Bruce Springsteen biography

Springsteen's live performances were visceral and exciting, with our check-shirted hero communicating to the audience in a language they understood as he sang songs about paying the rent, losing your job/girlfriend and trying to fix the cistern in the toilet. (Maybe!) The success of the live shows reinvigorated interest in Springsteen's first two albums and set up much expectation for his third album, Born To Run. During his extensive touring in 1974 Springsteen would also meet up with his future manager, the Rolling Stone critic Jon Landau who famously remarked upon watching Springsteen for the first time: "I've seen the future of rock and roll and its name is Bruce Springsteen."

So no pressure for that third album then Bruce... Born To Run was released in 1975 and immediately put him into rock's premier league. Jon Landau steered proceedings towards a grandiose Phil Spector wall-of-sound with Springsteen's starry eyed romanticism completing the lavish arrangements. It wasn't subtle but it was big and it was clever. The title track and Thunder Road best summed up the mood of the album, teenage rebels following their dreams on the open road. OK, so it wasn't original but it was breathless and a perfect distillation of rock 'n' roll's history. Reaching the Top 3 in the US album charts, the Americans started calling Springsteen 'The Boss' and he undertook another full scale tour which lasted three years. It would be another three years before Springsteen released a new album as he became embroiled in a legal battle with his former manager Mike Appel who had attempted to stop Springsteen working with Landau.

Springsteen's next album, 1978's Darkness On The Edge Of Town was a bleaker affair and found Bruce in sombre mood, with his cast of characters and misfits pitched into increasingly desperate no-win situations. But it further established Springsteen as a sympathetic chronicler of small town life and the hopes and dreams of ordinary Americans. Badlands and Racing In The Streets had a sparse beauty that would resonate throughout his career. The album hit the Top 5 in the US but his next album, The River, released in 1980 gave him a more substantial breakthrough. Lyrically Bruce didn't break a sweat, fixating on the twin themes of girls and cars (Cadillac Ranch, Ramrod, Drive All Night). The album's highlight was the title track, a spartan, acoustic ode to doomed love which indicated the direction of his next album, 1982's Nebraska. The album's stark beauty was a radical departure from the rock 'n' roll bluster of Springsteen's previous albums with Bruce accompanied by a lone acoustic guitar and a harmonica. In tracks like State Trooper, Springsteen explored the boundaries of good and eviland how desperate men do, well, desperate things.

Springsteen's next album would see his career launch into the stratosphere. Released in 1984 Born In The USA came to define not only America in the '80s but Springsteen's blue collar image. With the album's iconic cover (white T-shirt, Levi's and baseball cap set to a stars and stripes backdrop) this set defines Springsteen's myth. With 14m sales in the US alone Springsteen became a superstar. Springsteen's musings on the American dream in the title track were misappropriated in some quarters as gung-ho patriotism, especially by Ronald Reagan who tried to use the lyrics to the song in his campaign speeches. Springsteen had already made his political allegiances public by supporting civil rights and environmental groups and playing a number of benefits for Vietnam war veterans.

A live boxed set, Live 1977-1985 brought an end to one era of Springsteen's career with the singer re-merging in 1987 with Tunnel Of Love. It's a beautifully weighted, low-key affair detailing the breakdown of his marriage to model Julianne Phillips. (He left Phillips for an affair with his back-up singer and guitarist Patti Sciafa). Understated tunes such as Brilliant Disguise and Tougher Than The Rest offered melodrama but none of the old bluster.

After finally parting with the E-Street Band he released two albums simultaneouslyin 1992, Human Touch and Lucky town. The albums weren't received with typical fervour by the critics although he scored more success with the endearing track, Streets Of Philadelphia , composed for the movie Philadelphia in 1994. It was Springsteen's biggest hit single for over a decade.

The following year saw the release of the low-key The Ghost Of Tom Joad. It was Springstreen back to what he does best, strumming tunes about America's disenfranchised. Telling warm, mellow tales of Vietnam, prison life and lost love, Springsteen's former anger and energy was replaced with a world weary philosophy. Many critics rank the accompanying, stripped down live shows as among Springsteen's best.

The following year Springsteen embarked on a rapturously received world tour with the rejuvenated E Street Band and in June 2000 he unviled a new song, American Skin, a scathing comment on the police shooting of the unarmed Bronx resident Amadou Diallou. The song prompted calls by the NYPD for a boycott of the singer's concerts.

In 2002 Springsteen reunited with the E-Street Band for his first studio album in seven years. The Rising was Springsteen's moving esponse to the terrorist attacks of September 11. Many of the songs, like Nothng Man were written from the perspective of working people whose lives were irrevocably changed by that fateful day. It was a quietly formidable album, earning Springsteen three Grammys and reiterating his stance as the liberal conscience and voice of blue-collar America. Just a working man trying to get by....

Discography