Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band

When Bruce Springsteen finally achieved national prominence during autumn 1975 following ten years of persistent effort, reviewers proclaimed him rock & roll’s redeemer, the lone figure who fused the raw energy of 1950s rock with the reflective depth of 1960s rock and reshaped both into a contemporary idiom. He performed with the ferocity of Jerry Lee Lewis, crafted lyrics as intricate as those of Bob Dylan, and delivered concerts that functioned as near-spiritual rites honoring music’s finest qualities. One writer was so captivated that he abandoned criticism altogether to serve as Springsteen’s manager.

Yet the extravagant praise, once amplified by a major label’s promotional apparatus, struck a substantial segment of listeners and the broader press as manufactured excess. Springsteen appeared on the covers of both Time and Newsweek, but the articles focused on the surrounding spectacle rather than the music itself. Although Born to Run became a commercial success and propelled him into arena-level performing, the publicity campaign alienated as many people as the recordings and live shows attracted.

Two decades afterward, however, Springsteen stood as a firmly established artist whose catalog included one of the highest-selling albums ever released, multiple sold-out stadium engagements, Grammy awards together with an Oscar, and an array of followers who formed a distinct subset within popular music. While no longer regarded as transcendent, he retained sufficient popularity for his Greatest Hits collection to debut at number one on the charts, and many of the 1975 doubters had by then been won over.

Raised in southern New Jersey, Springsteen embraced rock & roll during his teenage years and performed with various groups from the mid-1960s onward, shifting between garage-rock and power-trio blues-rock styles. In the early 1970s he attempted a solo career as a folk-styled singer-songwriter in Greenwich Village. Upon signing with Columbia Records in 1972, he assembled many of the New Jersey musicians he had previously worked with, resulting in Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. (January 1973). The album initially attracted little notice, although Manfred Mann’s Earth Band later transformed its opening track, “Blinded by the Light,” into a number-one single four years later. The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle (September 1973) likewise sold poorly despite enthusiastic reviews; both releases have since attained platinum status.

The next year Springsteen reconfigured his backing unit, later known as the E Street Band, retaining saxophonist Clarence Clemons, second guitarist “Miami” Steve Van Zandt, organist Danny Federici, pianist Roy Bittan, bassist Garry Tallent, and drummer Max Weinberg. With this lineup he toured extensively while preparing his third and final Columbia album. By the release of Born to Run (August 1975), both critics and a dedicated following supported him; the title track reached the Top 40 and the album climbed into the Top Ten.

In the aftermath of the media frenzy, Springsteen needed to record and perform consistently to solidify his standing. Litigation with a previous manager kept him out of the studio for several years. During that interval the musical landscape shifted, and the very return to fundamental rock values that had drawn critical acclaim in 1975 now placed him outside the vanguard dominated by punk and new wave. When he reappeared with Darkness on the Edge of Town (June 1978), heartland-rock peers such as Bob Seger had emerged, positioning Springsteen within an established category rather than as an innovator. The album nevertheless succeeded commercially, portraying the same restless characters from his earlier work now trapped in factory routines. The River (October 1980) followed, topping the charts and yielding his first Top Ten single, “Hungry Heart.”

Springsteen then withdrew from the expanding audience, issuing the stark Nebraska (September 1982), essentially a home-demo recording pressed to vinyl. He did not tour behind the album, and during the hiatus guitarist Van Zandt departed amicably for a solo career, replaced by Nils Lofgren. The subsequent Born in the U.S.A. (June 1984) and its two-year worldwide tour produced seven hit singles and sales exceeding ten million copies, elevating Springsteen to the commercial stratosphere alongside Michael Jackson and Prince. After more than a year on the road he released the five-LP/three-CD Live/1975-85 (November 1986), which also reached number one.

Characteristically, he followed with the more introspective Tunnel of Love (October 1987), an album that foreshadowed the end of his first marriage. He later wed singer Patti Scialfa, who had already joined the E Street Band. After another lengthy tour, Springsteen disbanded the E Street Band in November 1989, ending a fifteen-year association. In March 1992 he issued Human Touch and Lucky Town simultaneously; both entered near the top of the charts but found less favor with listeners than prior releases. That autumn he recorded an MTV Unplugged session—plugging in after the opening number—and the performance appeared as an album in Europe in 1993.

Springsteen continued touring until July 1993. Later that year he composed and recorded “Streets of Philadelphia” for the film Philadelphia, which centered on a lawyer dying of AIDS. The song became a Top Ten hit in 1994, earned the Academy Award for Best Song, and dominated the Grammys the following year. Concurrently he prepared Greatest Hits (February 1995), reconvening the E Street Band for several new tracks; the collection sold briskly. He next delivered The Ghost of Tom Joad (November 1995), another sparse, acoustic-leaning set, and supported it with a short solo tour. Following his 1999 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Springsteen reunited with the E Street Band—now featuring both Lofgren and Van Zandt on guitar—and completed a world tour that ran through mid-2000, with its concluding shows documented on Live in New York City.

He then returned to the studio with the full band for the first time since Born in the U.S.A., producing The Rising, his initial collection of new studio material since The Ghost of Tom Joad. Issued in July 2002, the album preceded another extensive tour and further sessions that yielded Devils & Dust in 2005. One year later he released his first covers album, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, a tribute to Pete Seeger’s catalog. Live in Dublin, drawn from performances during the accompanying tour, appeared on both CD and DVD in 2007. Springsteen subsequently reconvened the E Street Band for Magic, issued in autumn 2007.