The E Street Band

In Order (Left to Right): Danny Federici, Max Weinberg, Nils Lofgren, Roy Bittan, Clarence Clemons, Bruce Springsteen, Patti Scailfa, Steve Van Zandt, and Garry Tallent.

"From the very first beat it was like magic. It just fell together."
- Max Weinberg

How It Began

The E Street Band was founded in October 1972, but it wasn't formally named until September 1974. Springsteen has put together other backing bands during his career, but the E Street Band has been together more or less continuously for the past four decades.

The original lineup included Gary Tallent (bass) Clarence Clemons (saxophone) Danny Federici (keyboards, accordion) Vini "Mad Dog" Lopez (drums) and David Sancious (keyboards). The band took its name from the street in Belmar, New Jersey, where Sancious' mother lived. She allowed the band to rehearse in her home.

The band's first national tour began in October 1972. Sancious, even though he played on Greetings from Asbury Park, wich was the first album recorded by Bruce Springsteen, missed that first tour. It wasn't until June 1973 that he began appearing regularly on stage with the band.

In February 1974, Lopez was asked to resign, and was briefly replaced by Ernest "Boom" Carter. A few months later, in August 1974, Sancious and Carter left to form their own jazz fusion band called Tone. They were replaced in September 1974 by Roy Bittan (keyboards) and Max Weinberg (drums). Violinist Suki Lahav was briefly a member of the band before leaving in March 1975 to emigrate to Israel (where she would later find success as a songwriter and novelist). Steven Van Zandt (guitar, vocals) who'd long been associated with Springsteen and had played in previous bands with him, officially joined the band in July 1975.

This lineup remained stable until the early 1980s when Van Zandt left to pursue his own career, a move that was announced in 1984. He would later rejoin the band in 1995. In June 1984 Nils Lofgren (guitar, vocals) was added to replace Van Zandt; Springsteen's future wife, Patti Scialfa (vocals, later guitar) was also added to the lineup.

By 2002, the band also included Soozie Tyrell (violin, vocals). Tyrell had earlier worked with Scialfa touring with Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes and sporadically with Springsteen dating back to the early 1990s. Whether Tyrell became as full-fledged a member as the others remains unclear. Some press releases refer to her as a "special guest", the cover notes of Live in Barcelona list her as a "with" member, the liner notes of We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions refer to her as "violinist with the E Street Band," and some press releases don't mention her at all. When asked about the lack of mention in a press release prior to the Magic Tour, Springsteen just said in response, "Soozie will be with us."

On occasions (e.g. their Super Bowl XLIII performance) the lineup has been augmented by a horn section, sometimes referred to as The Miami Horns. Its most prominent members include Richie "La Bamba" Rosenberg (trombone) and Mark Pender (trumpet).

Glory Days

The E Street Band established its reputation among studio musicians in the 1970s and the 1980s with its significant contribution to the Springsteen albums Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, The River, and Born in the U.S.A. However, unlike such backing bands as the Silver Bullet Band or the Heartbreakers, the E Street Band never received a full credit on a Springsteen studio album. Only individual band members were credited. Even though the band did all or nearly all of the playing on these albums, each was released under the name Bruce Springsteen. Indeed, the E Street Band is not even mentioned as such in any of the literature for these albums until an inside liner note for The River, and then a cover "Performed by" credit on Born in the U.S.A. Later albums such as Tunnel Of Love and Greatest Hits did name the band and list the members.

Concerts were a different story. Live performances were almost always billed as Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, and Springsteen pointed the spotlight on the brand of the band onstage. In each concert, Springsteen typically would extend one song to involve an elaborate introduction of each member of the band, introducing nicknames, characterizing each player, whipping the song and the audience into a frenzy for the final, over-the-top introduction of the "Big Man," Clarence Clemons. More substantially, Springsteen split concert revenues equally with the band members, a practice almost unheard of for backing bands in the music industry.

Thus in 1979 when Springsteen and the band featured on the No Nukes album and No Nukes film, the live performance was credited to both. The band received their first full credit on a Springsteen album with the release of Live/1975-85, which was credited to Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band. All subsequent live recordings and concert DVDs have also been credited to both.

