Bruce Springsteen
Lauded by Rolling Stone as "the embodiment of rock & roll", with more than 140 million records sold around the globe and more than 70 million in the United States, Bruce Springsteen is one of the world’s best-selling artists. Long recognized as an incomparable live performer, he has won 20 Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, two Golden Globes, and a Special Tony Award.
In 1999, Springsteen was inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2013 he received the Kennedy Center Honors, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian award, by President Barack Obama in 2016.
Before the success and accolades, the fiercely loyal New Jerseyan first assembled the E Street Band on beaches and boardwalk clubs of the state – many whom still tour with him till this day. He was signed to Columbia Records, where he would stay for his entire career, by the legendary A&R executive John Hammond, whose other discoveries included Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, and Billie Holiday.
Springsteen’s first two records—Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ and The Wild, The Innocent, & the E Street Shuffle, both released in 1973—established his hyper-literate lyric sensibility and a sound incorporating soul, folk, and classic rock & roll. But it was 1975’s Born to Run that made the kind of once-in-a-decade impact that resonates to this day; it landed him simultaneous covers of Time and Newsweek magazines and still appears near the top of most every list of the greatest albums of all time.
The ferocious, stripped-down Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978) secured his position as a singer and songwriter of incalculable influence, and the ambitious double-album The River (1980) gave him his first Top 40 single with “Hungry Heart.” After regrouping with the bleak home recordings on Nebraska (1982), he returned with the phenomenon of Born in the U.S.A. (1984), which has been certified 17-times platinum and spun off seven Top Ten hits.
Yet for all his critical and commercial success, Springsteen’s albums illustrated a drive to explore different directions and challenge his audience. The next decade saw the introverted relationship document Tunnel of Love (1987), the E Street-less double-shot of Human Touch and Lucky Town (1992), and the parched, acoustic The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995).
In 1999, after ten years apart, Springsteen reconvened the E Street Band for a historic series of shows documented on the Live in New York City album. In 2002 came The Rising, an attempt to make sense of 9/11, but then he changed course again with the intimate narratives of Devils & Dust (2005) and the joyous celebration of American folk tradition We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (2006).
Springsteen released a series of albums examining the complexities and contradictions of America through the lens of rock & roll—Magic (2007); the lush Working on a Dream (2009), which was accompanied by a memorable halftime performance at Super Bowl XLIII; Wrecking Ball (2012); and High Hopes (2014). All of these records reached Number One on the Billboard charts.
Springsteen published his autobiography, Born to Run, in 2016. It rose quickly to the top of the New York Times Best Seller list and was named one of the best books of the year by outlets from NPR to the Washington Post. The book evolved into the one-man show Springsteen on Broadway, which—after being extended three times—ran for 236 performances at the Walter Kerr Theatre. (Following the pandemic lockdown, it was the first show to re-open Broadway, for a 31-show revival in 2021.)
Since the E Street Reunion tour, Springsteen has toured consistently, usually with the band but sometimes in other configurations. Highlights have included the 2004 Vote for Change benefit tour; The Rising Tour (2002), with a record-breaking ten nights at Giants Stadium; and the Wrecking Ball World Tour (2012) and The River Tour (2016), both of which were the highest-grossing tours of their respective years. According to Pollstar magazine, Springsteen is one of just four artists who have sold more than 20 million tickets since 1980.
Western Stars (2019) was inspired by the cinematic, orchestral sound of ‘60s and ‘70s California pop and was complemented by a concert documentary filmed at Springsteen’s New Jersey farm, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. Letter to You (2020) was his first studio recording with the E Street Band since 2014 and included three songs originally written for his debut album almost fifty years earlier. With Letter to You, Springsteen became the first artist to score a Top Five hit across six consecutive decades.
In 2021, Spotify released an eight-part podcast titled Renegades: Born in the USA that featured Springsteen in conversation with Barack Obama. Following the announcement of an international tour with the E Street Band (their first in seven years), in 2022 Springsteen released his twenty-first studio album, Only the Strong Survive, composed entirely of covers of classic soul songs—a tribute to some of the music that shaped his life’s work. In 2023, Springsteen was honored by President Joe Biden at the White House with the 2021 National Medal of Arts.
