Spirits In The Night
Bruceology
This page will showcase the historical background of Bruce Springsteen from his hometown roots to his experiences "growin' up" in Freehold & Asbury Park, NJ. We will also feature biography's on his E-Street Band mates as well as information regarding thier solo carears as musicians in thier own right. A complete history of famous landmarks such as The Palace, Madame Marie's, The Casino , 10th & E Streets and other places of interest will also be included here as well.
Bruce Springsteen
Born September 23, 1949, in Freehold, New Jersey. Springsteen grew up in a working class New Jersey family; his mother, Adele, was a secretary, and his father, Douglas, was a bus driver. Inspired by the pioneering rock music of Elvis Presley, Springsteen taught himself to play the guitar at age 13. In 1965, he formed his first band, the Castiles. After graduating high school, Springsteen enrolled briefly at Ocean County Community College, but dropped out in order to pursue his love of music. His family moved to California in 1969, but Springsteen remained in New Jersey.
In the early 1970s, Springsteen fronted several different bands, including Steel Mill, Dr. Zoom and the Sonic Boom, and the Bruce Springsteen Band. He played extensively at various venues on the Jersey Shore, most notably in the town of Asbury Park, a seaside village just 15 miles from Freehold. A number of his band members during these years would go on to form his most famous backing band, the E Street Band, named after East Street in Belmar, New Jersey, where the band’s old rehearsal studio was located. These included keyboardist Danny Federici, bassist Steve Van Zandt, bassist Garry Tallent, and saxophonist Clarence Clemons (they were later joined by drummer Max Weinberg and keyboardist Roy Bittan).
In the spring of 1972, Springsteen signed a long-term management contract with Laurel Canyon Productions, owned by fledgling songwriter-producer Mike Appel and his partner, Jim Cretecos. The contract gave Laurel Canyon exclusive rights to all Springsteen’s songs and made Appel Springsteen’s manager. Appel arranged an audition for Springsteen with John Hammond, the well-respected Columbia Records executive who had signed Bob Dylan in 1961. With Hammond’s enthusiastic endorsement, Columbia signed Appel and Springsteen to a 10-album contract.
When his first album, Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ, was released early in 1973, Springsteen was somewhat unoriginally touted by Columbia as “the new Bob Dylan.” The album failed to get significant airtime from radio deejays, and sales were minimal, though some critics noted Springsteen’s talent. His second effort, The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle, was released later that same year to even better critical buzz and even lower sales.
It was his electric live performances that finally got Springsteen noticed, kicked off by a tour with the rock band Chicago in 1973-74. In the spring of 1974, after catching Springsteen opening for Bonnie Raitt in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the critic Jon Landau raved in the Real Paper: “I have seen rock & roll’s future and its name is Bruce Springsteen.” Columbia smartly used Landau’s line in its marketing efforts for The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle, and sales improved markedly. For his part, Landau befriended Springsteen and became a co-producer with him and Appel on a third album, Born to Run, which was released in October 1975.
Within a month of its release, Born to Run shot to No. 3 on the Billboard charts and went gold, driven by the success of the title track, which became Springsteen’s first-ever hit single, as well as the now-classic hit “Thunder Road.” Perhaps the most memorable sign of the album’s success came during the week of October 27, 1975, when Springsteen was featured on the covers of both Time and Newsweek and heralded as the savior of rock & roll.
During the hubbub over Born to Run, Springsteen had become embroiled in a legal dispute with his manager, Appel, who resented Springsteen’s new affiliation with Landau and sought to exert control over his client. When Appel refused to let Landau produce Springsteen’s next album, Springsteen sued him for fraud, undue influence, and breach of trust. Appel successfully countersued, asking the court to bar Springsteen from working with Landau. After an extended legal battle that kept Springsteen out of the recording studio for two years, the parties settled out of court; Springsteen was given the rights to his songs and allowed to work with Landau, and his contract with Columbia was upgraded, while Appel reportedly received a monetary settlement.
By the time Springsteen returned to the studio in mid-1977, under Landau’s management, several of his songs had become huge hits—for other artists. Notable among these were “Blinded by the Light,” a single from his debut album that became a No. 1 hit in 1977 for Manfred Mann, and “Fire,” a song he wrote that was a hit for Robert Gordon and later a smash for the Pointer Sisters. In 1978, Springsteen released his own fourth album, the powerful Darkness on the Edge of Town. Critics praised his depth and range, noting especially his lyrics, which spoke to the problems of the working man in America and the hopes he cherished. The album spawned only one minor single, “Prove It All Night,” but featured songs filled with emotion, including “Badlands” and “Adam Raised a Cain,” the latter of which was drawn from Springsteen’s own battles with his father over his love of music, which his father disapproved of greatly.
His next offering was the double-album The River (1980), which met with greater commercial success, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard album chart. The No. 5 single “Hungry Heart” was Springsteen’s first Top 10 hit. Just before the album’s release, Springsteen and the E-Street Band kicked off a sold-out U.S. and European tour, drawing millions of fans to their marathon three-hour concerts. The decidedly uncommercial quality of his next album, Nebraska (1982), did little to deter Springsteen’s fans, as the folky, socially-conscious album reached No. 3 on the album chart.
