Bruce Springsteen: Life and Career

By Christopher Goulart

Bruce Springsteen is an American singer and songwriter. Springsteen first picked up the guitar in his teens and would eventually go on to join several bands including The Castiles, Earth and Steel Mill. He signed his first recording contract with Columbia Records in 1972.

Springsteen would go on to win critical praise for his first two releases, "Greetings from Ashbury Park, N.J." and "The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle". However, it wasn't until his third album, "Born to Run" that Springsteen finally achieved massive commercial success. His 1984 album "Born in the U.S.A" has been certified platinum fifteen times by the RIAA and produced seven top-10 singles.

Springsteen has garnered a staggering amount of awards, including twenty Grammy Awards, four American Music Awards, two Golden Globe Awards and an Academy Award.

• Language: English
• Publisher: XinXii
• Release date: Jun 10, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312267671

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About Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen was born New Jersey, USA. His father, Douglas Frederick Springsteen, worked as a bus driver, and was of Irish and Dutch ancestry. His mother, Adele Ann (Zerilli), worked as a legal secretary, and was of Italian ancestry. He has an older sister, Virginia, and a younger sister Pamela Springsteen. Bruce was raised as a Catholic. He was inspired to take up music when he, at the age of seven, saw Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show (1948). When he was 13 he bought his first guitar for 18 dollars. His mother took out a loan when Bruce was 16 and bought him a Kent guitar for 60 dollars.

In 1965, he became the lead guitarist in the band The Castiles, he would later become lead singer in the band. The Castiles recorded two original songs at a public recording studio in Brick Township, New Jersey. From 1969 to 1971 he performed with Steven Van Zandt, Danny Federici and Vini Mad Dog Lopez in a band called Child, that was renamed later to Steel Mill when guitarist Robbin Thompson joined the band.

In 1972, he signed a record deal with Columbia Records and released his debut album, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., with his New Jersey-based colleagues, who would later be called The E Street Band, In January, 1973. The album had critical success and so did their second album, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, released in September, 1973, but had little commercial success. In 1975, after more than 14 month of recording, their third album was released, Born to Run, which had both critical and commercial success for Springsteen and the band.

In 1977, he returned to the studio, after a