Nils Lofgren

During a substantial stretch of his time making rock music for a living, Nils Lofgren earned recognition chiefly as the lead guitarist in Bruce Springsteen’s E-Street Band, the player who stepped in for Steven Van Zandt during 1984 and remained even after Little Steven came back. Before that affiliation, Lofgren had already worked in Neil Young’s supporting group Crazy Horse, and those ties with two storied songwriters naturally overshadowed most accounts of his own path. Remove Springsteen and Young from the picture, however, and a distinctive body of work emerges on its own: the albums he cut with the late-’60s outfit Grin, the songs he contributed while with Crazy Horse, and a run of solo releases that began with the self-titled 1975 set. That debut, built around the Rolling Stones tribute “Keith Don’t Go,” drew strong notices yet sold modestly, while the follow-ups Cry Tough (1976), I Came to Dance (1977), and Night After Night (1977) climbed higher on the album rock charts and set the stage for a catalog that continued into the new century, with many of those later projects recorded during breaks from E-Street duties; once he returned to Crazy Horse in 2018, he still managed to issue the 2023 solo album Mountains while keeping up commitments to both Springsteen and Young.

Born in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Garrett Park, Maryland, Nils Lofgren started making music young, taking up the accordion at five and later absorbing classical and jazz before rock claimed him in his teens. He also became a skilled gymnast whose trampoline abilities later found their way into his stage shows. At fifteen he added guitar and piano, soon forming Grin with drummer Bob Berberich and bassist George Daly. While the band worked the local clubs, Lofgren crossed paths with Neil Young, who was impressed enough to invite the teenager to California; Lofgren went, bringing Grin along. The musicians settled into a Laurel Canyon house Young had rented and began rehearsing, during which time Lofgren contributed guitar and piano to Young’s 1970 album After the Gold Rush. Still only seventeen, Lofgren also appeared on the 1971 Crazy Horse record, playing throughout and singing lead on his own “Beggar’s Day,” yet he stayed loyal to his D.C. group. Grin secured a deal with A&M in 1971 after Daly departed and Bob Gordon took over on bass. Produced by Young’s frequent collaborator David Briggs, the band’s self-titled debut came out that year and drew more critical praise than sales. Grin stayed busy, releasing three further Briggs-produced albums: the 1972 LP 1+1, which showed Lofgren alone on the cover, plus the 1973 sets All Out and Gone Crazy, both featuring Lofgren’s brother Tom on rhythm guitar. As the group began to fracture, Young asked Lofgren to join his touring band; those dates led into the studio sessions for Tonight’s the Night, cut amid the aftermath of Danny Whitten’s death.

By the time Tonight’s the Night reached stores in 1975, Lofgren had already signed with A&M as a solo act. His debut, anchored by “Keith Don’t Go,” received notable acclaim—future Springsteen manager Jon Landau praised it in Rolling Stone, it landed on NME’s year-end Top Ten, and it ranked nineteenth on the Village Voice’s Pazz & Jop poll—yet it peaked only at 141 on Billboard. Cry Tough improved on that showing the next year, climbing to number 32 thanks to growing word-of-mouth, album-rock airplay, and touring. I Came to Dance and the live double album Night After Night, both issued in 1977, also performed respectably on the rock charts, reaching 36 and 44 respectively, as did 1979’s Nils. The latter grew out of Lofgren’s late-’70s association with the Lou Reed camp, featuring co-writes with Reed and Reed’s guitarist Dick Wagner, production by Bob Ezrin, and Lofgren’s own contributions to Reed’s The Bells that same year. Night Fades Away became his first lower-charting effort, scraping in at 99, while the 1983 Backstreet/MCA release Wonderland failed to chart at all, after which Lofgren left the label.

Before Wonderland appeared, Lofgren had already resumed work with Young, playing on the 1982 electronic album Trans and joining its 1983 tour. Even so, the partnership that shaped the rest of his career was the one he formed with Bruce Springsteen. When Van Zandt exited the E-Street Band in 1984 to launch a solo career—the first major lineup change since 1975—Springsteen recruited Lofgren as his replacement. From then on Lofgren served as the band’s lead guitarist, appearing on Springsteen solo projects and remaining even after Van Zandt returned in 1995. Lofgren balanced those duties with his own releases, beginning with the 1985 Columbia debut Flip, which featured numerous guests and reached 150 despite modest sales, signaling his shift from near-breakthrough artist to respected cult figure. After Flip he worked mainly with the independent Rykodisc, which reissued the 1975 solo album in 1990 and issued the new Silver Lining in 1991—his final charting record at 153—followed by Crooked Line in 1992.

By the early ’90s Lofgren had built a distinctive following drawn to his mix of album rock and roots influences and to his appearances with Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band. Major labels stayed out of reach for the next two decades as he moved steadily toward full independence. He kept recording, alternating studio efforts such as 1995’s Damaged Goods and 2011’s Old School with side projects like the 1997 acoustic live set and 2008’s The Loner: Nils Sings Neil. During the E-Street Band’s lengthy ’90s hiatus he freelanced, touring with Patti Scialfa and Ringo Starr, sitting in on Neil Young’s Unplugged, and contributing to several Springsteen solo albums. When the E-Street Band resumed activity in the 2000s, Lofgren continued juggling those responsibilities with his solo output—introspective collections like 2006’s Sacred Weapon and 2011’s Old School, tributes such as The Loner: Nils Sings Neil, and loose jam-oriented recordings. All of those phases, from the Grin years onward, were gathered in the 2014 box set Face the Music, a nine-CD/one-DVD collection Lofgren himself assembled.

When Young reassembled Crazy Horse in 2018, he needed a guitarist to replace Frank “Pancho” Sampedro, who had retired after the 2014 tour because of arthritis. Young convinced Lofgren to return, a move that became permanent after a few 2018 shows. The resulting Colorado, recorded with Young, surfaced in October 2019. Months earlier Lofgren had issued Blue with Lou, built around five previously unreleased late-’70s collaborations with Lou Reed. During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic Young kept recording new material with Crazy Horse near his Colorado home, yielding Barn in December 2021 and World Record less than a year later. The same lineup also cut All Roads Lead Home, a pandemic-era collection credited to Molina, Talbot, Lofgren & Young rather than Crazy Horse and centered on the other three songwriters; it appeared in March 2023 while Lofgren was touring with the E-Street Band behind Springsteen’s soul-covers album Only the Strong Survive. Midway through that global run, Lofgren released his solo album Mountains, co-produced with his wife Amy and featuring guest spots from Young, David Crosby, and Ringo Starr.