The Childhood
The First Bands
School
The Early Years
The 70s
The 80s
The 90s
Today

The Childhood:
Bruce Springsteen was born on September 23, 1949, at Monmouth Memorial Hospital in Long Branch (New Jersey/ USA) to Adele and Douglas "Dutch" Springsteen. The hospital was aprox. 8 miles from Freehold. Freehold is aprox. 11 miles from Asbury Park.
Till Bruce was 8 or 9 years old the family lived at 87 Randolph Street next to the St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church. In the house also lived his grandparents (on his father's side) Fred and Alice (they also had a daughter, but she died after being hit by a car when she was a young child).
Then the family moved to 39 ½ Institute Street. Besides the house was a sycamore tree. On the "Born in the USA" lyric sheet Bruce leans at that tree!
Some years later the family moved to 68 South Street.
In 1966 Bruce's parents moved to northern California because his father got a new job as a bus driver in San Mateo. Bruce stayed in New Jersey, of course. There he lived with some friends in cheap and seedy apartments in Asbury Park and Long Branch. By the way: During that time Bruce didn't have a record player (till the age of 24)!

Bruce's father Douglas Springsteen (the name is Dutch, but his family is mostly Irish) changed his jobs very often because he didn't earn enough money (not more than $10,000 a year) for the family with three children (Bruce had two younger sisters - Virginia (born in 1950) and Pamela (born in 1962)). He tried to be a bus driver, factory worker, gardener, warder and so on.
Bruce's mother Adele, whose maiden name is "Zirilli" (so this is the Italian side of the family) worked in the same office as a secretary since she left high school at the age of eighteen, and through Bruce's childhood. "She was just like Superwoman, she did everything, everywhere, all the time.", Bruce recalled later.
Bruce's parents were very religious, but Bruce wasn't because his parents wanted him to be religious. So he began to hate religion. Once, when he was asked by a nun to draw a pic of Jesus, Bruce sketched a picture of Christ crucified on a guitar...
  

On September 9, 1958, (this is the correct date (not 1956 as many sources say) because Bruce mentioned it himself in an interview in October 2002 and during a lot of concerts!) he saw the "Ed Sullivan Show" where "King" Elvis Presley appeared and from this time Bruce Springsteen knew: He wanted to become a rockstar! "When I was nine I couldn't imagine anyone not wanting to be Elvis Presley."
"See, I was nine years old when I saw Elvis in 'Ed Sullivan,' and had to get a guitar the next day!" So Bruce begged his mother to buy him a guitar and a few days later he got one. It cost $60. "But my hand was too small to get it into it. Besides, guitar lessons at the time were like a coma, buzzing on the B-string. I knew that wasn't the way Elvis did it." Soon he wasn't interested in playing the guitar anymore.
At the age of thirteen Bruce wanted to play the guitar again after he has seen "The Beatles" at the "Ed Sullivan Show". He saved some money for an electric guitar and bought one for $18 in a pawnshop in New York. His cousin Frankie would teach him the first chords and this time Bruce could play the way he wanted. He was really fascinated and would never leave this guitar again. "I used to love to just open the case because of the way it smelled. Oh man, in the middle of the house, and furniture polish and cabbage and all, it smelled like somethin' new, and it was a mysterious thing."
"Rock and roll came to my house where there seemed to be no way out. It seemed like a dead-end street, nothing I liked to do, nothing I wanted to do, except roll over and go to sleep or something. And it came into my house - snuck in, ya know, and opened up a whole world of possibilities. Rock and roll. The Beatles opened doors. Ideally, if any stuff I do could ever so that for somebody, that's the best (...). Rock and roll motivates. It's the big, gigantic motivator, at least it was for me", Bruce told "Creem" in 1978.

