It isn’t without reason we say his journey along the road to fame is ‘spectacular’. The extent to which he has touched a chord in the human heart is unimaginable and mind boggling. Just think of these numbers: he has sold over 65 million albums in the United States alone and 120 million world wide! In the arena of music that’s surely the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest! And Springsteen’s done it!

Perhaps his greatest – and most would say his noblest – achievement that his staggeringly popular music centers around a resoundingly simple theme: the every day struggles of daily life in his native New Jersey. Perhaps it is the sheer rugged simplicity of his creative talent that has made his music so dear to millions all over the globe. In other words, you don’t have to be an intellectual giant to understand and appreciate Bruce Springsteen! Being a simple guy is good enough.

That’s probably because Bruce is himself a simple guy. His father Douglas was a bus driver and his mother Ann was a legal secretary. Bruce attended Freehold Regional High School. A simple family background and a simple education helped create this simple guy.

Bruce Springsteen’s interest in music began early enough. The first stokes of the fire in him were kindled when he was only eleven. That was when he saw Elvis Presley perform live on his much acclaimed The Ed Sullivan Show. A couple of years later, at just 13, Bruce bought his first guitar for, believe me, only $18! Later, his mother took out a loan to buy her 16-year-old son a $60 Kent guitar. Bruce immortalized this gift from his mother years later when he wrote and put to music his an event he later memorialized in his ever popular song "The Wish". Springsteen made is big time debut in 1973, age 24, when he launched his maiden album Greetings From Finsbury Park, N.J. As its name implies, he stuck to his home roots. Ever since, this creative genre has been his great success. Luckily for him, the timing of his advent on to the rock and roll stage was the right one.

After Elvis smashed old musical styles in the sixties with his rock and roll, the latter went into a decline in the seventies. It was left to Bruce Springsteen to reinforce the magic of rock and roll. disco, glam-rock, heavy-metal and arena-rock triggered off different forms of escape into fantasy, adding both urgency and realism into the scene. The rest, as they say, is history – and legend too, for that matter.

In common with many other celebrities, especially those in the field of music, Bruce Springsteen’s personal life hasn’t been a happy one. In May 1985 when he was nearly 36 years old, the confirmed bachelor stunned fans by tying the knot with 25-year-old actress Julianne Phillips. At first, Bruce’s fame helped promote Julianne’s career. But their happiness was not destined to survive Bruce’s hectic travel schedules causing them almost to lead separate lives. An affair with band-mate Patti Scialfa followed and ultimately Bruce and Julianne divorced in 1989. Bruce and Patti’s love child, a son, was born in July 1990, upon which Bruce and Patti married in June 1991. The couple’s second love child, daughter Jessica, was born in December 1991 and their son Sam Ryan came along in January 1994. The family – a happy five-some – lives in Colts Neck, New Jersey. 

Springsteen is a man who draws the listener in, seemingly into a dark music with creepy undertones. For a lyricist and performer, that’s one of the hardest kind of music to create. In the second phase of his career, that’s precisely what Bruce has gone and done! In his own words, he ascribes this to being “re-infatuated with music”. It’s taken him places. His “E Street Band”, officially born September 1974, is still on the roll. 2007 was a busy year of globetrotting and bookings are over till the fall of 2008! That’s Bruce Springsteen for you!

View Bruce Springsteen Tickets