Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen grew up in an average middle class family, his mother Adele was a secretary and his father Douglas was a bus driver. 

He started playing the guitar at high school and, at the age of 14, had formed his own band, The Castiles. Influenced by the music of Elvis Presley, Springsteen moved to New York City to try and break into the folk music scene, but failure forced him back home to New Jersey.

Despite a particularly unhappy relationship with his record company, Bruce Springsteen's debut album Greetings From Asbury Park was released in 1973. CBS had perceived him as a folkie, solo performer  - "the new Bob Dylan" - but the recordings contradicted this notion with a horn section and girl backing singers. A somewhat confused marketing campaign reflected this misunderstanding and initially the record sold a mere 25,000 copies. 

Springsteen's second album, The Wild, The Innocent And The E Street Shuffle, also suffered poor sales although it received excellent reviews from American music critics.

Despite a massive promotional push from CBS, Springsteen's career was still suffering due to the confusion over his supposed status as a folkie. The confusion was resolved in 1975 when Jon Landau took over as unofficial manager and co-producer of ongoing recording sessions. Landau scotched CBS's notion of promoting Bruce as a folk singer, and engaged Steve Van Zandt to reintroduce a hard edge to the music. Five months on, the result was Born To Run and Springsteen's re-birth as The Boss.

The album went almost immediately to Number 3 in the US and his previous albums charted also for the first time. Born To Run established Springsteen so firmly as a star that his career was able to survive litigation from record producer Mike Appel, with whom Springsteen had signed an agreement on the hood of a car in a dark parking lot. The agreement was sufficient though to prevent Springsteen from releasing another LP until 1978, which he did with Darkness on the Edge of Town.

Springsteen's seventh album, Born In The USA, a collection of all-American anthems, propelled him to mega-stardom. It started its seven week reign at Number 1 just as his tour began (with Nils Lofgren brought in to replace Steve Van Zandt who left to form his own band). Born in the USA was also the first CD pressed in the United State for commercial release.