Not only was Bruce Springsteen "Born in the USA," he has risen to become a twenty-time Grammy winner and American icon.

Bruce Springsteen grew up in a blue-collar New Jersey town, where his parents struggled to make ends meet. Bruce didn't fit in at school but found solace in rock and roll and playing guitar. After the breakup of a local band he'd joined, Springsteen went out on his own and people began to take notice. He signed with Columbia Records and under pressure to come up with a hit, wrote "Born in the USA," which tells the story of America during the years of the Vietnam War. A multi-millionaire and twenty-time Grammy winner, the Boss has remained a working class hero whose music deals with the political and social changes in our country.

An unprecedented look at a very young Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, from the group’s creation and early New Jersey days to their meteoric rise and seminal Born in the USA tour, in photographs almost all not previously published.

David Gahr (1922–2008) was tapped by Columbia Records designer John Berg to shoot cover art for Bruce Springsteen’s second album, The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle. Gahr’s earliest photographs of the musician showcase a youthful Springsteen, not even aged twenty-three, in Asbury Park, New Jersey, on the eve of a career breakthrough. Gahr befriended the rising star, and over a span of approximately ten years he photographed Springsteen, both on- and offstage. Rare captures include Springsteen recording music, performing at the cramped venue Bottom Line weeks before the release of his seminal 1975 album Born to Run, and playing to legions of fans during his Born in the USA tour. Bruce Springsteen 1973–1986 is an unprecedented look back at Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band on their path to becoming rock legends.

It is a pious paradise wrested from the dunes; a salty carnival of dreamers, drifters, and just plain folks; a city made legendary by Bruce Springsteen and Stephen Crane but grounded in generations of turbulent American reality. Even those who never lived there feel proprietary about Asbury Park--a place of shared experiences and strong passions, where grand sandcastle plans wash up against changing times and tides. Legendary Locals of Asbury Park captures a parade of personalities, from the visionaries who challenged nature to the true believers who sought, against tremendous odds, to make a year-round life in this city of summers. The shopkeepers and show people, the advocates on the front lines of social change, and the chroniclers who witnessed history are all among those who helped a small town cast a giant profile, here and on the big boardwalk beyond

Asbury Park, founded as a Christian resort community on the Jersey shore by developer James A. Bradley at the turn of the century, was carved from a small but impressive tract of undulating sand dunes and towering forests. This marvelous new photographic
history chronicles the early development of Bradley's resort, and looks at some of the other influential civic and religious leaders who contributed to the city's heritage. Bradley's ability to market and promote Asbury Park in the early years was noteworthy; the first streets in town were named after prominent political and religious figures, and a good deal of signage advertised the city's
Christian image to those passing through. To attract visitors, Bradley sponsored the East Coast's first baby parade and music on the boardwalk. Over the years, Asbury Park became home to a variety of different cultures and religious faiths, and this book--published in the centennial year of the city's incorporation--offers
early evidence of the city's diversity.

As the 20th century got under way, Asbury Park was booming. Real estate advertisements promoted a residential resort "where country meets the sea." The nearly one-square-mile gridded municipality attracted individuals who saw opportunities, from architects and artists to entrepreneurs and people looking for employment. But with the death of its founder and leading benefactor, James A. Bradley, and the rise of machine politics under Mayor Clarence E.F. Hetrick, Asbury Park's civic and economic fortunes started to change. In World War II's long aftermath, suburbs, shopping malls, and modern amusement destinations sprang up outside its municipal borders. Its once-bustling economy faltered, and civil unrest festered until 1970, when it turned violent. It took more than 10 years for new changes to find their way to the drawing boards. But it was in the 21st century that new business and civic leaders with a more inclusive pioneering spirit started turning Asbury Park's fortunes around.