The First Bands:
In 1964 Bruce got in his first band. That weren't "The Castiles" as often supposed. The Band was called "The Rogues". It was formed during the summer holidays between Bruce's freshmen and sophomore year at high school. They were a 4-piece instrumental group (2 guitars, bass and drums). The (sur)names of the bandmembers aren't documented and most people don't know anything about this band because it wasn't that important for Springsteen's career.
Whatever, vocals were attempt by the drummer Bart, as the rest of the boys could not as yet play and sing at the same time. They played less than a dozen gigs, mostly unpaid at some benefit fundraisers. No photos or tapes are known to be in circulation (it's believed that Bruce's mother has some photos).
There is circumstantial evidence that the members of The Rouges were three or four years older than Bruce was. Springsteen's role in the band appears to have been more that of a young apprentice, as opposed to an official member.
Bruce was aprox. six months in this band until he joined "The Castiles". The Rogues went on for several years but weren't very successful.
Bruce's only known comments about this band come from depositions in Springsteen vs. Appel (1977). Bruce recalls The Elks Club (then located on Main Street in Freehold) gig as the very first time he received money to perform music. The performance took place "about a month after school started", which would be around October.

In 1965 Bruce got into a band called "The Castiles" (named after a soapbrand/ Bruce (guitar)), Bart Haynes (drums), Frank Marziotti (bass), Paul Popkin (vocals and guitar), George Theiss (vocals and guitar)) because they were searching a new leadguitarist.
It was a rockband with Beatles and Rolling Stones influences. Mostly the band played songs of the US-Top-40.
The band even had a manager called Gordon "Tex" Vinyard (32 years old at that time). Tex lived on Center Street in Freehold. He and his wife Marion became like second parents for the boys. Bruce: "They took me under their wing when I was 15. They opened up their home to a bunch of Rock 'n' Roll misfits and let us make a lot of noise and practice all night long". It's said that the Vinyards are the "Mom and Pop of the rock on the Jersey Shore". In May 2002 they even got honored with a park in Freehold, which is named "Vinyard Park".
One evening  Bruce went to the Vinyards house and knocked on the door and he shily told Tex that he knew some chords and a little lead guitar, but hastened to add that he was "quick to learn". Tex liked Bruce (they both loved Elvis) but told him that he should come back after he had learned five songs. Bruce went back home, came back the other day and blew them away with nearly a dozen songs. "Well, this damn kid sat down and knocked out five songs that would blow your ears. Five. Leads. No amplifier but five leads. He said, 'Oh, by the way, I learned a couple more.' (...) He knocked out a couple more and I'm sitting there with my ears going what?! what?! what?! I couldn't believe it!", Tex recalled. Bruce tought himself those songs, just listening on the radio. He repeated it a few days later for the rest of the band, too shy even to notice how the drummer had dropped his sticks in amazement when Bruce began to play. And so Bruce was in the band!
The Castiles won some contests of the most talented band in the area. Bruce's very first gig with this band was at "Woodhaven Swim Club", located on East Freehold Road in Woodhaven in August 1965. The gig went quite well. They closed the show with a favorite of Tex's, Glenn Miller's "In the Mood", which was rearranged by Bruce.
On May 22, 1966, the band recorded two songs ("Baby I" and "That's What You Get") in Bricktown/ New Jersey - the only ones which were ever recorded. But the material never released (just on bootlegs and years later). Just each member of The Castiles got a vinylrecord of it.
Barton Edward Haynes (*07/ 19/ 1948; †10/ 22/ 1967), the first drummer of the Castiles, had to leave the Castiles in 1966 because he joined the army in 1967 and was send the same year (05/ 13/ 1967) to Vietnam. He was killed there five months later in action in Quang Tri (South Vietnam) by a rocket or mortar.
George Theiss still sings and plays the guitar in the "George Theiss Band" (George Theiss (vocals and guitar); Tony Amato (keyboards); Eliott Bauer (drums); Tommy La Bella (saxophone); John Lurachi (bass); Billy Walton (guitar)), which was founded in 1979; and still has contacts with Bruce Springsteen.

