were paid by several well-known celebrities including Jon Stewart (who described Springsteen's "unprecedented combination of lyrical eloquence, musical mastery and sheer unbridled, unadulterated joy"). A musical tribute featured John Mellencamp, Ben Harper, and Jennifer Nettles, Melissa Etheridge, Eddie Vedder, and Sting.

The 2000s ended with Springsteen being named one of eight Artists of the Decade by Rolling Stone magazine^[65] and with Springsteen's tours ranking him fourth among artists in total concert grosses for the decade.^[66]

In September 2010, a documentary about the making of his 1978 album Darkness on The Edge of Town was premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film, The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town, was included in a box set reissue of the album, entitled The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story, released in November 2010. Also airing on HBO, the documentary explored Springsteen's making of the acclaimed album, and his role in the production and development of the tracks.

Springsteen has finished his next studio album with Ron Aniello,^[67] who also co-produced the 2007 album Play It As It Lays, by Springsteen's wife, Patti Scialfa. Ron Aniello also produced "Children's Song" early in 2011, a duet with Springsteen and Scialfa, which was done for a charity project.

Clarence Clemons, the E Street Band's saxophonist since 1972, died on June 18, 2011, of complications from a stroke. “Clarence lived a wonderful life,” Springsteen said in a statement. “He carried within him a love of people that made them love him. He created a wondrous and extended family. He loved the saxophone, loved our fans and gave everything he had every night he stepped on stage.”^[68]

Springsteen performing with drummer Max Weinberg behind him, on the Magic Tour stop at Veterans Memorial Arena, Jacksonville, Florida, August 15, 2008.

Springsteen's 17th studio album, Wrecking Ball, was released on March 6, 2012. On January 13, 2012, Hollywood Reporter released an article describing the sound of the new album. According to the article, the album is Springsteen at his angriest yet and addresses economic justice quite a bit. The article describes the album musically as being very rock-and-roll with unexpected textures, loops, electronic percussion and a variety of influences.^[69] The album consists of eleven tracks plus two bonus tracks. Three songs previously only available as live versions, "Wrecking Ball", "Land of Hope and Dreams," and "American Land," appear on the album.^[70] The album's first single, "We Take Care of Our Own", was released on January 19, 2012.

On January 24, 2012, Springsteen's official web site announced that the E Street Band will commence a world tour called the Wrecking Ball Tour on March 18, 2012, in Atlanta. The tour will run through at least July 31, 2012, and will consist of at least two legs featuring 51 dates, although the headline "First US Leg of 2012 World Tour" may imply that the tour will continue into autumn 2012 or beyond.^[71] As tickets for the first U.S. dates went on sale, many fans were unable to obtain tickets, much like for the 2009 Working on a Dream Tour, allegedly due to a heavy volume of ticket scalpers. Shows sold out within minutes and many tickets appeared, at much higher prices, on resale websites such as StubHub less than an hour after the onsale time. Ticketmaster said web traffic was 2.5 times the highest level of the past year during the online sales and suggested that scalpers played a big role. U.S. Representative Bill Pascrell has called for stronger government oversight of online box offices. Pascrell introduced the BOSS ACT in 2009 to increase transparency in the ticket industry. Pascrell said he would reintroduce the bill to Congress.^[72][73]

"Rocky Ground" has been announced as the second single from Wrecking Ball and will be released exclusively as part of Record Store Day on April 21, 2012.

Wrecking Ball became Springsteen's tenth No. 1 album in the United States tying him with Elvis Presley for third most No. 1 albums of all-time. Only The Beatles (19) and Jay-Z (12) have more No. 1 albums. Wrecking Ball knocked out Adele's Grammy winning album, 21 after 23 nonconsecutive weeks at #1.^[74]

On March 15, 2012, Springsteen was the keynote speaker at the annual SXSW Conference in Austin, Texas.

Musical style[link]

Bruce Springsteen (second from right) was among the five recipients of the 2009 Kennedy Center Honors

Bruce Springsteen draws on many musical influences from the reservoir of traditional American popular music, folk, blues and country. From the beginning, rock and roll has been the dominant influence. On his debut album, Greetings from Asbury Park, New Jersey, the folk-influence is clear. An example of the influence of this music genre to Springsteen's music is his song "This Hard Land" which demonstrates a clear influence of the style of Woody Guthrie.^{[citation needed]}

He expanded the range of his musical compositions on his second album, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle.^{[citation needed]} Elements of Latin American music, jazz, soul, and funk influences can be heard; the song "New York City Serenade" is even reminiscent of the music of George Gershwin. These two records prominently featured pianist David Sancious, who left the band shortly into the recording of Springsteen's third album, Born To Run. This album, however, also emphasized the piano, the responsibility now of Roy Bittan.

