Artist bio

Along with Michael Jackson and Madonna, Bruce Springsteen stands as one of the largest popular music icons of the 1980s. Yet unlike Jacko and the Virgin Queen, the Boss has managed to outgrow his teen idol image with his songwriting abilities and critical esteem 100 percent intact.

By the time he rose to international superstardom in the 1980s, Springsteen was already a well-established artist. After releasing two strong, but largely unnoticed albums, he released his first masterpiece, Born To Run in 1975. Featuring some of his most well-known rock anthems -- "Thunder Road," "Backsteets," and "Born To Run" to name a few -- the album officially began Springsteen's career-long examination of the American identity. And with "Wall Of Sound" production, inspired lyrics, and an epic musical vision, Born To Run secured Springsteen's reputation amongst rock lovers.

What makes Springsteen such a wonderful artist to appreciate is his almost obsessed attention to his craft. Each of the albums following Born To Run are worthy of close study. While 1984's Born In The USA marks the commercial apex of the singer/songwriter's career, his less commercially succesful albums best stand the test of time. On albums such as 1978's Darkness On The Edge Of Town, 1982's Nebraska, and 1987's Tunnel Of Love, Springsteen creates musical visions that are both deeply personal and amazingly universal.

As a songwriter, Springsteen continually returns to the same themes -- love, loss and moral redemption, to name a few -- and continually finds new insights and perspectives. Be it the sprawling rock epics of his early career, "Incident On 57th Street" (The Wild, The Innocent, & The E Street Shuffle), or the concise acoustic dirges of his later work, like "Dry Lightning" (The Ghost Of Tom Joad), his songs mine the hearts and souls of his characters and follow their everyday dilemnas with startling clarity.

To top it all off, Springsteen is arguably the best live performer in the history of rock, if such a claim could ever be definitively made. At the height of his physical abilities, he was able to put on four-hour stadium-sized shows, rocking 50,000 in legendary fashion. Now in his mid-50s, he performs a shorter show -- but one with increased musical and vocal precision.

Like the Rolling Stones and Dylan and all the other rock legends that came before him and informed his work, Springsteen will be celebrated for years and years to come. But unlike artists such as the Stones, we have every reason to believe Bruce will continue to make noteworthy music and grow as an artist. And without question, we will be there to listen.

Albums by this artist

We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (2006)

Devils & Dust / Prairie Wind (2005)

The Rising (2002)

Live In New York City (2001)

18 Tracks (1999)

Tracks (1999)

'Missing' (1996)

'Hungry Heart' (1995)

The Ghost Of Tom Joad (Recommended) (1995)

Human Touch (1992)

Lucky Town (1992)

Born In The U.S.A. (1984)

Born In The U.S.A. (1984)

The River (1980)

Darkness On The Edge Of Town (Recommended) (1978)

The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle (Recommended) (1973)

Concerts

July 15, 1999
Continental Airlines Arena, East Rutherford, N.J.

May 29, 1999
Parkbuhne Wulheide, Berlin

Bruce Springsteen

The Ghost Of Tom Joad

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» THOMAS FRENCH | STAFF WRITER

NATN Recommended Bruce Springsteen The Ghost Of Tom Joad Columbia, 1995 RiYL: Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Steve Earle

Ten years after the hype and mass adulation that surrounded him the mid-'80s, Bruce Springsteen stepped back out into the spotlight and delivered a quiet, haunting masterpiece. His most devastating work since Nebraska, The Ghost Of Tom Joad chronicles the lives of drifters, broken lovers, and lost souls trying to find their way back home in a country that has already forgotten them.

The album is one long testament to the transforming power of empathy. Working with a stripped-down band, Springsteen sheds his own skin and silently slips into the lives of his burned-out characters. Bruce was always a talented writer, but here he cuts it to the bone, carving out each story with the sparest detail and understated emotion.

"The New Timer" follows a migrant worker riding freight trains and wondering if his son back home still remembers his face. "Sinaloa Cowboys" tells of two brothers who leave Mexico and wind up working in a crystal meth lab in California. There is an explosion, and in the end one of the brother buries the other in a hole in the ground they have already dug to hide their profits.

In the title song, Springsteen takes us on an angry tour of modern-day America, seen through the eyes of those whom the economic boom has left behind. We walk railroad tracks with unemployed workers who have no place to go, meet families forced to live out of their cars, crouch in front of a campfire with anonymous men and women, all hoping for something they cannot name: "He pulls a prayer book out of his sleeping bag / Preacher lights up a butt and takes a drag / Waitin' for when the last shall be first and the first shall be last / In a cardboard box 'neath the underpass."

Springsteen's 11th album is beautiful, unforgettable, and absolutely fearless in its willingness to go searching in places most songwriters would rather not even think about. Years after its release, The Ghost Of Tom Joad only grows in its ability to astonish.

THOMAS FRENCH | Thomas French is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the St. Petersburg Times.