Before the success and accolades, the fiercely loyal New Jerseyan first assembled the E Street Band on beaches and boardwalk clubs of the state – many whom still tour with him till this day. He was signed to Columbia Records, where he would stay for his entire career, by the legendary A&R executive John Hammond, whose other discoveries included Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, and Billie Holiday.
Springsteen’s first two records—Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ and The Wild, The Innocent, & the E Street Shuffle, both released in 1973—established his hyper-literate lyric sensibility and a sound incorporating soul, folk, and classic rock & roll. But it was 1975’s Born to Run that made the kind of once-in-a-decade impact that resonates to this day; it landed him simultaneous covers of Time and Newsweek magazines and still appears near the top of most every list of the greatest albums of all time.
The ferocious, stripped-down Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978) secured his position as a singer and songwriter of incalculable influence, and the ambitious double-album The River (1980) gave him his first Top 40 single with “Hungry Heart.” After regrouping with the bleak home recordings on Nebraska (1982), he returned with the phenomenon of Born in the U.S.A. (1984), which has been certified 17-times platinum and spun off seven Top Ten hits.
Yet for all his critical and commercial success, Springsteen’s albums illustrated a drive to explore different directions and challenge his audience. The next decade saw the introverted relationship document Tunnel of Love (1987), the E Street-less double-shot of Human Touch and Lucky Town (1992), and the parched, acoustic The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995).
In 1999, after ten years apart, Springsteen reconvened the E Street Band for a historic series of shows documented on the Live in New York City album. In 2002 came The Rising, an attempt to make sense of 9/11, but then he changed course again with the intimate narratives of Devils & Dust (2005) and the joyous celebration of American folk tradition We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (2006).
Springsteen released a series of albums examining the complexities and contradictions of America through the lens of rock & roll—Magic (2007); the lush Working on a Dream (2009), which was accompanied by a memorable halftime performance at Super Bowl XLIII; Wrecking Ball (2012); and High Hopes (2014). All of these records reached Number One on the Billboard charts.
Springsteen published his autobiography, Born to Run, in 2016. It rose quickly to the top of the New York Times Best Seller list and was named one of the best books of the year by outlets from NPR to the Washington Post. The book evolved into the one-man show Springsteen on Broadway, which—after being extended three times—ran for 236 performances at the Walter Kerr Theatre. (Following the pandemic lockdown, it was the first show to re-open Broadway, for a 31-show revival in 2021.)
Since the E Street Reunion tour, Springsteen has toured consistently, usually with the band but sometimes in other configurations. Highlights have included the 2004 Vote for Change benefit tour; The Rising Tour (2002), with a record-breaking ten nights at Giants Stadium; and the Wrecking Ball World Tour (2012) and The River Tour (2016), both of which were the highest-grossing tours of their respective years. According to Pollstar magazine, Springsteen is one of just four artists who have sold more than 20 million tickets since 1980.
Western Stars (2019) was inspired by the cinematic, orchestral sound of ‘60s and ‘70s California pop and was complemented by a concert documentary filmed at Springsteen’s New Jersey farm, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. Letter to You (2020) was his first studio recording with the E Street Band since 2014 and included three songs originally written for his debut album almost fifty years earlier. With Letter to You, Springsteen became the first artist to score a Top Five hit across six consecutive decades.
In 2021, Spotify released an eight-part podcast titled Renegades: Born in the USA that featured Springsteen in conversation with Barack Obama. Following the announcement of an international tour with the E Street Band (their first in seven years), in 2022 Springsteen released his twenty-first studio album, Only the Strong Survive, composed entirely of covers of classic soul songs—a tribute to some of the music that shaped his life’s work. In 2023, Springsteen was honored by President Joe Biden at the White House with the 2021 National Medal of Arts.