Patti Scialfa

(born July 29, 1953) is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist, best known for being a bandmate and wife of Bruce Springsteen. Scialfa was born in Deal, New Jersey. She was the middle child of Joseph Scialfa and Patricia (née Morris) Scialfa. She also has half-siblings from her father’s second marriage. Her father was a successful local entrepreneur, who started with a single television store and became a real estate developer. Scialfa was writing songs from an early age and first worked professionally as a back-up singer for New Jersey bar bands after she completed high school. In 1994, she stated in a Lear’s Magazine interview that she had little talent for anything but music and that she attended college as a way to further her ambitions as a performer while also satisfying parental expectations. She has a music degree from New York University, earned after she transferred from the University of Miami’s highly-respected jazz conservatory at the Frost School of Music.
While in college, Scialfa was submitting original material to other artists in the hope that it would be recorded. However, none of her songs were recorded and after graduating, Scialfa worked as a busker and waitress in Greenwich Village. Together with Soozie Tyrell and Lisa Lowell, she formed a street group known as Trickster. For many years, she struggled to make her way in the songwriting and recording industry in New York and New Jersey before playing at Kenny’s Castaway in Greenwich Village, as well as Asbury Park’s The Stone Pony. Scialfa had a brief role in The Stone Pony’s house band Cats on a Smooth Surface. These gigs won her notice and, eventually, recording work with Southside Johnny and David Johansen.
Scialfa and Soozie Tyrell at Asbury Park Convention Hall, 2004

In 1984, Scialfa joined the E Street Band, three or four days before the opening show of the Born in the U.S.A. Tour, either because Springsteen wanted to expand the emotional range of the band (Marsh, Glory Days) or because Nils Lofgren contracted mononucleosis, which made it impossible for him to sing his backing vocals;[1]. In 1986, she appeared on the Rolling Stones’ Dirty Work album, leaving her unique vocal mark on «One Hit (To the Body)» as well as other tracks. She worked with Keith Richards on his first solo disc Talk is Cheap. Steve Jordan, who co-produced the Richards’ record, was a friend of Scialfa’s from her Greenwich Village days.

Scialfa maintains her music industry friendships over many years. Her friendship with Soozie Tyrell and Lisa Lowell pre-date their mutual work as background vocalists and musicians on the Buster Poindexter ‘aka’ David Johansen album (featuring «Hot-Hot-Hot») of 1987; Lowell and Tyrell have since worked on various Springsteen-Scialfa recording projects and Tyrell, violinist, has recorded and toured with Springsteen and the E Street Band.

Scialfa has recorded three solo albums, 1993’s Rumble Doll, 2004’s 23rd Street Lullaby and 2007’s Play It As It Lays. Her first two albums received four-star reviews from Rolling Stone, while the third got three and a half. Her records are a mix of confessional songwriting, impressive vocal range, and traditional country, folk and rock music. Springsteen and fellow E Street bandmates like Lofgren and Roy Bittan contributed backing work. Following the release of her second album, Scialfa played a series of club dates along the East Coast and she was also the opening act of the post-final night of the Vote for Change tour.