Happy Birthday, Boss! .....

It's been almost 35 years since a bunch of us drove to Jersey for a concert by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. We didn't need Time and Newsweek to tell us ... we could see and hear for ourselves that the future of rock and roll had taken the stage.

The future is still with me ... and Springsteen remains, for me, America's quintessential rocker.

A lot of changes since then, to our nation, our music, ourselves. During that time, Springsteen (shown here with The Big Man, saxaphonist Clarence Clemons, in a 2008 photo by backstreets.com's Guy Aceto) has traveled many roads ... across the country and around the world ... alone or with his band ... through many different musical genre ... in studios, in modest concert halls, and in giant stadiums with 70,000+ of his closest friends. But through all that, he has remained true ... to himself, to his music and to us.

Thanks, Boss, and happy birthday.