Discover the Best Books Written by Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. He has released 21 studio albums, most of which feature his backing band, the E Street Band. Originally from the Jersey Shore, he is an originator of heartland rock, combining mainstream rock musical styles with narrative songs about working-class American life. Nicknamed "The Boss," his career has spanned six decades. Springsteen is known for his poetic, socially conscious lyrics and energetic stage performances, sometimes lasting up to four hours.

In 1973, Springsteen released his first two albums, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., and The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, neither of which earned him a large audience. He changed his style and reached worldwide popularity with Born to Run in 1975. It was followed by Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978) and The River (1980), which topped the US Billboard 200 chart. After the solo recording Nebraska (1982), he reunited with the E Street Band for Born in the U.S.A. (1984), his most commercially successful album and one of the best-selling albums of all time. 

Seven of its singles, including the title track, reached the Top Ten of the Billboard Hot 100. Springsteen recorded his next three albums, Tunnel of Love (1987), Human Touch (1992), and Lucky Town (1992), using mostly session musicians. He reassembled the E Street Band for 1995's Greatest Hits, then recorded the sparse acoustic The Ghost of Tom Joad, followed by the EP Blood Brothers (1996), his last release of the decade.

Springsteen dedicated his 2002 album The Rising to the victims of the September 11 attacks. He released two more folk albums, Devils & Dust (2005) and We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (2006), followed by two more albums with the E Street Band: Magic (2007) and Working on a Dream (2009). The next two, Wrecking Ball (2012) and High Hopes (2014), topped album charts worldwide. 

His latest releases include the solo Western Stars (2019), the E Street Band-featuring Letter to You (2020), and a solo cover album, Only the Strong Survive (2022). When Letter to You went to No.2 in the US, Springsteen became the first artist to score a Top Five hit across six consecutive decades. Among the album era's prominent acts, Springsteen has sold more than 140 million records worldwide and more than 71 million in the United States, making him one of the world's best-selling music artists. 

He has earned numerous awards for his work, including 20 Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes, an Academy Award, and a Special Tony Award (for Springsteen on Broadway). Springsteen was inducted into both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999, received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2009, was named MusiCares person of the year in 2013, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2016. He ranked 23rd on Rolling Stone's list of the Greatest Artists of All Time, describing him as "the embodiment of rock & roll."

Springsteen was born at Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch, New Jersey, on September 23, 1949. He is of Dutch, Irish, and Italian descent. He spent his childhood in Freehold, where he lived on South Street. His father, Douglas Frederick "Dutch" Springsteen (1924–1998), worked as a bus driver and held other jobs. Douglas Springsteen had mental health problems throughout his life, which worsened in his later years. 

Springsteen's mother, Adele Ann (née Zerilli) (born 1925), was originally from the Bay Ridge neighborhood in Brooklyn, worked as a legal secretary, and was the main breadwinner in Springsteen's family. Springsteen has two younger sisters, Virginia and Pamela. The latter had a brief acting career but left to pursue photography full-time; she later took photos for his albums Human Touch, Lucky Town, and The Ghost of Tom Joad.

Springsteen's Italian maternal grandfather was born in Vico Equense. He emigrated through Ellis Island and could not read or write when he arrived. He eventually became a lawyer and impressed the young Springsteen as being larger than life. The name Springsteen is topographic and of Dutch origin, literally translated as "jump stone" but more generally a stepping stone used on unpaved streets or between two houses. 

The Springsteen, originally from the province of Groningen, were among the early Dutch families who settled in the colony of New Netherland in the 1600s, in the person of Joost Springsteen. Raised as a Catholic, Springsteen attended the St. Rose of Lima Catholic school in Freehold. He was at odds with the nuns and rebelled against the strictures imposed upon him, even though some of his later music reflects a Catholic ethos and includes a few rock-influenced, traditional Irish-Catholic hymns.

In a 2012 interview, he explained that his Catholic upbringing rather than political ideology most influenced his music. He remarked that his faith had given him a "very active spiritual life" but joked that this "made it very difficult sexually." He added, "Once a Catholic, always a Catholic." He grew up hearing fellow New Jersey singer Frank Sinatra on the radio and became interested in being a musician himself when, in 1956 and 1957, at the age of seven, he saw Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show. 

Soon after, his mother rented him a guitar from Mike Diehl's Music in Freehold for $6 a week, but it failed to provide him with the instant gratification he desired. In ninth grade, Springsteen began attending the public Freehold High School but did not fit in there either. A former teacher said he was a "loner who wanted nothing more than to play his guitar." He graduated in 1967 but felt so alienated that he skipped his graduation ceremony.

He briefly attended Ocean County College but dropped out. Called for the draft when he was 19, Springsteen failed the physical examination and avoided service in the Vietnam War. The concussion he suffered in a motorcycle accident when he was 17, and his behavior at induction reportedly made him unacceptable for service. The Springsteen family moved to San Mateo, California, in 1969, but Bruce, 20, and his sister, Virginia, who was married and pregnant, stayed behind.