Personnel includes: Bruce Springsteen (vocals, acoustic, electric, & baritone guitar, harmonica); Danny Federici (vocals, organ); Patty Scialfa (vocals); Nils Lofgren (electric & slide guitar, banjo, dobro, background vocals); Steven Van Zandt (electric guitar, mandolin, background vocals); Soozie Tyrell (violin, background vocals); Brendan O'Brien (hurdy gurdy, glockenspiel); Larry Lemaster, Jerry Flint, Jane Scarpantoni (cello); The Nashville String Machine (strings); Clarence Clemons (saxophone, background vocals); Roy Bittan (piano, Mellotron, Kurzwiel organ, pump organ, keyboards, synthesizer); Garry Tallent (bass); Max Weinberg (drums); Asif Ali Khan And Group.

Recorded at Southern Tracks Recording, Atlanta, Georgia; Thrill Hill Studios, New Jersey; The Sound Kitchen Recording Studios, Franklin, Tennessee.

THE RISING won the 2003 Grammy Award for Best Rock Album. "The Rising" won the 2003 Grammy Awards for Best Rock Song and Best Male Rock Vocal Performance.

THE RISING was nominated for the 2003 Grammy Award for Album Of The Year."The Rising" was nominated for the 2003 Grammy Award for Song Of The Year.

Considering that the last time Bruce Springsteen collaborated with the E Street Band for a full album of new material was on 1984's epochal BORN IN THE USA, it's entirely appropriate that their 2002 album THE RISING should be forged from images strongly linked to the events of September 11th, one of America's most trying times. Virtually every song here is related to that tragedy either directly or indirectly. Some, like the surging "My City in Ruins" and the melancholy "Empty Sky" largely eschew metaphor, while others approach the situation from more oblique angles. "Mary's Place" is a rousing roots-rocker about finding joy in the face of sadness, while both the Eastern-flavored "Worlds Apart" and the homegrown "Let's Be Friends" address the need for communication and understanding between disparate entities.

Musically, many of THE RISING's songs are in wide-screen, anthemic mode, as Bruce and company attempt to rally their wounded country with positivity and clear-eyed optimism without shrinking from unpleasant reality. The interstitial ballads take the poignant storytelling mode Springsteen employed on his last new album, 1995's THE GHOST OF TOM JOAD, and apply it to THE RISING's more universal themes. Whatever the format, the enthusiastic camaraderie of the E Streeters and their Boss is audible and infectious.

What the critics say...

Rolling Stone (12/26/02, p.110) - Included in Rolling Stone's "50 Best Albums of 2002" - "...In the grainy force of Springsteen's voice and the muscular exultation of the music, the power of ordinary men and women to build anew, atop so much loss, rings loud and true."
Spin (1/03, p.71) - Ranked #14 on Spin's list of 2002's "Albums of the Year" - "...A boldly corny, plainspoken album by a songwriter who sincerely believes that working stiffs deserve a spokesman who's not a jingoistic yokel."
Entertainment Weekly (12/20-27/02, p.126) - Ranked #5 on EW's list of 2002's "Albums of the Year"
Entertainment Weekly (8/2/02, pp.71-2) - "...His voice is in robust, throat-clearing form...the post-Sept.11 world has refocused his songwriting....the songs grab hold and don't let go..." - Rating: A-
Q (12/02, p.68) - Included in Q Magazine's "The 50 Best Albums of 2002."
Q (9/02, p.111) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...A compassionate celebration of the human spirit, one bolstered by the strength of family, community and individual heroism..."
Uncut (1/03, p.94) - Ranked #2 in Uncut's "100 Best Albums of the Year"
Uncut (9/02, pp.102, 103) - 5 stars out of 5 - "...a brave and beautiful album of humanity, hope and hurt from the songwriter best qualified to speak to and for his country."
Mojo (Publisher) (1/03, p.73) - Ranked #11 in Mojo's "Best Albums of 2002"
Mojo (Publisher) (9/02, p.94) - "In the end THE RISING's message...is one of indomitability."
NME (Magazine) (8/10/02, p.34) - 6 out of 10 - "...His best for some time..."