Bruce Springsteen

Springsteen was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, and spent his childhood and high school years in Freehold Boro. He lived off South Street in Freehold Boro and attended Freehold Regional High School (today known as Freehold Borough High School). His father, Douglas Frederick Springsteen, was a bus driver of Dutch and Irish ancestry. His mother, Adele Ann Zerilli, was a legal secretary of Italian ancestry.  He has an older sister (took photos for the Human Touch and Lucky Town albums), Virginia, and a younger sister, Pamela. Pamela Springsteen had a brief film career, but left acting to pursue still photography full time.

Raised a Roman Catholic,  Springsteen attended the St. Rose of Lima parochial school in Freehold Borough, where he was at odds with both the nuns and other students, even though much of his later music reflected a deep Catholic ethos and included many rock-influenced, traditional Irish-Catholic hymns.

In ninth grade he transferred to the public Freehold Regional High School, but did not fit in there either. He completed high school but felt so uncomfortable that he skipped his own graduation ceremony. He briefly attended Ocean County College, but dropped out.

Springsteen had been inspired to take up music at the age of seven after seeing Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show. At 13, he bought his first guitar for $18; later, his mother took out a loan to buy the 16-year-old Springsteen a $60 Kent guitar, an event he later memorialized in his song "The Wish".

In 1965, he went to the house of Tex and Marion Vinyard, who sponsored young bands in town. They helped him become the lead guitarist of The Castiles, and later lead singer of the group. The Castiles recorded two original songs at a public recording studio in Brick Township, New Jersey and played a variety of venues, including Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village. Marion Vinyard said that she believed Springsteen when, as a young man, he said he was going to make it big.