American singer-songwriter. The son of a secretary and a bus driver, he began singing and writing while at school and, by the late 1960s, was playing New Jersey dates with a band and solo gigs in the Greenwich Village clubs that had once featured such performers as Bob Dylan. When John Hammond signed Springsteen to Columbia Records in 1972 the company hoped to launch him as an acoustic artist, modeled on the young Dylan. However, against Columbia’s wishes, Springsteen recorded Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. (1973) and The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle (1973) with his backing group which became known as The E Street Band. The albums gained critical plaudits but sold poorly at first. However, amid growing popularity and media attention based on his live performances, Columbia relaunched the two discs and Born to Run.
Grove Music Online