Springsteen broke up his E-Street Band in 1989 and performed as a solo artist for most of the '90s. In 1995, he did a solo tour in small venues to support the rather depressing Ghost of Tom Joad album.
Springsteen's concerts in the 1970s and '80s were a religious display of energy, charisma and stamina, often carrying on for over four hours straight. The E Street Band was reunited in 1999 for a world tour that started in Europe and kicked off in America with 15 dates at the Meadowlands in New Jersey. Decades later, Bruce and the E Street Band were still playing shows that typically lasted at least three hours.
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Jacob - Harrison, NY
Bruce is the president and sole benefactor of The Foundation, a charity that provides low income people in Monmouth County, New Jersey, with home repairs.
He hates his nickname "The Boss." It was given to him by overwhelmed musicians in Asbury Park, New Jersey in the early '70s.
He retains strict control of his publishing and doesn't allow his songs to be used in commercials. However, sales of Levi's went up after Born In The USA showed him wearing their jeans on the album cover.
Springsteen never had a job besides making and playing music.
Writing through characters is a way for Springsteen to keep his ego in check and remain a keen observer of the world around him. "The mistake is in thinking that you are those songs," he said in a 1974 interview with ZigZag. "To me a song is a vision, a flash, and what I see is characters in situations."
David Letterman is a huge fan, but couldn't get Bruce to come on his NBC show
Late Night With David Letterman until the final episode before he moved to CBS, June 25, 1993. He played "
Glory Days."
He inducted Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, U2 and Creedence Clearwater Revival into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was inducted by Bono in 1999.
He appeared on the covers of both Time and Newsweek on October 27, 1975, becoming the first entertainer to do so.
E Street Drummer Max Weinberg was the drummer for the late night talk show Late Night with Conan O'Brien.
One of the villains in the Dick Tracy comic strip wore an E Street Band T-shirt.
In 1984, Springsteen expressed his anger at President Reagan for trying to use his music for political purposes. When living in California in the mid-1990s, Springsteen found himself one of Reagan's neighbors.
The decision to build the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas was based partly on a survey showing that people who attended Springsteen concerts also love to gamble.
Bruce Springsteen's backstage requests are very down-to-earth - no caviar or bowls of M&Ms with the green ones removed. The rider for his 2002-2003 tour did include one special request: a security guard to watch over his guitars exclusively.
Bruce's father, Douglas Springsteen, was largely unemployed when he was growing up, leaving his mother, Adele Ann, to be the family's breadwinner with her job as a legal secretary.
Bruce's younger sister Pamela is a still photographer. She took photos for his Human Touch, Lucky Town and The Ghost of Tom Joad albums.
Springsteen was called up to serve in Vietnam, but failed his physical examination, having suffered a concussion in a motorcycle accident when he was 17. This together with his "crazy" behavior at induction (he called it "pulling an '
Alice's Restaurant'") resulted in being enough to get him a 4F, which disqualified Bruce from serving in uniform.
A 1985 Springsteen gig almost rocked the Ullevi stadium in Gothenburg, Sweden to pieces. The owners had to spend $5 million drilling concrete pillars down through clay into solid bedrock.
Springsteen was born in a Roman Catholic household and peppers his lyrics with spiritual imagery. In 2013, Rutgers University in New Jersey began offering students a course on the theological underpinnings of Springsteen's lyrics, looking at how he has interpreted biblical texts in his work. Good luck with "
Santa Claus Is Coming To Town!"
He made a cameo in the 2000 John Cusack movie Hi Fidelity, appearing in a dream sequence where he counsels Cusack's character. Cusack had no trouble getting Springsteen to appear; when he told him the film was "a love letter to music" and described the scene, Bruce readily agreed.
Bruce Springsteen's first vehicle was a 1957 Chevy Bel-Air. "In '70s New Jersey, the car was still a powerful image," Springsteen wrote in his book Songs. "That summer I bought my first set of wheels for $2,000. It was a '57 Chevy with dual, four-barrel carbs, a Hurst on the floor and orange flames spread across the hood."
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band played the Grand Ole Opry on April 28, 1976 as part of the Born to Run tour. They were the first hard rocking act in the Opry's 50-year history, but according to newspaper reports, a third of the seats were left unsold.
Jessica Springsteen, the musician's middle daughter from his marriage to Patti Scialfa, is a show jumping champion rider. She won a silver medal in the team jumping competition at the 2020 Summer Olympics held in 2021 in Tokyo riding her 12-year-old stallion, Don Juan Van de Donkhoeve.
Springsteen is rather obsessive about sound quality when he plays live. In the '80s, he was known for two-hour soundchecks as he roamed the stadiums to make sure every section got good sound. Television studios had terrible sound back then, so he refused to perform on TV. He didn't play on TV in America until 1992 when he finally accepted a longstanding offer to perform on Saturday Night Live.
A Springsteen tradition was to reserve two front-row seats at every show for Obie Dziedzic, a fan who supported him early on and helped out with administrative tasks and promotion in the lean years. If Obie didn't show, the tickets went to two lucky fans in the cheap seats. She passed away in 2017.
