Patti Scialfa

Vivienne Patricia Scialfa (/ˈskælfə/ SKAL-fə; born July 29, 1953) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. Scialfa has been a member of the E Street Band since 1984 and has been married to Bruce Springsteen since 1991. In 2014, Scialfa was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the E Street Band.

Scialfa grew up in Deal, New Jersey, on the Jersey Shore. She was the middle child of Patricia (née Morris) Scialfa and Joseph Scialfa. Her mother is Irish; from Belfast, Northern Ireland. Her father was of Sicilian ancestry. She also has half-siblings from her father's second marriage. Her father was a successful local entrepreneur, who started a television store and became a real estate developer. Scialfa began writing songs at an early age.

She attended Asbury Park High School, where she graduated in 1971. Following high school, she first began working as a back-up singer for New Jersey bar bands.

She began college at the University of Miami's jazz conservatory at the Frost School of Music, and later transferred to New York University, where she earned an undergraduate degree in music.

In 1994, she told Lear's magazine that she had little talent for anything but music and that she attended college as a way to further her ambitions as a performer while also satisfying parental expectations.

While in college at the University of Miami and later at New York University, Scialfa began writing original music for other artists. However, none of her songs were recorded.

After her college graduation, she worked as a busker and waitress in Greenwich Village. Together with Soozie Tyrell and Lisa Lowell, she formed a street group known as Trickster. For many years, she struggled to make her way in the songwriting and recording industry in New York City and New Jersey before playing at Folk City and Kenny's Castaways in Greenwich Village and The Stone Pony in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Scialfa had a brief role in The Stone Pony's house band Cats on a Smooth Surface. These gigs won her notice and, eventually, recording work with Southside Johnny and David Johansen.

In 1984, Scialfa joined the E Street Band, three or four days before the opening show of the Born in the U.S.A. Tour. In 1986, she appeared on the Rolling Stones' Dirty Work album, leaving her vocal mark on "One Hit (To the Body)" as well as other tracks. She worked with Keith Richards on his first solo album Talk Is Cheap. Steve Jordan, who co-produced the Richards record, was a friend of Scialfa's from her Greenwich Village days.