School:
Springsteen went to St. Rose of Lima grammar school. The School was located at the corner of South Street and Lincoln Street.
From 1963-67 he went to Freehold Regional High School. This High School was located at Broadway and Robertville Road.
Bruce wasn't too good at school. "I hated school. I had the big hate. I remember one time, I was in eighth grade and I wised off and they sent me down to the first class and made me sit in these little desks, you know, little chairs. And the sister, she said, 'Show this young man what we do to people who smile in this classroom' - I was probably laughing at being sent down there. And this kid, this six-year-old who has no doubt been taught to do this, he comes over to me - him standing up and me sitting in this little desk are about eye-to-eye - and he slams me in the face. I can still feel the sting. I was in shock."
The nuns always tried to discriminate against him. Bruce almost didn't graduate "because the kids in my class wouldn't let me. I was playing in bands and my hair was real long and the sister got up in front of everybody and said 'Class, don't you have any pride in yourselves? Are you going to allow this boy to embarrass you and go to graduation looking like that?' And they weren't gonna let me graduate unless I cut my hair." ...
"I didn't even make it to class clown, I had nowhere near that amount of notoriety. I didn't have, like, the flair to be the complete jerk. It was like I didn't exist; it was the wall, then me." - "I lived half of my first thirteen years in a  trance or something. People thought I was weird because I always went around with this look on my face. I was thinking about things, but I was always on the outside, looking in."
It seemed Bruce could do no right. "In the third grade a nun stuffed me into a garbage can she kept under her desk because she told me that's where I belonged."
At Freehold Regional High School he even skived his class of '67 dance (06/ 09/ 1967)! On graduation day, Bruce left the house and didn't come back. He went to New York City to stay with a friend. His parents reached him there and his mother called and said there was a graduation party at home. Bruce appeared at the front door with a girl. "My father pulls me inside by the collar with one hand, leaves her outside - I don't see her again for a while - drags me up to my room, and takes out all the light bulbs so I've got to sit there in the dark by myself."

In 1968 Bruce decided to visit Ocean County College on Hooper Avenue in Toms River. His father was very happy about it because he wanted Bruce to get a "real" profession.
But the scenes fairly repeat itself in college. Near the end of his first term Bruce was called  into the guidance conselor's office. The man wanted to know what was wrong, "Things are great, I feel fine," Bruce answered. "Then why do you look like that? There are sone students who have... complained about you", Bruce was asked (the counselor was pointing to Bruce's standard attire: plain white undershirt, tight jeans, sneakers and leather jacket) and he answered "Well, that's their problem, ya know?"
Anyway, at the college, Bruce and some friends founded the band "Earth" (Bruce (vocals and guitar), Michael Burke (drums), John Graham (bass)). But this band didn't exist too long - its life was so short like Bruce's time at the college (he left in December 1969).

The Early Years:
After that, Bruce played together with some local bands. Later he founded the band "Child" where also Vini "Mad Dog" Lopez (drums) and Danny Federici (organ) were in, who later played also for the "E Street Band". Some months later they renamed in "Steel Mill" because in the area (on Long Island) was already a band named "Child".
Steel Mill had manager, too. His name was Carl "Tinker" West and he worked as a shaper in "Challangers Surfboard Factory". Carl booked all the gigs and did most of the commercial stuff.
The band played 'harder' songs than The Castiles. They played a kind of music that was a mix of R&B and Heavy Metal. They also played songs which were written by Bruce. Some of their songs had critic content. For example "Resurrection": it has some critic parts about the catholic church in it ("Take me to church on Friday, and we confess our sins, special low price, three hail Mary's and my soul is clean again"). Once Bruce had the idea to write two or three long songs instead of some more short songs that could fill a gig. Because of this some of Steel Mill's songs have 10 or even 20 minutes (or longer) playing time (like "Garden State Parkway Blues" - it tells a whole day in a guys life).
One of the most legendary gigs of the band was at the "Clearwater Swim Club" (09/ 11/ 1970). The show was nearly over but then it was stopped by the police. Some people from the audience were arrested for the reason of drug using.
The band also played some gigs in California where they got known with Bill Graham, who was a producer. The band had a demo-session with him at "Fillmore West Records" (some songs recorded there can be found on some bootlegs). Graham even offered them a $1,000 recording contract, which the band declined.
The band broke up in April 1971.

