July 16, 2026 "Come on, rise up!" exhorts Bruce Springsteen in "My City of Ruins," originally written for his adopted and beloved hometown of Asbury Park, NJ. The seaside resort town has been strongly tied to Springsteen's music, persona, and recording career since even before an Asbury Park postcard served as the visual centerpiece of his first album-cover. When Springsteen played his famous 2024 show on the Asbury Park beach (documented for posterity here and here,) "My Cit

July 14, 2026 There's no better way to celebrate today's 114th anniversary of the birth of the late, great, and artistically immortal Woody Guthrie than to watch Greg Mitchell's recently released film Woody Guthrie and the Ghost of Tom Joad Today. Mitchell has crafted a beautiful, moving, enlightening, and timely one-hour film about how Guthrie's path came to cross that of writer John Steinbeck, author of The Grapes of Wrath, and the enduring significance of their intersectio

imagery from the "Education of Bruce Springsteen" exhibit at The Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music - (photo by Shawn Poole) July 4, 2026 Editor's note: Today is not only the U.S.A.'s 250th birthday. It is also Vietnam War veteran, author, speaker, activist, and organizer Ron Kovic's 80th birthday, and this year marks the 50th anniversary of his groundbreaking, moving, and inspiring memoir Born on the Fourth of July. display at the "Education of Bruce Springsteen" ex

photo by Rob DeMartin (Atlanta; May 2, 2026) - used with permission July 2, 2026 Happy Birthday to "Professor" Roy Bittan, who turns 77 today, and best wishes for many more Happy Birthdays to come. Y'know, you'd think that a guy known as the "Professor" would have gotten some extensive teaching and tutoring experience under his belt by now. But it actually was only a few weeks ago when Professor Bittan finally began his first steady teaching gig. He currently can be found giv

July 1, 2026 On the upcoming Independence Day holiday weekend, which also will mark the U.S. semiquincentennial, Bruce Springsteen and The Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music at Monmouth University will be featured in a half-hour PBS News special entitled Bruce Springsteen: Finding America in Song. It's an expanded version of PBS NewsHour's recent report on the opening of the Springsteen Center. PBS NewsHour's Geoff Bennett interviewing Bruce Springsteen at the Spring

notebook with "Thunder Road" handwritten lyrics displayed at The Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music - photos by Shawn Poole June 29, 2026 Last Friday afternoon, I made my first return visit to The Bruce Springsteen Center For American Music. It was under very different circumstances than the very first time I got to visit the Center, which of course was for Letters To You's special advance tour. This time around, like many other regular visitors, I simply bought my o

Clockwise from top left: Felipe Rose, Spencer Battiest, Danielle “Redbird” Marrone, and Adrian Matthias Stevens and Sean Querino Snyder - photos courtesy of The Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music June 25, 2026 On Tuesday June 30, the final day of Pride Month 2026, The Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music will host a special - and free - panel-discussion event, entitled Voices of Pride: Identity, Representation, and the Power of Music, and co-sponsored by Hard

June 22, 2026 "Over here on E Street, we mourn the death of the great record man and close friend Clive Davis. At 22 years old, he changed my life when he signed me to Columbia Records. He treated me with the same respect and kindness as a 22-year-old nobody as he did after all my success. A great man. All our prayers and love." - Bruce Springsteen's social-media statement, issued on June 22, 2026

photo by Mark Krajnak (Philadelphia, PA - May 30, 2026) June 21, 2026 How fitting that this year, on his 75th birthday, Nils Lofgren's special day also falls on Father's Day. After all, Bruce Springsteen himself famously dubbed Lofgren onstage to be the E Street Band's "Godfather Of The Guitar, The Minister Of Heart And Spirit, the great, great Nils Lofgren!" More than a quarter-century has passed since Springsteen first used that "Godfather" line to describe Lofgren's musica