Earlier in his career, Springsteen has focused more on the rock elements of his music. He initially compressed the sound and developed Darkness On The Edge Of Town just as straightforward as concise musical idiom, for the simple riffs, hard rock guitar solos and clearly recognizable song structures are dominant. He also drew upon a few influences from punk rock on the album, as can be heard on the heavy rhythm following the bridge solo on 'Candy's Room'.^{[citation needed]} His music has been categorized as heartland rock, a style typified by Springsteen, John Fogerty, Tom Petty, Bob Seger, and John Mellencamp. This music has a lyrical reference to the U.S. everyday and the music is kept rather simple and straightforward. This development culminated with Springsteen's hit album Born in the U.S.A., the title song of which has a constantly repeating, fanfare-like keyboard riff and a pounding drum beat. These sounds fit with Springsteen's voice: it cries to the listener the unsentimental story of a disenchanted angry figure. Even songs that can be argued to be album tracks proved to be singles that enjoyed some chart success, such as "My Hometown" and "I'm on Fire", in which the drum line is formed from subtle hi-hat and rim-clicks-shock (shock at the edge of the snare drum) accompanied by synthesizer and Springsteen's soft guitar line. The album, along with some previous records such as "Cadillac Ranch" showed clear rockabilly influences as is evident from his guitar solos, in-fills and vocal styles on these. Another clear influence of early rock n roll on Springsteen's music is evident on the song "Light of Day".

In recent years, Springsteen has changed his music further.^{[citation needed]} There are more folk elements up to the gospel to be heard. His last solo album, Devils and Dust, drew rave reviews not only for Springsteen's complex songwriting, but also for his expressive and sensitive singing.

On the album We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions Springsteen performs folk classics with a folk band, rather than his usual E Street Band. On his ensuing tour he also interpreted some of his own rock songs in a folk style.^{[citation needed]}

The 2007 album Magic was a reflection on the old stadium rock attitude and with its lush arrangements was almost designed to be performed at large stadiums, which also succeeded on the corresponding tour.^{[citation needed]}

Lyrical themes[link]

Often described as cinematographic in their scope, Springsteen's lyrics frequently explore highly personal themes such as individual commitment, dissatisfaction and dismay with life in a context of every day situations.^[76]

It has been recognized that there was a shift in his lyrical approach starting with the album Darkness on the Edge of Town, in which he focused on the emotional struggles of working class life.^[77][78]

Politics and activism[link]

Springsteen's music has often contained political themes reflecting his responses to the events occurring around him. A number of these songs contributed to Springsteen’s stardom; many songs cannot be explained without including Springsteen’s political views. The following are a chronological order of the political and activist causes Springsteen has publicly campaigned for:

September 19–23, 1979: Springsteen and the E Street Band joined the Musicians United for Safe Energy anti-nuclear power collective at Madison Square Garden.

August 20, 1981: A Night For The Vietnam Veterans for the Vietnam Veterans’ Association as an appeal to help “heal the physical and psychological wounds inflicted on the soldiers who fought the nation’s most unpopular war”.^[79][80]

1984: Turned down several million dollars offered by the Chrysler Corporation to use the song "Born in the U.S.A." in a car commercial.

1985: Featured on the "We Are the World" song and album

1988: Headlined the worldwide Human Rights Now! tour for Amnesty International.

2004: "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.

April 2008: Springsteen announced his endorsement supporting Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.^[81] Throughout the year, he showed his support by attending several rallies and performing in support of Obama’s campaign.

2009: Springsteen contributed to the soundtrack of The People Speak by playing guitar and harmonica.

January 2009: Springsteen was the musical opener for the Obama Inaugural Celebration.

May 3, 2009: Springsteen made an appearance at The Clearwater Concert.

October 29 & 30, 2009: Springsteen made an appearance at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 25th anniversary benefit concert.^[82]

January 22, 2010: Springsteen made an appearance at Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief.^[83]

Springsteen has additionally been associated with various local food banks, particularly with the New Jersey Food bank for many years. During concerts, he usually breaks the routine to announce his support and later matches the total collection during the concert with his own money. During his Charlotte, North Carolina concert on November 3, 2009, he started with a $10,000 donation for the local food bank to start the collections process – which he again matched later.

He has made substantial financial contributions to various workers' unions both in America and in Europe.

Springsteen is a strong supporter of gay rights, particularly marriage equality. In 2009, he urged lawmakers to legalize gay marriage, later posting on his website "I've long believed in and have always spoken out for the rights of same-sex couples".^[84]

Personal life[link]

Springsteen family greets Obama family on stage at rally in Cleveland, Ohio on November 2, 2008.