Some weeks later Bruce founded "Dr. Zoom & the Sonic Boom" (Bruce (vocals and guitar), Kevin Connair (MC), Danny Federici (organ), Danny Gallagher, (Monopoly), Vini Lopez (drums), David Sancious (keyboards), Southside Johnny (harmonica), Garry Tallent (bass), The Zoomettes (vocals), Bobby Williams (drums), Steve Van Zandt (vocals and guitar). The band just played a few gigs (it's said three) till they broke up in July 1971.

Again, some weeks later Bruce founded the "Bruce Springsteen Band" (Bruce (vocals and guitar), Harvey Cherlin (trumpet), Francine Daniels (vocals), Barbara Dinkins (vocals), Danny Federici (organ), Bobby Feigenbaum (saxophone), Delores Holmes (vocals), Vini Lopez (drums), David Sancious (keyboards), Garry Tallent (bass), Steve Van Zandt (vocals and guitar)). The band played a lot of gigs in some local clubs and universities. Tinker West was manager of this band, too. The band broke up in April 1972.

The 70s:
The Bruce Springsteen Band was the predecessor of the "E Street Band", which was founded in the same year when the BS-Band broke up. The band was named after a street in Belmar/ NJ, where David Sancious's mother lived. In the E Street Band were at that time Clarence Clemons (saxophone), Danny Federici (organ), Vini Lopez (drums), David Sancious (keyboards) and Garry Tallent (bass). The Band had its first appearance on November 12, 1972.

On May 3, 1972, Springsteen had an audition at Columbia Records A&R at John Hammond's office in New York City, after he had been discovered by Mike Appel (at that day Appel didn't come with him because Hammond didn't like him ("The guy was snotty to me.")). Bruce played a short set for Hammond in his office, and he was so impressed that he organized a real audition that same night at the Gaslight Club in New York for other Columbia hotshots. "I was supposed to see him for ten minutes and I talked to him for two hours. During this time, I called  up the Gaslight in the Village because I never sign anyone unless I see them perform. Bruce overwhelmed that small audience. There were a couple of good guitar players there and they were asking 'Where did you come up with this guy?' I said 'Oh, he just wandered into my office this morning.'"
Bruce signed with the label and Appel on June 9! It's said that Bruce Springsteen signed the contract on the hood of his car in the unlighted parking lot of a bar.
But it would have been better if Bruce had read the contract more carefully: Mike Appel's Laurel Canyon company got 10% while Bruce got 3,5% (aprox. 10 ¢) record royalty. Not to mention the 50% commission charges and the $500,000 advance Laurel Canyon obtained from CBS against future royalties.

Bruce Springsteen's first record "Greetings From Asbury Park" was released in January 1973. In September followed "The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle", which was recorded during summer and fall '73. It was released with the absolute minimum of fanfare and it got (like "Greetings...") rare airplay. So these both records didn't sell very well.
Anyway, at this time Bruce became known as the "New Bob Dylan". "I meet just one time a real talent in 10 years, and Bruce wasn't just the best, he was even better than Bob Dylan...", Mike Appel said in 1972.

Bruce had his breakthrough in 1975 with the "Born to Run" album, which reached #3 in the US-Billboard-Charts. Its recordings consumed a full year. Bruce would later describe the period of cutting the album as one of the worst in his life ever. "It was like a monster let loose. It wanted everything. It just ate up everybody's life."
Anyway, before the album was released Bruce said that this record should became the best rock-album ever. And it got one of the best. The "Rolling Stone" magazine gave it 5 stars, which they don't do too often.
With the record Springsteen got more famous. He simultaneously made the covers of the "Time" and "Newsweek" magazines on October 27, 1975.

Appel wanted the fourth album to be a live record. Some songs were recorded at the end of 1975. But his only product of '75 live recordings was a tape of the holiday chestnut "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town", which later was released on the B-side of the "My Hometown" single in 1985.

