Born in the USA... an icon the world over
BARACK OBAMA once declared: “The reason I’m running for president is because I can’t be Bruce Springsteen.” Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen was born to run 70 years ago making his entrance into the world on September 23, 1949.
He picked up his first guitar as a boy growing up in New Jersey and once explained his chosen career path saying: “I was real good at music and real bad at everything else.”
Inspired by appearances from Elvis Presley and the Beatles on TV’s Ed Sullivan Show, Bruce revealed in his autobiography Born To Run how, he took his mum Adele to the local music store when he was seven.
He wrote: “There, with no money to spend, we rented a guitar. I took it home. Opened its case. Smelled its wood (still one of the sweetest and most promising smells in the world), felt its magic, sensed its hidden power. I held it in my arms, ran my fingers over its strings, held the real tortoiseshell guitar pick in between my teeth, tasted it, took a few weeks of music lesson... and quit. It was too f***ing hard!”
Luckily the call of music was too hard to ignore forever and Bruce picked up a guitar again when he was 13. He quickly found playing and performing with local bands more satisfying than going to school and once explained: “In the third grade, a nun stuffed me in a garbage can under her desk because she said that’s where I belonged. I also had the distinction of being the only altar boy knocked down by a priest during mass.”
Bruce paid his dues on the local music scene playing in bars and becoming a frontman almost by default. He has regularly returned to The Stone Pony in Asbury Park, the bar which helped launch his career, even after finding worldwide recognition.
His famous E-Street Band developed along the way and earned him the nickname of “The Boss”. He has said it came about simply because he paid the bills and salaries. Bruce has gone on to win 20 Grammys, a songwriting Oscar for Streets Of Philadelphia, from the Tom Hanks movie, Philadelphia and has notched up more than 120 million album sales worldwide. U2 frontman Bono inducted him into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999 saying: “Bruce is a very unusual rock star. He hasn’t done the things most rock stars do. He got rich and famous but he never embarrassed himself with all that success – no drug busts, no blood changes in Switzerland and, even more remarkable, no golfing.” Future Friends actress Courtney Cox appeared in Springsteen’s music video for Dancing In The Dark. She played the young fan who Bruce plucks from the audience to dance with him on stage.
Bruce has never learned to read music, but says: “I have to write and play. If I became an electrician tomorrow, I’d still come home at night and write songs.”
Bruce’s catalogue of rock anthems includes Born In The USA, Blinded By The Light, I’m On Fire, Dancing In The Dark, Because The Night and, of course, Born To Run.
Music critic Jon Landau famously reviewed a concert back in 1974 saying: “I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen. And on a night when I needed to feel young, he made me feel like I was hearing music for the very first time.”
It was the start of a lifelong friendship which eventually led to Jon becoming Bruce’s manager and Bruce quipping: “I’ve seen the future of rock and roll management and its future is Jon Landau”.
The Boss is now a father-of-three, but still sells out stadiums worldwide with his music and brought out Western Stars, his first album in five years, in June.
Warner Bros is planning to release a musical documentary of the same name this autumn and it will mark Springsteen’s directorial debut.
The film, co-directed with Bruce’s long-time collaborator Thom Zimny, weaves archival footage along with live performances of the album’s 13 songs as well as narration from the rock star.
Toby Emmerich, of Warner Bros Pictures Group, said: “Bruce lives in the super rarified air of artists who have blazed new and important trails deep into their careers. With Western Stars, Bruce is pivoting yet again, taking us with him on an emotional and introspective cinematic journey, looking back and looking ahead.”
Bruce also allowed his songs to be used in recent movie Blinded By The Light about an Asian teenager in 1980s Britain finding his way with the help of Springsteen’s music and lyrics.
“You can’t be afraid of getting old,” Bruce once pointed out. “Old is good, if you’re gathering in life.”