Adele Springsteen, who nurtured the budding musical talent of her son, pioneering rock star Bruce Springsteen, died Wednesday. She was 98 years old.
Mr Springsteen announced his mother’s death in a post on Instagram on Thursday. No cause was given, but Ms. Springsteen had battled Alzheimer’s disease for more than a decade.
Her son has spoken openly about his relationship with his mother and her influence on him.
Mrs. Springsteen rented him his first guitar when he was 7, he said in 2021 during his Broadway show, “Springsteen on Broadway,” aired for more than two months that year as the city began to emerge from pandemic-related shutdowns. The show had wide-ranging reflections, including thoughts on his mother.
It was also Mrs. Springsteen, he told the overflow Broadway audience at the St. James Theatre, who danced to 1940s swing music and impressed upon him the joys of bop-inspired tunes, according to the NBC program ” Today”.
She also spoke of her mother’s ability to persist in her lively spirit even when aging and a punishing illness took their toll.
“She has had Alzheimer’s for 10 years,” he said. “She is 95 years old. But the need to dance, that need to dance is something that hasn’t left her. She can’t speak. She can’t stand it. But when she sees me, she smiles.”
Mrs. Springsteen was born Adele Zerilli on May 4, 1925 Brooklyn. She married Douglas Springsteen, with whom she had a son in 1949 and subsequently two daughters, Virginia and Pamela.
She worked as a legal secretary and raised a young, working-class family in Freehold, New Jersey, while her husband often struggled to find stable work and struggled with mental illness. I have died in 1998.
“He wanted us to be a family and we were,” Springsteen wrote in “Born To Run,” his memoir. “He wanted us not to disintegrate and we didn’t.”
Ms. Springsteen’s cheerful ethic, ever present, seemed to be the guideline of her life and one that supported the lives of those around her.
“My mother is a great energy — she’s the energy of the show,” Springsteen told the Miami Herald in 1987. “The consistency, the stability, day after day — that’s her.” He added that “she was the one who created the sense of stability in the family, so that we never felt threatened in all the difficult times.”
In Thursday’s Instagram post announcing his mother’s death, Springsteen shared a video of his aging mother dancing to Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood,” captioned with an excerpt from his 1998 song about her, “The Wish”.
“I am older but you will recognize me at a glance,” it reads. “We’ll find a little rock ‘n’ roll bar and go out dancing.”
Aimee Ortiz contributed to the reporting.