On April 29, 1976, Springsteen had a show in Memphis (Tennessee/ USA). After the show he and Steve Van Zandt took a cab to look for something to eat. The driver asked them if they were celebs and so he said he'd take them out to the highway, by Elvis's house, Graceland. Bruce climbed over the gate and attempted to meet Elvis, but a guard showed him the gate because he thought Bruce was just another crazy fan (which he surely was). Read the famous story here.

Between July 1976 and May 1977, Bruce was engaged in a legal battle with manager Mike Appel, during which time an injunction prohibited Bruce Springsteen from recording with "Born to Run" coproducer and soon-to-be manager Jon Landau.
A settlement was reached in his lawsuits on May 28, 1977, at 3:00 a.m. Appel got a large financial settlement and a share of the profits of the first three albums and Bruce saw all contracts signed with Appel rescined and was free to go into the studio with whomever he liked.
Jon Landau was a music critic for Boston's "Real Paper" and recordings editor for "Rolling Stone" magazine. He had written a fabulous review of Bruce Springsteen in concert at the Havard Square Theatre in Cambridge (05/ 09/ 1974) that included the line "I saw rock-and-roll's future and its name is Bruce Springsteen."

Finally Springsteen began working on "Darkness on the Edge of Town", which was released in June 1978. The recording of the album needed one year and some thirty songs before Bruce had the album down to his satisfaction. "I wanted to learn, so I wanted to take my time," he recalls. Some people thought that Bruce and the E Street Band were just too lazy to do the album faster. For most of the year Bruce with and without the E Streeters, was in the studio fifteen hours a day, five days a week!
"This album is less romantic. It's got more, a little more isolation. It's sort of like I said, 'Well, I'm twenty-eight years old and the people in the album are around my age.' I perceive them to be that old and they don't know what to do. They're trying to figure out what to do. There's less of a sense of a free ride in 'Darkness' than in 'Born to Run'. There's more a sense of: if you wanna ride, you're gonna pay, and you better keep riding. There's just a little more world awareness."

The following tour was the first one in which Bruce played almost exclusively in large halls and arenas, although he always said, that he never would like to play there: "All I know is that those big coliseums ain't where it's supposed to be. There's always something else going on all over the room. You go to the back row, you can't see the stage, talk about what's on it. You see a blot of light. You better bring your binocs ... especially our band - it would be impossible to reach out there the way we try to do. Forget it!". But he realized that there were too many fans who wanted to see him live.
On New Year's Eve 1978, Bruce had a show in Cleveland (Ohio/ USA). During the show a "fan" (if you can call that person like this) threw a firecracker onstage, which hit Bruce at his head. "I almost lost my eye, thanks to some asshole", Bruce recalls.

The recordings for his next records - The River - delayed because in April 1979 Bruce had an accident with his motorbike. He was driving a three-wheeled off-the-road motorbike around the grounds of his Jersey home when he crashed into a tree and injured some of his leg muscles, forcing him to stay in bed for three weeks. The accident created a rumor that he even has been killed!
On September 22 and 23, Bruce and the band joined a host of other artists, including Jackson Browne and Tom Petty, for two anti-nuclear benefit shows at the Madison Square Garden in New York, known as the "No Nukes (MUSE (Musicians United for Save Energy) Concerts for a Non-Nuclear Future)" shows. Some of the songs from Bruce's performances are later used for the No Nukes album and movie. Bruce did a 90 minute set each night and debuted "The River".
On the second night, which was his 30 birthday, Bruce threw a cake into the audience right  into his ex-girlfriend's, photographer Lynn Goldsmith, face. Later on he draged her on stage for a public humiliation! Later Bruce said he did this because Goldsmith took photos of the show although it was forbidden.

The 80s:
On October 17, 1980, "The River" finally was released. More than 60 songs were recorded. In the end it's a double LP, which became Bruce's first number one album on the Billboard Charts. Not very many double LPs became #1 in the charts at that time!

