Garry Tallent

Garry Tallent has anchored the bass chair for Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band from its earliest days while simultaneously lending his skills as producer and sideman to a wide array of other performers. Detroit, Michigan, welcomed his birth on October 27, 1949; later his family moved to Neptune City, New Jersey. Motown legend James Jamerson, Booker T & the MG's Donald "Duck" Dunn, and the Beatles' Paul McCartney sparked his interest, prompting Tallent to pick up the instrument. In the late '60s he struck up friendships with two rising figures in the New Jersey bar-band circuit, Johnny Lyon (aka Southside Johnny) and Springsteen himself, and soon joined the latter onstage. From 1973 through 1987 his lines appeared on nearly every Springsteen release: Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ and The Wild, the Innocent, & the E Street Shuffle (both 1973), Born to Run (1975), Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978), The River (1980), Born in the U.S.A. (1984), Live: 1975-1985 (1985), and Tunnel of Love (1987). Beginning in the early '80s Tallent also produced and performed with additional acts, among them Gary U.S. Bonds' 1981 comeback album Dedication. When Springsteen paused E Street Band activities at the start of the '90s, Tallent stayed active elsewhere. His session and production credits grew to encompass Sonny Burgess, Julian Dawson, the Delevantes, Steve Earle, Steve Forbert, the Hoopsnakes, Evan Johns & His H-Bombs, Robert Earl Keen, Jr., Greg Trooper, and Southside Johnny. He settled in Nashville, Tennessee, launched the MoonDog recording studio, and helped establish the D'Ville Record Group. Springsteen's 1995 album The Ghost of Tom Joad featured Tallent, paving the way for a complete E Street Band reunion that brought sold-out tours and the group's first studio album in fifteen years, 2002's The Rising. Following that release the band maintained a steady schedule of live dates and frequent studio support for Springsteen. In March 2016 Tallent resumed solo activity with the album Break Time on D'Ville Records.