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Bruce Springsteen music biography continued...

turned manager, Jon Landau, in 1974—and he went on to become just that. Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen was born September 23, 1949 in Freehold Borough, New Jersey. He learned to play the guitar when he was 13 and performed in several local bands. After getting a record contract with Columbia and earning early critical acclaim, Springsteen, backed by the E Street Band, broke into the national consciousness with the album Born to Run in 1975. Released as America suffered through oil embargos, record unemployment, and involvement in Vietnam, the album struck a chord with audiences world-wide and landed Springsteen on the cover of Time and Newsweek magazines. Such Bruce Springsteen songs as the title track, "Thunder Road" and Backstreets" offered a small slice of hope to a world weary of war, poverty, and social injustice. Arguably Springsteen's career highlight, Born To Run also remains one of the best-selling rock albums of all time.
Since Born to Run, Springsteen's recordings have tended to alternate between commercially accessible rock albums and dark folk-oriented works. Much of his iconic status stems from his three hours plus concerts in which he and the E Street Band present intense ballads, spirited anthems, and party rock and roll songs, amongst which Springsteen interjects long, wry or deeply emotional stories. His most famous albums, Born to Run and 1984's Born in the U.S.A., epitomize his talent for finding grandeur in the simple struggles of daily life. He has sold over 60 million albums in the U.S. alone and has collected fifteen Grammy Awards. Springsteen has long had the nickname "The Boss," which supposedly originated when a young Springsteen, playing club gigs with a band in the 1960s, took on the task of collecting the band's nightly pay and distributing it amongst his band mates. He most certainly has earned this moniker over the years. Indeed, as he has said, "I believe that the life of a rock n' roll band will last as long as you look down into the audience and can see yourself, and your audience looks up at you and can see themselves." For Springsteen that certainly continues to be the case.