Springsteen and Julianne Phillips (born May 6, 1960) were married from May 13, 1985 to May 1988, when they separated.^[85] The two were opposites in background and his traveling took its toll on their relationship. The final blow came when Springsteen began an affair with Patti Scialfa (born July 29, 1953), whom he had dated briefly in 1984 shortly after she joined the band. Phillips and Springsteen separated in the spring of 1988 without making an announcement to the press, and on August 30, 1988, Julianne filed for divorce. The Springsteen/Phillips divorce was finalized on March 1, 1989.

After the separation in 1988, Springsteen began living with Scialfa. Springsteen received press criticism for the hastiness in which he and Scialfa took up their relationship. In a 1995 interview with The Advocate, Springsteen spoke about the negative publicity the couple subsequently received. "It's a strange society that assumes it has the right to tell people whom they should love and whom they shouldn't. But the truth is, I basically ignored the entire thing as much as I could. I said, 'Well, all I know is, this feels real, and maybe I have got a mess going here in some fashion, but that's life.'" He also noted that, "I went through a divorce, and it was really difficult and painful and I was very frightened about getting married again. So part of me said, 'Hey, what does it matter?' But it does matter. It's very different than just living together. First of all, stepping up publicly- which is what you do: You get your license, you do all the social rituals- is a part of your place in society and in some way part of society's acceptance of you...Patti and I both found that it did mean something."^[86]

On July 25, 1990 Scialfa gave birth to the couple's first child, Evan James Springsteen. On June 8, 1991 Springsteen and Scialfa married at their Beverly Hills home. Their second child, Jessica Rae Springsteen, was born on December 30, 1991; and their third child, Samuel Ryan Springsteen, was born on January 5, 1994.^[87] The family owns and lives on a horse farm in Colts Neck, New Jersey. They also own homes in Wellington, Florida, a wealthy horse community near West Palm Beach, Los Angeles and Rumson, New Jersey. Their eldest son, Evan, attends Boston College. Their daughter Jessica is a nationally ranked champion equestrian,^[88] and attends Duke University.

Since 1991, Springsteen has led a relatively quiet life for a well-known popular performer and artist.^[89] He moved from Los Angeles to New Jersey in the early 1990s specifically to raise a family in a non-paparazzi environment.^[89] It has been reported that the press conference regarding the 2009 Super Bowl XLIII half-time show was his first press conference for more than 25 years.^[90] However, he has appeared in a few radio interviews, most notably on NPR and BBC.^{[citation needed]} 60 Minutes aired his last extensive interview on TV^[91] before his tour to support his album, Magic.

Bands[link]

Bruce Springsteen has been a member of, or has been backed by, several bands during his career, most notably The E Street Band.

His earliest known band is The Castiles.

Prior to signing his first record deal in 1972, Springsteen was a member of several bands including Steel Mill. In October 1972 he formed a new band for the recording of his debut album Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., which became known as The E Street Band, although the name was not officially introduced until September 1974.^[92][93] The E Street Band performed on all of Springsteen's recorded works from his debut until 1982's Nebraska, a solo album on which Springsteen himself played all the instruments.^{[citation needed]} The full band returned for the next album Born in the USA, but there then followed a period from 1988 to 1999 in which albums were recorded with session musicians. The E Street Band were briefly reunited in 1995 for new contributions to the Greatest Hits compilation, and on a more permanent basis from 1999, since which time they have recorded 3 albums together (The Rising, Magic and Working on a Dream) and performed a number of high profile tours.

The 2005 album Devils & Dust was largely a solo recording, with some contribution from session musicians and the 2006 folk rock We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions album was recorded and toured with another band, known as The Sessions Band. In the summer of 2012, Raymond Bernero will join Bruce on the stage at Wrigely Field in Chicago.

Earlier Bands:^[94] The Castiles, Earth, Child, Steel Mill, Sundance Blues Band, Dr Zoom and the Sonic Boom, Bruce Springsteen Band.

E Street Band[link]

Current members:

• Bruce Springsteen – lead vocals, lead and rhythm guitar, harmonica, piano
• Patti Scialfa – backing and duet vocals, acoustic guitar, percussion
• Garry Tallent – bass guitar, tuba
• Roy Bittan – piano, keyboards
• Max Weinberg – drums, percussion
• Steven Van Zandt – lead and rhythm guitar,^[95][96] backing vocals, mandolin
• Nils Lofgren – lead and rhythm guitar, pedal steel guitar, backing vocals

With:

• Soozie Tyrell – violin, acoustic guitar, percussion, backing vocals ^[A]
• Charles Giordano – organ, accordion, glockenspiel^[B]

Former members:

• 1973–2011 Clarence Clemons (deceased) – tenor, baritone and soprano saxophones, backing vocals, percussion
• 1973–2008 Danny Federici (deceased) – organ, accordion, backing vocals

Film[link]

Music used in films[link]

Springsteen's music has been used in many films and he has also written and performed several works specifically for films, examples include Philadelphia, Dead Man Walking, Jerry Maguire, and The Wrestler.

