Bruce Springsteen

About Bruce Springsteen

It doesn't get much more rock n' roll than Bruce Springsteen in an old denim jacket. The Boss has transcended his New Jersey tough boy cult appeal to become a certified American icon, from the heartland to the coasts. Anthems like "Born To Run" and "Born In the USA" speak volumes to anyone who has ever had society tell them that they couldn't go after a dream. Springsteen's songs are conflicted without being bitter, and his massive choruses are capable of resonating across generations while the tunes themselves are practically cinematic, able to convey a complex story of love and loss in under three minutes. Basically, Springsteen tells the story of an anytown kid who makes it big on the strength of his talent and passion, despite the odds, and that's exactly the story that the veteran rocker has lived out. The Long Branch, NJ native was the son of a bus driver and a legal secretary, and grew up with a strict Roman Catholic upbringing. As legend has it, young Bruce went out and bought a cheap guitar at the age of thirteen, after catching Elvis Presley's historic appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. After that, his mother took out a $60 loan to buy him a better instrument when he was sixteen. It was in the early 1970's that the ambitious Bruce Springsteen hooked up with his legendary touring group, The E Street Band, in Asbury Park, NJ. All of the band members were talented musicians with the same dream, and Bruce's easy-going leadership brought them together to record some of the rawest working-man rock tunes of the decade. In 1973, Bruce Springsteen released his epic debut Greetings From Asbury Park. The record was predominantly folk-rock in tone, but electric instrumentation hinted at the direction Springsteen was going and, despite slow sales, it brought Bruce and his E Street boys to the attention of music critics. By 1975, Bruce had hardened his sound in preparation for the release of his ground-breaking album Born To Run. The album included the title track, along with singles "Thunder Road" and "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out," all of which told the down but not out stories of everyday working kids who hoped for something a little better. Since then, Bruce Springsteen has made his mark with both rock anthems ("Born In the USA", "Dancing In the Dark") and darker folk rock (the Nebraska album, The Ghost of Tom Joad,) and continues to rock with The E Street Band to this day.