"The Boss" is celebrating his birthday today and we have 30 interesting facts to tell you about him:
(Photo: Flickr)
1. He was born in New Jersey on September 23, 1949, as Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen.
2. He was the eldest of three children and grew up in a working-class Catholic Christian family.
3. The moment he realized he wanted to pursue music was when he was 7 and watched Elvis Presley on "The Ed Sullivan Show".
4. He started playing guitar shortly afterward when his mother Adele rented him a guitar for 6$ a week. He bought his first guitar when he was 13 for 18.95$. By the time he was 16, he had already received from his mother his first serious guitar. She had to take a loan to buy it. The story of the purchase is described in the song "The Wish", from the "Tracks" box released by Springsteen in 1998.
5. The first song he learned to play on the guitar was "Twist and Shout" by "the Beatles".
6. He was nicknamed "The Boss" in the late 1960s when he was part of the "Earth" band, since he managed the band's logistics and financial affairs.
7. From 1969 he was part of the band "Steel Mill" together with Danny Federici, Vini Lopez, and later also Steven Van Zandt and Robin Thompson. The band members, accompanied by saxophonist Clarence Clemons, will become the famous "E Street Band" in 1972 and will accompany Springsteen throughout his career.
(Photo: Lynn Goldsmith)
8. his first album "Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J", was released in 1973. The one who was the recording technician on the album was producer Louis Lahav.
9. Lahav will continue to accompany Bruce until 1975 when he also serves as a soundman during his performances and also enlists his wife Tzruya (Suki) Lahav to play violin with Springsteen.
10. The Lahav couple also accompanied Springsteen on the masterpiece album "Born To Run" when Tzruya even played the violin in the song "Jungleland". It was also Springsteen's breakthrough album that made him the first musician to be featured on the cover of the two successful magazines "Time" and "Newsweek" in the same week in 1975.
11. By the way, the song "Born To Run" is the most played in Springsteen's performances. To date, it has been played 1,745 times.
12. Believe it or not but following the success of the album Springsteen bought his first car - the "1950 Corvette". The car is on display today at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
(Photo: Frank Stefanko)
13. In 1976, the Lahav couple and Bruce Springsteen parted ways. Rumor has it that the reason was an affair that developed between Tzruya Lahav and Bruce Springsteen, for which Tzruya asked Louis Lahav to return to Israel to save their marriage.
14. In 1976 after a performance in Memphis, Bruce, who so admired Elvis Presley, tried to sneak into his Graceland estate and was caught. Later, in 1977, he wrote the song "Fire" for Elvis. He sent him a demo tape of the song in the hope he will perform it, but Elvis died shortly afterward and Bruce never found out if he liked the song or not. Bruce eventually gave the song to Robert Gordon, and the "Pointer Sisters" would make it a hit in 1979.
15. This was the third consecutive song that Springsteen wrote and became a hit by other artists. The first was "Blinded by the Light" performed by "Manfred Mann's Earth Band" in 1977 and the second was "Because the Night" performed by Patti Smith in 1978. Of course, Manfred Mann performed cover versions of two other Bruce songs: "Spirit in the Night "and" For You ".
16. Another sign that illustrates Bruce's appreciation for Elvis is the fact that on the cover of the 1975 album "Born to Run", he was photographed with a button of Elvis fan club in New York attached to his guitar strap.
17. He originally wrote the song "Hungry Heart" from the album "The River" for the "Ramones". In 1979 he met Joey Ramone who asked him to write a song for his band. Bruce wrote, "Hungry Heart" intending to give it to Ramones, but eventually stayed with it on the recommendation of his manager.
18. His most successful album was "Born in the U.S.A", which was released in 1984. It produced 7 hits that entered the top 10 and sold 30 million copies, 15 million of them in the US alone.
19. Actress Courtney Cox from the TV series "Friends", appears in Springsteen's music video for the song "Dancing in the Dark", he took her on stage and danced with her.
20. In 1989 he disbanded the "E Street Band" and gave each member 2$ million. In March 1992 he released two solo albums on the same day "Lucky Town" and "Human Touch".
21. In 1993 he won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for writing and performing the song "Streets of Philadelphia", which was included in the movie "Philadelphia" starring Tom Hanks.
22. In 1999 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The one who gave the induction speech was none other than Bono from U2. Springsteen returned the favor 6 years later, when in 2005 he gave the U2 induction speech to the Hall of Fame.
23. In 1999 an asteroid in the solar system was named after him - "23990 Springsteen". That same year the astronauts on the space shuttle "Discovery" chose to wake up every morning with his song "Rendezvous".
24. There is a radio channel called "E Street Radio" that plays Springsteen's songs 24/7.
25. Springsteen is an avid Harry Potter admirer. He even wrote a song for one of the movies, but due to JK Rowling's tough policy of not putting commercial songs in Harry Potter movies, Springsteen's song was rejected.
26. In 2008, Springsteen was named one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World" by Time Magazine.
27. In 2009 he again won the Golden Globe Award for the song "The Wrestler" which was included in the soundtrack of the film of the same name.
28. On August 31, 2006, Springsteen broke the record for the longest rock performance ever in the United States. The show was held in New Jersey and lasted 4 hours and one minute. By the way, his long performance outside the US was held in Helsinki in 2012 and lasted 4 hours and 6 minutes.
29. Bruce has released to date 21 studio albums, 23 live albums, and 7 EPs, of which 71 different singles have been released, an unimaginable amount by all means.
30. During his long career, Bruce has collaborated with dozens of different artists, including Tom Morello, Lou Reed, Eddie Vedder, Roy Orbison, Graham Parker, Donna Summer, Emmylou Harris, and more and more...
* In April 2023, the governor of New Jersey declared 9/23 as "Bruce Springsteen Day".