By any critical or commercial standard, Springsteen’s 1984 album Born in the USA was a phenomenal success, selling over 20 million copies and staying in the Top 10 for over two years. The simple lyrics and pounding rhythms of the album’s numerous hit singles—including the Grammy-winning “Dancing in the Dark,” “Cover Me,” “Born in the USA,” “I’m on Fire,” “Glory Days,” “I’m Goin’ Down,” and “My Hometown”—had a much more widespread appeal than Springsteen’s earlier work. It seemed everyone could relate to Springsteen’s music, including the slightly misguided Ronald Reagan, who famously identified himself with Springsteen’s vision and “Born in the USA”—the strident, bitter anthem of a Vietnam vet who feels misused by his country—in one of his stump speeches during his reelection campaign. In order to avoid association with the Reaganesque kind of “patriotism,” which he strongly opposed, Springsteen publicly allied himself with labor, environmental, and civil rights organizations, often mentioning their work on stage and performing in numerous benefit events. (He also reportedly donates all income from the sale of T-shirts and other merchandise at his concerts to selected charitable organizations and veterans’ groups.)
In 1984, Springsteen made some changes in his band, hiring an old acquaintance from New Jersey, Patti Scialfa, to sing background vocals. He toured constantly throughout 1985, releasing a 40-track live album package Live/1975-1985 in 1986 that debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard chart. Also that year, he found time to meet and marry Julianne Phillips, a model and actress from Oregon whom he had reportedly first seen when she appeared in a 38 Special music video. The marriage lasted only three years, however, as tabloids began reporting trouble in the marriage and linking Springsteen to his backup singer, Scialfa, during a tour overseas. His 1987 album Tunnel of Love featured some of Springsteen’s most personal songs ever and hinted at his romantic troubles in such songs as “Brilliant Disguise,” “Two Faces,” and the Grammy-winning “Tunnel of Love.” Phillips filed for divorce in 1988; the couple divorced the next year. Springsteen and Scialfa were married in 1991 in Deal, New Jersey.
Aside from the changes in his personal life, Springsteen underwent some serious professional changes during this period as well. In 1988, he broke up the E Street Band, deciding that he needed to try things on his own. After five years without a record, he simultaneously released two albums, Human Touch and Lucky Town, in 1992. Although the albums entered the Billboard chart at No. 2 and No. 3 respectively, they had less critical and commercial appeal than his previous efforts, and merely went platinum—as opposed to his last three albums, which had gone multi-platinum. His live concerts, as well, seemed to be losing steam; for the first time in 15 years, Springsteen was playing to less-than-full houses.
In 1993, Springsteen wrote and recorded “Streets of Philadelphia” for Jonathan Demme’s 1994 film Philadelphia, starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington. The mournful ballad became a hit single, winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song and no fewer than four Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year, Best Rock Song, and Best Rock Vocal Performance. The following year, Springsteen released a long-awaited Greatest Hits album, including “Streets of Philadelphia” along with a number of his classic hits and several new tracks recorded with the E Street Band. Also in 1995, he won another Grammy for the acoustic folk album The Ghost of Tom Joad, which represented his most soulful and original solo work. He followed up on the album’s success with his first-ever solo acoustic tour, playing in small venues for almost two years.
With news of his upcoming box set already in the air, Springsteen again faced legal troubles over the rights to his previously recorded music. Two New Jersey record companies sued him in September 1998 over rights to music recorded in 1972 that had allegedly been sold to them by Jim Cretecos, Springsteen’s erstwhile ex-manager, who claimed to have been given exclusive rights by Appel. Shortly thereafter, Springsteen sued a British record label that planned to release the same material; the label, Masquerade Music, had also allegedly bought the recordings from Cretecos. In December 1998, a judge in the United Kingdom blocked the sale of the Masquerade album, which was to be titled Before the Fame. Masquerade appealed, but the decision was upheld in the spring of 2001. As for the case in New Jersey, Springsteen countersued the two companies, and was expected to receive a favorable verdict.
The Springsteen box set, titled Tracks and containing mostly unreleased material, debuted in November of 1998 to an extremely favorable reception. Springsteen caused an even bigger flurry of anticipation when he announced he would be reuniting with the E Street Band for a worldwide tour during the summer of 1999. The largely sold-out tour kicked off in Barcelona, Spain in April and spent two months in Europe before moving in July to the U.S. to play multiple dates in a number of cities through November, including a first stop on Springsteen’s home turf in New Jersey. The tour was the second-highest-grossing tour of the year, earning a total of at least $53 million in the U.S. and over $100 million worldwide.
On March 15, 1999, Bruce Springsteen—known to his fans as “The Boss”—was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His next album, 18 Tracks (1999), featured a selection of singles from his acclaimed box set, Tracks (1998). In 2000, Springsteen continued to tour with the E Street Band, hitting cities missed during the 1999 tour. The tour ended with 10 shows at New York City's Madison Square Garden, songs from which released as a cable television special and an album, Live in New York City (both 2001). Springsteen released a new studio album with the E Street Band called The Rising in July 2002. Springsteen and Scialfa live in homes in New Jersey and Los Angeles with their three children, Evan, Jessica, and Sam.
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We have borrowed the above selection to present a brief history into Bruce springsteen's life and music. A more detailed biography will be presented here soon. We will soon feature detailed information on The E Street Band members past and present as well. So be sure to keep checking back!
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