Bruce Springsteen, The Boss

The Boss and Patti Scialfa were married On June 8, 1991

Bruce Springsteen was inspired to take up music at the age of seven after seeing Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956.  At 13, his mother bought him his first guitar for $18.  The next year, in 1964, a major turning point for Springsteen occurred with the Beatles' appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.  Thereafter he started playing for audiences, first at a trailer park on New Jersey Route 34 and then at a local Elks Lodge.  In 1965, Springsteen's mother took out a loan to buy her 16-year-old son a $60 Kent guitar, an act he subsequently memorialized in his song The Wish. In the same year, 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 has said that she believed the young Springsteen when he promised he would make it big. 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 behavior at induction and not taking the tests was enough to get him a 4F.

In the late 1960s, Springsteen performed briefly in a power trio known as Earth, playing in clubs in New Jersey.  Bruce 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.  Springsteen is not fond of this nickname, due to his dislike of bosses, but seems, overtime, to have given it a tacit acceptance. From 1969 through early 1971, Bruce performed with Steel Mill, playing 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 Cambridge, Massachusetts; Richmond, Virginia; and Asbury Park and other points along the Jersey Shore, quickly gathering a cult following. Even after Bruce 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.

Bruce 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.  Bruce 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 though sales were slow. 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. With Born to Run (having taken 14 months to record) released on August 25, 1975, Bruce Springsteen finally found success.  Born to Run with its panoramic imagery, thundering production and desperate optimism, is considered to be among the best rock and roll albums of all time.  Almost every track on the album received album-oriented rock airplay, especially the title track Born to Run, Thunder Road, Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out and Jungleland, all of which remain perennial favorites on many classic rock stations.

Wanderin' Spirit
January, 2015
"The Boss"

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