June 17, 2026 Bruce Springsteen certainly has come a long way from his days of playing supermarket grand openings with his early band The Castiles to the public opening of a new building named after himself - The Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music, of course - just last weekend. But tomorrow, Thursday, June 18, he'll help to open a building quite unlike any he's ever helped to open before: his first-ever gig at a U.S. Presidential Center's opening. Springsteen will b

photo by Mark Krajnak June 14, 2026 Below is our transcription of the narration provided by Bruce Springsteen for Thom Zimny's short introductory film The Ties That Bind: Bruce Springsteen’s American Music Journey, now playing exclusively in The Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music's Powell Soundstage theater: Welcome to New Jersey, the place where I was born, raised, loved, loathed, left, and returned to, and where I'll probably spend the rest of my life. Now I've bee

photo by Mark Krajnak June 13, 2026 Letters To You contributing photographer Mark Krajnak and I were fortunate to be granted a special advance tour of The Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music's new building, almost two weeks before its official public opening today. On June 3, the Center's Director of Curatorial Affairs, Melissa Kozlowski, and its Museum Educator, Aidan Vogel, were kind enough to give Mark and me a guided, private tour, even as they and the rest of the

June 12, 2026 As The Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music's official public opening occurs this weekend, Letters To You is presenting a three-part series of reports on the recent events that have led up to the big day. Here in Part 1, we cover the series of special concerts that the Center has held in anticipation of its public opening... ---------- photo by Melissa Lawlor - courtesy of The Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music May 29, 2026 - America 250: A Jerse

Washington, D.C., May 27, 2026 - photo by Pam Springsteen - used w/ permission June 10, 2026 To paraphrase what was the tour's nightly closing song - Bob Dylan's "Chimes of Freedom" delivered in its Byrds-inspired arrangement - as we listen one more time and watch with one more look, here are additional observations and insights from some of Letters To You's contributing writers and friends on Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band's 2026 Land of Hope & Dreams American Tour, a

June 6, 2026 On January 10, 2017, 35,000 items from the personal collections of Bruce Springsteen fans were gifted to Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey. In the years since, the University has built a 30,000-square foot archival center and museum upon this foundational donation. Now known as The Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music, it officially opens to the public on June 13, and the building gets officially dedicated later this morning. Between 2001

photo by the Springsteen Center's Museum Educator Aidan Vogel June 4, 2026 The Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music doesn't officially open its doors to the public until June 13, but yesterday Letters To You's editor/publisher Shawn Poole and contributing photographer Mark Krajnak got a sneak-peek of what's behind its doors. Director of Curatorial Affairs Melissa Kozlowski and Museum Educator Aidan Vogel were gracious enough to show them around the place, in the midst

photo by Shawn Poole May 31, 2026 "Philly, you killed it! This is the last night of our Land of Hope & Dreams Tour; it was good to be in Philadelphia. I want to thank our great crew and their fearless leader, George Travis, without whom the show would not go on. I want to thank the E Street Band for their commitment and for their courage in standing with me on this tour. I want to thank Tom Morello for guesting with us on this tour. I want to thank Jon Landau for fifty years

photo by Shawn Poole May 28, 2026 Last night, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band brought their Land of Hope & Dreams American Tour to its ultimate "speak-truth-to-power" venue: the Washington Nationals' baseball park in Washington, D.C. It also marked the tour's only outdoor show, and while Mother Nature peppered the audience with light rain throughout the evening, fortunately she spared us of any of her lightning-bolts. What took place onstage was more than thunderous eno

May 26, 2026 Music journalist, critic, and author Erin Osmon's recently published book Won't Back Down: Heartland Rock and the Fight for America, couldn't have come along at a better time, especially with Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band - who indeed were and in significant ways still are major figures in the heartland-rock genre - wrapping up their historic Land of Hope & Dreams American Tour, a musical "fight for America" if ever there was one. Osmon's book focuses on

May 22, 2026 Directly preceding The Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music's two-nights (and now sold-out) Music America: The Songs that Shaped Us concert events will be a unique, free concert celebrating the rich history and enduring legacy of Indigenous music in America. The Center has partnered with Hard Rock International to produce The Native American Music Experience. This concert will take place at Monmouth University’s Pollak Theatre on Wednesday, June 3 at 7:30