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His music has been called “Dylan-like.” But even Bob Dylan has not had the support and the fans that Bruce Springsteen has. To this day, almost three decades after releasing is first album, Bruce Springsteen still sells out stadiums in minutes, and still puts on what some consider the best show ever.
Born to a working class family in Freehold, New Jersey in 1949, Springsteen fell in love with rock ‘n roll after watching the Ed Sullivan Show one night. Elvis performed that night, and inspired the “Boss” to start a career in music. He joined his first band in 1965, and despite the wishes of his father, began jumping around with different bands in the New Jersey seaside town of Asbury Park. Those battles with his father inspired some of Springsteen’s best loved songs.
And as he played with these different bands, he started to hook up with the musicians who would eventually comprise the E-Street Band.
When the family moved to California, Springsteen joined them, but only briefly. In 1972, he returned to the East Coast and signed a management deal with a producer named Mike Appeal. The contact with Appeal led to an audition with an executive at Columbia Records…. the same record label that signed Bob Dylan. Liking what he heard, the executive, John Hammond, decided to take a chance and signed Springsteen to a contract. In 1973, the first album came out, Greetings From Asbury Park, and quickly earned Springsteen the title of the “new Dylan.” Springsteen's follow-up, The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle, was released later the same year to even greater acclaim. The third album, Born To Run, landed Springsteen on the covers of Time and Newsweek. After a tour a two year legal battle with his first agent, Mike Appeal, Springsteen hit the studio again. This time the result was Darkness On The Edge Of Town, with the popular songs Badlands, Racing In The Street and The Promised Land.
By this time, Springsteen was on the verge of becoming a major commercial force, and his next album, The River, became Springsteen’s first number one album. But despite this popular records, Springsteen to this day is still know for the album he released in 1984, Born In The USA. One of the biggest selling records of all-time, Born In The USA produced seven top 10 singles, including Dancing In The Dark and the title song, Born In The USA. At the peak of his popularity, Springsteen married Julianne Phillips and released the five-LP, three-CD set, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band: Live 1975-1985, which debuted at number 1 on the charts. The Phillips marriage did not last, and in 1991 Springsteen married backup singer Patti Scialfa.
In 1993 Springsteen recorded the acoustic hit "Streets of Philadelphia." The theme song to the Tom Hanks film Philadelphia, earned him an Oscar and four Grammys. The years of hard work and long tours finally paid off in 1999 when he was inducted in the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame.
To this day, Springsteen continues to stay strong. A reunion tour with the E Street Band in 1999-2000 played to sold out crowds across the country, and backed up what millions of Americans already know. Bruce Springsteen will forever be a legend in the rock ‘n roll world.
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