Courtesy of the E Street Band

Other artists had also begun to recognize their talents and the band members were never out of work. Producer/songwriter Jim Steinman used Bittan and Weinberg on Meat Loaf's Bat out of Hell and Dead Ringer, on his own Bad for Good project, Bonnie Tyler's Faster Than the Speed of Night and Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire albums and Greatest Hits from Air Supply, on the cut, Making Love Out Of Nothing At All which featured an extra expansive Wall of Sound effect from Bittan & Weinberg. Also, Tallent, Bittan, and Weinberg, along with Mick Ronson, recorded an album with Ian Hunter titled You're Never Alone with a Schizophrenic. Bittan and Federici also provided keyboards for Garland Jeffreys on his Escape Artist, while the former would make notable contributions to albums by David Bowie, Dire Straits, Bob Seger, and Stevie Nicks. Several of these albums acknowledged their contributions with a credit such as "courtesy of the E Street Band".

Throughout the 1980s members of the band were involved with various other projects. In 1985 Bittan and Van Zandt recorded sessions with Bob Dylan for his Empire Burlesque album. Although not used at the time, the recordings later surfaced on Dylan's The Bootleg Series. In 1985 Van Zandt spearheaded Artists United Against Apartheid. An album and single featured Springsteen and Clemons, among others. Tallent also produced a single with Jersey Artists For Mankind which featured Springsteen, Lofgren, Clemons, and Weinberg as well as Carter and Rosenberg. Clemons teamed up with Sancious both on his solo album Hero and on albums with Zucchero Fornaciari. Clemons and Lofgren also went on tour with Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band in 1989.

The Split

In 1989 Springsteen informed the E Street Band members that he would not be using their services for the foreseeable future. He had already recorded one completely solo album, Nebraska. The last full band activity had been autumn 1988's Human Rights Now! Tour. Band members started to go their separate ways and onto separate projects — Tallent to Nashville to work on record production, Federici to California, Clemons to Florida, Lofgren to Maryland to resume his long-time solo activities. Weinberg, besides an abortive try at law school, was putting together the band Killer Joe and recording an album. Scene Of The Crime included a guest appearance from Little Steven, playing guitar on the Springsteen written instrumental "Summer On Signal Hill." In 1993, Weinberg became the band leader on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and remained such for its entire run. When O'Brien moved to The Tonight Show in 2009, Weinberg reprised his role as bandleader, and the show's house band - formerly called the Max Weinberg 7 - was redubbed Max Weinberg and the Tonight Show Band.

In 1992 the E Street Band and the Miami Horns backed Darlene Love on the single "All Alone on Christmas" written by Little Steven and featured on the soundtrack for Home Alone 2.

Springsteen made guest appearances on solo albums by both Nils Lofgren and Clarence Clemons and he joined Max Weinberg, Garry Tallent, and Little Steven when they reprised their role as "honorary Jukes" on Southside Johnny's Better Days in 1992.

Springsteen also continued to use assorted members of the band on his forthcoming albums and projects. Roy Bittan would be retained for both Human Touch and Lucky Town. The former included a guest appearance from David Sancious while the latter introduced Soozie Tyrell. Patti Scialfa also provided backing vocals on both. Little Steven produced and played guitar on a remix of the single "57 Channels". However the majority of musicians used on these albums were session musicians. The E Street Band was not used on the subsequent Springsteen tour either, although Bittan was again retained and Scialfa occasionally added backing vocals; both were consequently featured on In Concert/MTV Plugged. The Ghost of Tom Joad saw Danny Federici, Garry Tallent, Tyrell, and Scialfa provide backing on some tracks while Federici, Tyrell and Scialfa all turn up sporadically on Devils & Dust.

Although individual members of the band played on Human Touch, Lucky Town, In Concert/MTV Plugged, The Ghost of Tom Joad, and Devils & Dust, none of these albums are regarded as E Street Band albums. Tunnel of Love falls into a grey area and its status is open to debate.

