Credit: Danny ClinchSeventy years ago today, Bruce Springsteen was born in the U.S.A. — Long Branch, New Jersey, to be specific. For nearly 50 of those years, the singer/songwriter known as The Boss has been releasing music that’s touched the hearts and souls of rock fans by celebrating blue-collar workers, underdogs, dreamers and hopeless romantics.
In a segment from the 2018 special based on his hugely popular stage production Springsteen on Broadway, Bruce explained what he hoped to accomplish with his songs, noting, “I wanted to be able to celebrate and honor [life’s] beauty, and I wanted to be able to be a critical voice when I thought that that’s what the times called for. I wanted to know my story, your story, wherever we’re going together as a people.”
As he begins his life as a septuagenarian, Springsteen shows little sign of slowing down. This past June, he released his 19th studio album, Western Stars, a collection of songs inspired by the orchestral Southern California pop records of the late 1960s and early ’70s.
In addition, Springsteen co-directed and stars in a new concert film called Western Stars that features him performing the album’s songs in front of an intimate audience and captures him reflecting on his life and the themes covered on the record. The movie will be screened in select North America theaters on October 19 and 23 before opening wide on October 25.
On November 5, Springsteen will perform at the eighth annual edition of the Stand Up for Heroes benefit show, held November 4 at The Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Meanwhile, in May, Bruce revealed that he’s written an album’s worth of new songs that he hopes to record with his longtime backing group, The E Street Band.
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