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Bruce Springsteen Begins Career With Greetings From Stomping Grounds
Bruce Springsteen started off in Freehold Borough, New Jersey. He took up guitar after watching Elvis on Ed Sullivan and was in groups like Earth, Steel Mill and even Dr. Zoom and the Sonic Boom. Becoming a household name in his hometown and the surrounding region, Springsteen would get the attention of Columbia Records talent scout John Hammond in May, 1972. "I reacted with a force I've felt maybe three times in my life," Hammond said of the audition. "I knew at once he would last a generation." While strange now, The Boss opened for Canadian snowbird Anne Murray in 1974!
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Born To Run Makes Springsteen And Band Champs
Bruce Springsteen's first two albums have moments of greatness but his 1975 Born To Run marked his arrival on a whole other level. Several of the album tracks, such as "Thunder Road," "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out" and the title track still cause excitement most nights live. And when Sesame Street used the iconic album cover of Springsteen and Clarence Clemons for their own Born To Add album (with the Cookie Monster and Bert), Springsteen had become a pop culture staple. The album was reissued in 2005 with a bonus live concert on DVD from 1975 and a documentary.
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Springsteen Finally Delivers A Double Dose Of The River
By 1980, Springsteen had become almost insanely prolific in the studio, recording albums of stellar material only to later discard them or leave them unreleased. Fortunately he just did it with the double album The River, leaving fans with another record brimming with hit radio-friendly pop singles and deeper cuts like the title track. The record also perfectly melded his recent past with his near future as "Stolen Car" and "Wreck On The Highway" lent themselves to 1982's Nebraska. If Born To Run and his earlier work hadn't solidified him as a rocker, The River without question did.
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Springsteen's First Solo Album The Morbid, Dark, Brilliant Nebraska
The favourite Springsteen album for this writer, Nebraska and its sparse, haunting sound still makes arm hairs raise. Nebraska was released in 1982 and recorded on a 4-track cassette recorder. Put another way, Britney Spears spent more money in the past 30 seconds buying bubble gum than The Boss did recording Nebraska. A rumoured alternate version with the E Street Band reportedly exists, but Springsteen maintains the rudimentary renditions are better. There's no reason to believe they're not. Springsteen returned to this format somewhat with 2005's Devils & Dust.
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Born In The U.S.A. Ensures The Boss Is On Fire
Whatever Bruce Springsteen did, is doing or will do, his touchstone album will be the uber-selling Born In The U.S.A. The record featured a jaw-dropping seven singles and put Springsteen on MTV's radar with videos for the title track, "Glory Days," "Dancing In The Dark" (with Courteney Cox) and the darker "I'm On Fire." Springsteen's title track was connected to then U.S. President Ronald Reagan's election campaign despite the lyrics suggesting a far different theme. Over the years Springsteen has reworked the title track into a menacing blues-tinged, harmonica-aided romp.
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Springsteen Has Freeze-Out With E Street Band In 1989
Following his Born In The U.S.A. success, Bruce Springsteen released a critically acclaimed solo album Tunnel Of Love. But he believed in better days by essentially dissolving the E Street Band in 1989. The result was two 1992 studio albums released the same day: Lucky Town and Human Touch. Both albums (featuring E Street members) weren't generally well received. Many believed the two records had one album's worth of quality. Drummer Max Weinberg said Springsteen called to give him the bad news, something that rendered him "a zombie for about six months."
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Springsteen Returns With A Ghostly Solo Album
As he did in his Nebraska era in the early '80s, Springsteen decided a solo album with a dark lyrical tone was needed in 1995 and so, recorded The Ghost Of Tom Joad. Inspired by author John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath, the record took Springsteen away from what many thought would be his reunion with the E Street Band. The concerts were notable for Springsteen's insistence that the audience remain virtually silent from start to finish. When this wasn't met, the musician didn't mince words. Hence many refer to this tour as the STFU tour.
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City In Ruins Causes Springsteen And E Street To Rise Again
With Springsteen reuniting with the E Street Band in 1999 for a massive tour, speculation grew about a new studio album. The horror of Sept. 11 served as Springsteen's inspiration for writing, resulting in 2002's The Rising becoming widely acclaimed for its honesty and heart-tugging vignettes about those directly affected by the terrorist act. From the title track to the inspirational "My City Of Ruins," the album fueled Springsteen and E Street to go on a barnstorming tour across North America and Europe. The album became his first #1 album since 1995's hits compilation.
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Springsteen Brings Seeger Sessions To Life In Large, Ramshackle Way
Bruce Springsteen took a detour of sorts from the solo/band/solo album wheel in 2006 with We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions. With a huge supporting cast behind him that used accordions, upright bass, horns and assorted traditional instruments, Springsteen toured through Europe and elsewhere with audience participation a huge aspect of each night. The Boss sprinkled and reworked some of his own material into the shows but relied primarily on old folk songs Seeger was known for. "Born To Run" and other hits weren't played.
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Death Of The Big Man Clarence Clemons Leaves Huge Hole
With so many in the group and all averaging 60 years of age, Father Time caught up with Springsteen and E Street with the death of keyboardist Danny Federici in 2008. But in 2011 Clarence Clemons died after the 69-year-old saxophonist suffered a stroke. Clemons joined Springteen in 1972 and remained with him for much of Springsteen's career (excluding solo work). Citing his death and loss as "immeasurable," Springsteen was left with huge shoes to fill. Fortunately Clemons' nephew Jake (and other horn players) have admirably carried Clarence's horn.
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Springsteen Keeps Wrecking Ball Rolling Into 2014
Since releasing Wrecking Ball, Springsteen has been a whirling dervish in terms of touring, easily surpassing the three-hour mark onstage. Saxophonist Clarence Clemons' passing has resulted in a larger supporting cast and seemingly re-energized "The Boss." In Helsinki at the conclusion of the 2012 European leg, Springsteen played a marathon four-hour, six-minute gig. His 2013 tour ended at Rock In Rio on Saturday night (Sept. 21) which was streamed live on YouTube. Springsteen already has an Australia/New Zealand leg slated for early 2014.
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