Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949) is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. Nicknamed "the Boss", Springsteen has released 21 studio albums spanning six decades; most feature the E Street Band, his backing band since 1972.

Springsteen released his first two albums, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. and The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, in 1973. He achieved worldwide popularity with Born to Run (1975). He followed with Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978) and The River (1980), Springsteen's first album to top the Billboard 200 chart. After releasing the solo acoustic album Nebraska (1982), he recorded Born in the U.S.A. (1984) with the E Street Band. It is his most successful album and one of the best-selling albums of all time. Springsteen mostly hired session musicians for his next three albums, Tunnel of Love (1987), Human Touch (1992), and Lucky Town (1992). He reassembled the E Street Band for Greatest Hits (1995), and recorded the acoustic album The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995) and the EP Blood Brothers (1996) solo.

Following the Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Reunion Tour in 1999 and 2000, Springsteen released The Rising (2002), dedicated to the victims of the September 11 attacks. This was followed by two folk albums, Devils & Dust (2005) and We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (2006), his first cover album. Springsteen followed with Magic (2007), Working on a Dream (2009), Wrecking Ball (2012), and High Hopes (2014). In 2017, 2018, and 2021, Springsteen performed Springsteen on Broadway, performing songs and telling stories from his 2016 autobiography. He released the solo album Western Stars in 2019, Letter to You with the E Street Band in 2020, and a solo cover album, Only the Strong Survive, in 2022. With Letter to You, Springsteen became the first artist to release a top-five album in six consecutive decades. He released the politically charged "Streets of Minneapolis" in 2026, which reached number one on the iTunes Top Songs chart.

A prominent musician from the album era, Springsteen has sold more than 140 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. His accolades include 20 Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes, an Academy Award, and a Special Tony Award. He was inducted into 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 in 2016 and the National Medal of Arts in 2023. In 2010, Rolling Stone ranked Springsteen 23rd on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time", describing him as "the embodiment of rock and roll". In 2025, Springsteen became one of only five artists to gross over $2.3 billion in touring thanks to his 2023–2025 Tour with the E Street Band.

Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen was born at Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch, New Jersey on September 23, 1949. His parents were Adele Ann Springsteen (née Zerilli; 1925–2024) and Douglas Frederick "Dutch" Springsteen (1924–1998). Springsteen's mother, who was originally from the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, worked as a legal secretary and was the family's main breadwinner. His father was a World War II veteran who worked as a bus driver; he had mental health issues throughout his life, and they worsened in his later life. Springsteen is of Dutch, Irish, and Italian descent. He grew up Catholic in Freehold, New Jersey.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.