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| Birth Name(s) : Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen |
Date of Birth: N/A |
| Status:
Single
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Partner:
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| Profession:
Singer-songwriter |
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Full Bruce Springsteen Biography
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 Academy Award, 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's lyrics often concern men and women struggling to make ends meet. He has gradually become identified with progressive politics. Springsteen is also noted for his support of various relief and rebuilding efforts in New Jersey and elsewhere, and for his response to the September 11, 2001 attacks, on which his album The Rising reflects.
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".
A legal battle with former manager Mike Appel kept Springsteen out of the studio for over two years, 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, the new songs he was writing and often debuting on stage had taken a more somber tone than much of his previous work. Reaching settlement with Appel in 1977, Springsteen finally returned to the studio, and the subsequent sessions produced Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978). Musically, this album was a turning point of Springsteen's career. Gone were the rapid-fire lyrics, outsized characters and long, multi-part musical compositions of the first three albums; now the songs were leaner and more carefully drawn and began to reflect Springsteen's growing intellectual and political awareness. Some fans consider Darkness Springsteen's best and most consistent record; tracks such as "Badlands" and "The Promised Land" became concert staples for decades to come, while the track "Prove It All Night" received a significant amount of radio airplay (#33, Billboard Hot 100). Other fans would prefer the work of the adventurous early Springsteen. The cross-country 1978 tour to promote the album would become legendary for the intensity of its shows.
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 Top Ten single as a performer, "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 married Scialfa in 1991; they have three children Evan James (b. 1990), Jessica Rae (b.1991) and Sam Ryan (b.1994).
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:
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 featured commercial-free Bruce Springsteen music, including rare tracks, interviews and daily concerts of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band recorded throughout their career.
On October 11, 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 270,000 copies of Magic and bringing the total for that album to 833,000 copies worldwide.
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". He was nominated for a second Oscar for "Dead Man Walkin'", from the movie Dead Man Walking. In addition, "Lift Me Up" ran over the credits for the John Sayles film Limbo. |
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