The "Nebraska" record, which was released in 1982, had something special: Bruce recorded some songs on a normal cassette with a four-track Tascam tape recorder at his home in Holmdel/ NJ. First it should be a demo-tape for the new album. But Bruce thought after a session with the band that the songs weren't suitable for a band. So he decided to put the songs of the cassette on a record. The album was named after a song based on the Charlie Starkweather killing.
In 1982 Bruce shot his first real music video, for "Atlantic City". In it you can't see Bruce. It's a black-and-white video and it shows streets and buildings of Atlantic City in the point of view of a driving car.

In 1984 Bruce's most successful record ever was released - "Born in the USA". It launched seven Top-10-Singles ("Dancing in the Dark" (#2), "Cover Me" (#7), "Born in the U.S.A." (#9), "I'm on Fire" (#6), "Glory Days" (#5), "I'm Goin' Down" (#9) and "My Hometown" (#6)).
The album became #1 on the Billboard Charts and stayed incredible 85 weeks in the Top-10 in total!
For "Dancing in the Dark" Bruce got a "Grammy" in the categorie "Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male". By the way: the girl in the video is Courteney Cox (actress  - "Friends").

Even Ronald Reagan wanted to profit of Springsteen's popularity for his election campaign and praised Bruce because Reagan didn't understand the message of the song "Born in the U.S.A.", like many other Americans, too. Reagan said that Bruce is living the "American Dream": "America's future rests in a thousand dreams inside your hearts. It rests in the message of hope in songs of a young man, so many young Americans admire: New Jersey's own Bruce Springsteen. And helping you make those dreams come true is what this job of mine is all about." During one of his next concerts Bruce said that the president doesn't know his record "Nebraska"...

In September 1985, Bruce got two awards at the "MTV Video Music Awards" for "Best Male Video" (for "I'm on Fire") and "Best Stage Performance in a Video" (for "Dancing in the Dark").

On May 13, 1985, Bruce married Julianne Phillips - an actress and model - in her hometown Lake Oswego (Oregon/ USA). But on August 20, 1988, Julianne filed a petition for divorce, after a paparazzi got a shot of Springsteen in his underpants only on a balcony in Rome, and sharing an intimate moment with Patti Scialfa during the "Tunnel of Love" tour. These photos were released in a tabloid. On March 1, 1989 the divorce is official.
It's been said that Patti had a longtime crush on Bruce when she joined the band as a backupsinger in 1984. Bruce's affair to Patti is said to have broken up Bruce's marriage with Julianne. Many people believe that not just that photo (and Patti) were the only reason for the divorce. There wasn't the right "chemistry" between Bruce and Phillips.

In 1987 the album "Tunnel of Love" was released. For that record he won a Grammy again (in the categorie "Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female, Male").

In 1989 Bruce disbanded the E Street Band and took a break for three years until he released the next record.

The 90s:
In April 1990 Bruce and Patti moved to a Beverly Hills mansion causing quite a stir among the fans. It's said the mansion cost $14 Mio.! In the next few years they will split their time between New Jersey and Los Angeles.
On July 25, 1990, Patti Scialfa and Bruce Springsteen got parents of their first son 'Evan James'.
11 months later (06/ 08/ 1991) Bruce and Patti got married in Los Angeles (California/ USA).
In the same year on December 30, 1991, Bruce and Patti became parents again, of their daughter 'Jessica Rae'. The birth is announced by Little Steven to millions of TV viewers during his New Year's Eve performance on Time Square (New York City).

In 1992 Bruce went on with his solo-records "Human Touch" and "Lucky Town". The records released on the same day, which muddled some fans.
On September 22, Bruce recorded a show for MTV. The show was initially going to be part of MTV's "Unplugged" series, but Bruce instead plugs in and does his regular show with a new band. On November 18, the show is broadcasted the first time.

On January 5, 1994, the Springsteens got parents again. 'Sam Ryan' was born.
In the same year Bruce wrote the song "Streets of Philadelphia" for the movie "Philadelphia". The movie deals with a gay lawyer dying because of AIDS. The song won four Grammys in the categories "Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or for Television", "Song of the Year", "Best Male Rock Vocal Performance" and "Best Rock Song"; one Golden Globe in the categorie "Best Song in a Motion Picture"; one Oscar in the categorie "Best Song in a Motion Picture"; one MTV Music Award in the categorie "Best Song from a Movie"; one MTV Video Music Award in the categorie "Best Video from a Film".