The Reunion

In 1995 Springsteen released Greatest Hits and the E Street Band was temporarily reunited to record four new songs. In 1998 he released Tracks, a box set collection of unreleased recordings dating back to 1972, many of which featured the band.

Finally, in 1999 Springsteen and the E Street Band reunited on a more substantial basis, ten years after he had dismissed them. They staged an extremely successful Reunion Tour, culminating in an HBO special and collection Live in New York City. With the exception of Weinberg and Van Zandt the band members had not found any career paths that could match the E Street Band for fortune and fame, and there seemed to be no long-term animosity from the split.

In 2002 the reunion was continued with the release of new studio album The Rising and the long, successful Rising Tour. Another important release from this era was The Essential Bruce Springsteen, another greatest hits package combined with more archival material.

The October 2004 Vote for Change tour was the last E Street Band effort for a while. The 2005 Devils & Dust album used scatterings of Federici, Scialfa, and Tyrell, while the 2006 Sessions Band Tour used Scialfa and Tyrell among the largely numbered backing musicians. During the latter, Springsteen mentioned he did plan to work with the E Street Band again in the future, but was vague about details.

Finally, in early 2007 E Street Band members separately traveled to Atlanta and recorded on Springsteen's album Magic, and concurrent with the album's release in October 2007, the Magic Tour began. However, after the conclusion of the tour's first leg on November 19, 2007, Danny Federici took a leave of absence from the tour to pursue treatment for melanoma; he was replaced by Sessions Band member Charles Giordano. Federici made his only return to the stage on March 20, 2008, when he appeared for portions of a Springsteen and E Street Band performance in Indianapolis. He died on April 17, 2008.

Springsteen had always given elaborate band introductions during shows, often incorporating humorous characterizations of band members or stories of how they had joined and always building up to an over-the-top introduction of "Master of the Universe" stage foil Clarence Clemons. Springsteen used the ending of the Reunion Tour's band intro song, "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out", to introduce a more specially-branded sequence to emphasize his view of the E Street Band's greatness. This practice continued on "Mary's Place" on The Rising Tour and at the end of the Magic Tour shows with "American Land". The exact wording varied, but generally was some form of the following:

The E Street Band!

The heart-stopping, pants-dropping, house-rocking, earth-shaking, booty-quaking, Viagra-taking, love-making -

Le-gen-dary E - Street - Band!

On the Magic Tour, the video screens around the stage added cartoon-like graphics to illustrate the final E! Street! Band! exclamation.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band were the stars of the Super Bowl XLIII Halftime Show in Tampa, Florida on February 1, 2009. Springsteen's "heart-stopping ..." rap was included in the promotional material aired on NBC in the two months leading up to the performance. The sequence then got its biggest audience immediately prior to Springsteen and the band taking the stage at halftime, when a prerecorded series of football players from the game saying each phrase in turn was aired by way of introducing the performance.

Prior to the game, on Thursday January 29, Springsteen gave a rare press conference, where he promised a "twelve minute party". When asked if he would be nervous performing before such a large audience, Springsteen alluded to his recent January 18, 2009 appearance at the "We Are One" concert at the Lincoln Memorial, a celebration of Barack Obama's Presidential inauguration: “You'll have a lot of crazy football fans, but you won’t have Lincoln staring over your shoulder. That takes some of the pressure off.” The Super Bowl performance coincided with the release of a new album entitled Working on a Dream, released on January 27, 2009. The band's set, which ran a little over the allotted 12 minutes, included the songs "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out", "Born to Run", "Working on a Dream", and "Glory Days". The Miami Horns and a large choir, the Joyce Garrett Singers, joined the band onstage.

Nineteen-year-old Jay Weinberg has filled in at drums for his father, Max, during portions of shows or for some full shows on the 2009 Working on a Dream Tour, due to the elder Weinberg's obligations for the debuting Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. The 49-year age difference between the younger Weinberg and 67-year-old bandmate Clarence Clemons is one of the largest within any current popular musical act.

"Your success story is a bigger story than whatever you're trying to say on stage...Success makes life easier. It doesn't make living easier."
- Bruce Springsteen