Films inspired by music[link]

In turn, films have been inspired by his music, including The Indian Runner, written and directed by Sean Penn, which Penn has specifically noted as being inspired by Springsteen's song "Highway Patrolman".^[100]

In September 2010, a documentary about the making of his 1978 album Darkness on The Edge of Town was premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.^[101]

Kevin Smith is an admitted "big fan" of fellow New Jersey native Springsteen and named his film Jersey Girl after the Tom Waits song which Springsteen made famous. The song was also used on the soundtrack.

Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant have cited Springsteen's "Thunder Road" as having been a heavy influence on their 2010 film Cemetery Junction, employing the song's themes of escape and optimism into their story of 1970s England.

In 2011, Springsteen appears in an independent film made by a local musician Chris Vaughn from New Jersey entitled Jerseyboy Hero where the songwriter/filmmaker documents his journey to get his music out to the world by attempting to reach one of his two local New Jersey legends, Bruce Springsteen or Jon Bon Jovi.^[102][103]

Acting[link]

Springsteen made his first on-screen appearance in a brief cameo as himself in High Fidelity in 2000 and it was voted "Best Cameo in a Movie" at the MTV Movie Awards.^[104][105]

Discography[link]

Major studio albums (along with their chart positions in the U.S. Billboard 200 at the time of release):

• 1973: Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. (No. 60)
• 1973: The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle (No. 59)
• 1975: Born to Run (No. 3)
• 1978: Darkness on the Edge of Town (No. 5)
• 1980: The River (No. 1)
• 1982: Nebraska (No. 3)
• 1984: Born in the U.S.A. (No. 1)
• 1987: Tunnel of Love (No. 1)
• 1992: Human Touch (No. 2)
• 1992: Lucky Town (No. 3)
• 1995: The Ghost of Tom Joad (No. 11)
• 2002: The Rising (No. 1)
• 2005: Devils & Dust (No. 1)
• 2006: We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (No. 3)
• 2007: Magic (No. 1)
• 2009: Working on a Dream (No. 1)
• 2012: Wrecking Ball (No. 1)

Awards and recognition[link]

Grammy Awards[link]

Springsteen has won 21 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"
• Best Rock Song, 2008, "Girls in Their Summer Clothes"
• Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance, 2009, "Working on a Dream"
• Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package, 2011, The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story

Golden Globe Awards[link]

• Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song for "Streets of Philadelphia" in 1994.^[46]
• Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song for "The Wrestler" in 2009.^[46]

Academy Awards[link]

• Academy Award for Best Original Song, 1993, "Streets of Philadelphia" from Philadelphia.^[106]

Emmy Awards[link]

• The Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band: Live In New York City HBO special won two technical Emmy Awards in 2001.^[107]

Other recognition[link]

• October 27, 1975: Bruce Springsteen appears simultaneously on the covers of Newsweek and Time
• Polar Music Prize in 1997.^[108]
• Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1999.^[109]
• Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, 1999.^[110]
• Inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame, 2007.^[111]
• "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".^[112]
• The minor planet 23990, discovered September 4, 1999, by I. P. Griffin at Auckland, New Zealand, was officially named in his honor.^[113]
• Ranked No. 23 on Rolling Stone magazine's 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.^[114]
• Ranked No. 36 on Rolling Stone magazine's 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Singers Of All Time.
• Made Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People Of The Year 2008 list.^[115]
• Won Critic's Choice Award for Best Song with "The Wrestler" in 2009.^[116]
• Performed at the Super Bowl XLIII half time show.
• Kennedy Center Honors, 2009.
• Rolling Stone magazine also ranked 8 out of 16 Springsteen's studio albums in their 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time list.
• Rolling Stone magazine ranked "Born to Run" and "Thunder Road" in its 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time list, in 21st and 86th, respectively.
• Forbes ranked him 6th in The Celebrity 100 in 2009^[117]
• John Steinbeck Award

See also[link]

	Book: Bruce Springsteen
Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

• List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. Mainstream Rock chart
• List of best selling music artists

Notes[link]

References[link]

Sources[link]

Further reading[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bruce Springsteen

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Bruce Springsteen

• Official website
• E Street Radio
• Bruce Springsteen at Idiomag 21 12 10
• Bruce Springsteen on National Public Radio in 2005
• Highlights of Springsteen at Glastonbury 2009.
• Bruce Springsteen at NPR Music
• "Library of Hope and Dreams":bibliography of published Springsteen scholarship in English.