In early 1995 Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band got back together to record several songs for the "Greatest Hits" album.

In November 1995 Bruce released his next solo album called "The Ghost of Tom Joad", with which Bruce returned to his folk roots. The LP was not a big commercial success but allowed Bruce to play music he admired and give folk music a boost. It's not a great album in the musical way but it has some great lyrics!

In February 1997, Bruce won a Grammy in the categorie "Best Contemporary Folk Album ("The Ghost of Tom Joad") and was nominated for "Best Male Rock Vocal Performance" ("Dead Man Walkin'") and "Best Music Video, Long Form" ("Blood Brothers").
On May 5, Bruce received the Polar Music Prize, a Swedish award which is considered among the finest music awards in the world on par with the Nobel Prize. The Swedish King handed it over, and in the evening Bruce performed two songs at the official dinner.
On December 7, Bruce performed with US-President Bill Clinton in attendance "The Times They Are A-Changin'" at the Kennedy Center Honors in tribute to Bob Dylan.

On April 26, 1998, Bruce's father Douglas died because of cancer at the age of 73 in Belmont (California/ USA).
Douglas was a world war ll veteran. He grew up in the house in Randolph Street, where Bruce lived in first.
Bruce: "My father and I had a very loving relationship. With family all around, he celebrated his 73rd birthday, and my parents recently marked 50 years together. They had a warm and caring marriage. I feel lucky to have been so close to my dad as I became a man and a father myself. My mother, my sisters and I love him and will miss him very much."

Later that year, Bruce released a 4-CD set called "Tracks". The set featured 66 tracks and b-sides, with 56 unreleased songs spanning Springsteen's 25 year recording career. "This collection contains everything from the first notes I sang in the Columbia recording studio, my early and later work with the E Street Band, through to my music in the 90s... I'm glad to finally be able to share this music; here are some of the ones that got away."

On March 15, 1999, Bruce became a member of the "Hall of Fame". For this you've to be 25 years (!) in the musicbusiness (the release of the first album counts). Bono Vox (of the band U2) was his presenter. Read what's been said here.

Today:
In 2000 Bruce introduced a new song called "American Skin (41 Shots)". It focuses on the killing of Amadou Diallo (by 41 shots), an unarmed 22-year-old black man, by New York's police (who were acquitted in 2000) on February 4, 1999. New York's police officers were hoping other policemen would boycott Bruce's concert appearance but Bruce encountered more support than opposition at the concert when he sang his controversial new song.
In February, Bruce was nominated for two Grammys in the categories "Best Rock Song" and "Best Male Rock Vocal Performance" (for "The Promise").

On July 30, 2002, "The Rising" was released - the first studio album with the E Street Band since "Born in the USA"! In August Bruce Springsteen started a long world-tour again, which last until October 2003.

On February 23, 2003, Bruce got three Grammys again. This time in the categories "Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male", "Best Rockalbum" and "Best Rocksong" and he was nominated in the categories "Album of the Year" and "Song of the Year".
On November 11, a 3-CDs set called "The Essential" was released. It contains rare outtakes and is something like a "Greatest Hits" album #2. One week later (November 18) a double-DVD of the complete concert in Barcelona (Spain/ Palao San Jordi) on October 16, 2002, was released.

In February 2004 Bruce won a Grammy together with Warren Zevon, who had died on September 7, 2003, for their duett on "Disorder in the House" on Warren's album "The Wind".
In October 2004 Bruce (with REM) took part at the "Vote for Change" tour against George W. Bush.

In February 2005 Bruce won a Grammy award for the song "Code of Silence", which was released on "The Essential" in 2003. On April 26, 2005 Springsteen's latest album named "Devils & Dust" will be released, which will be in the Dual Disc format, which combines both CD and DVD content on the same disc.