1) Bruce Springsteen has legions of fans across the world. More than 120 million of his albums have been sold worldwide, out of which 65 million copies just sold in the US. He has a net worth of 200 million dollars according to celebritynetworth.com.
2) Springsteen realized that music was his true calling while watching the legendary Elvis Presley performance on the ‘Ed Sullivan show’. In 1976, after a Memphis concert, Bruce also tried to meet Elvis by jumping over the wall and running for Elvis’ front door before being stopped by security.
3) Realizing her son’s interest in music, his mother got an $18 guitar for the 13-year-old Springsteen. His family’s financial situation was so tight that later when she bought a $60 Kent Guitar for her son, she had to take a loan to do so. Springsteen remembers those times in his song ‘The Wish’.
4) The first song Bruce Springsteen learnt to play on his guitar was ‘Twist and Shout’ by the Beatles.
5) Bruce Springsteen had a difficult time at school. He had adjustment problems at St. Rose, which continued when he shifted to Freehold Regional High School. He completed high school, however, he was so unenthusiastic about the fact that he failed to attend his graduation ceremony. While he was attending Ocean County College, it is said that some fellow students made an application to the Administration asking them to expel poor Bruce.
6) In his adolescent years, when the Springsteens were living in New Jersey, their house was near a Nestle Factory. Bruce now reminisces that in those days, when the wind was just right, he could smell the chocolate all day long.
7) Did you know that while attending St. Rose of Lima Catholic School, Bruce Springsteen had a rebellious attitude towards the strict disciplinary methods of his nun teachers? One of these nuns once jammed him into a trash bin under her desk. It was only much later that Bruce started proclaiming his Catholic faith vocally.
8) Springsteen was 18 when called for induction, but being a rebellious soul, Bruce decided not to serve as a soldier in Vietnam. A motorcycle accident when he was 17 helped him fail the physical examination; this together with his ‘crazy’ attitude at induction earned him a 4F. A failure he and his fans must be very thankful for.
9) Bruce Springsteen is known to his fans as ‘The Boss’, but he is not particularly fond of this nickname. The name comes from the time when Springsteen and his band used to play for clubs in the 60s and resulted from him taking on the duty of collecting their nightly earnings and distributing them among the members. Before that time, he was called ‘Doctor’.
10) He met his second wife Patti Scialfa 5 years before meeting and marrying his first wife Julliane Phillips. Almost four years later, they were divorced and Bruce married Patti; he suffered a lot of bad press who claimed he had been too hasty in marrying Patti Scialfa.
11) Bruce Springsteen is a man of myriad talents. He is not only the lead vocalist for ‘The E Street Band’, but also plays the guitar, piano and harmonica.
12) Bruce Springsteen can truly be called a living legend. He has won 20 Grammy Awards, 2 Golden Globes, an Academy Award, an Emmy Award and a Polar Music Award for his music. Most recently, he has been called the MusiCares Person of the Year on 8th February 2013.
13) Bruce Springsteen is not just a musician but also a cultural phenomenon. He made it on Time Magazine’s ‘100 Most Influential People’ list in May 2008 and was Number 6th on 2009’s Forbes Annual list of the World’s Most Powerful Celebrities. Barrack Obama once joked that he contested the Elections for President because he could not be Bruce Springsteen.
14) Can you imagine someone not recognizing Bruce Springsteen? But apparently, he was not always this famous because in the 70’s and 80’s people used to confuse him with Bob Seger. Both of them had raspy vocals, wrote about everyday folk and employed saxophones as part of their music, thus the confusion.
15) Bruce Springsteen performed as lead vocalist for ‘The Castiles’ and ‘The Child’ also known as ‘The Steelmill’ before making a band with New Jersey based members called ‘Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J’. Later on, this band was renamed ‘The E Street Band’ with which he now performs.
16) Bruce Springsteen’s ‘The E Street Band’ released two albums with little commercial accomplishment in 1973. It was with their third album, Born to run, released in 1975, after about 14 months of recording that the band gained both critical and commercial success. After a decade of difficulties, Springsteen came back to the forefront in 1984 with his album ‘Born in the USA’ which had seven top ten singles and became one of the best-selling albums of all time.
17) While recording ‘Jungleland’ the closing act of ‘Born to Run’, it took 16 hours to properly set up and record Clarence Clemons solo act. When Bruce told him how long it had been, Clarence was surprised. He had believed that only about 5 hours had gone by.
18) On the day they were to meet up with the Hubble Space Telescope, the crew of the Spaceship ‘Discovery’ were woken up to the sound of Bruce Springsteen’s song ‘Rendezvous’.
19) According to one of his friends, Frank Stefanko, Bruce is a great photographer and enjoys taking photographs of strange looking billboards and comic Diner signs in the New Jersey.
20) A fan met Bruce Springsteen in a cinema at a screening of Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories. The fan asked Bruce to prove that he does not disregard his fans by coming to meet his mom and have dinner. Bruce accepted the invitation and is said to still visit this particular fan’s mother.
Comments are closed.