Happy Mother’s Day from Bruce Springsteen.
Springsteen, 76 of Freehold, posted a sweet remembrance of his late mom, Adele Springsteen, at noon on Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 10.
“The music would be playing when she walked in the door − and the dancing never really stopped,” said Springsteen on a post accompanied by a picture Adele. “This Mother’s Day, we celebrate the ones who keep us moving, lift us up and remind us to carry on and step onto the floor when the music calls.”
Adele passed away on Jan. 31, 2024 at the age of 98.
Bruce credited his mom and her sisters, Dora Kirby and Eda Urbelis, with imbuing the young Boss with his musical passion.
“My mom loved music, Top 40 music; the radio was always on in the car and in the kitchen in the morning,” wrote Bruce in his memoir, “Born to Run.” “From Elvis on out, my sister and I shuffled out of bed and downstairs to be greeted by the hit records of the day pouring out of the tiny radio that sat on the top of our refrigerator.”
Adele brought the future rock superstar his first guitar at Diehl’s on South Street in Freehold, and she kept a comprehensive scrap book of Bruce’s budding career, which his now part of the new Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music on the campus of Monmouth University, scheduled to open on June 7.
Adele Zerilli was born in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn. She and Douglas Springsteen, Bruce’s father, married in 1948. Bruce was born on Sept. 23, 1949, and the pair would have two more children, daughters Virginia and Pamela.
In the latter years of her life, Adele would dance with her son at his shows, including at Springsteen’s E Street Band shows in arenas; holiday seasonal concerts at Convention Hall in Asbury Park in the early 2000s; and on stage of the city’s Stone Pony. Their last public dace was in 2018 at the Wonder Bar in Asbury Park as the Eddie Testa Band played “Some Kind of Wonderful,” originally by Soul Brothers Six, and “Eight Days a Week” by the Beatles.
“My mom was truthfulness, consistency, good humor, professionalism, grace, kindness, optimism, civility, fairness, pride in yourself, responsibility, love, faith in your family, commitment, joy in your work and a never-say-die thirst for living and life … and most importantly for dancing,” said Bruce in “Born to Run.”