27 Years Ago In TIME

With The Rising, Bruce Springsteen delivers his first studio album backed by the E Street Band in 15 years. In 1975, with the release of Born to Run, a cover story hailed the KID FROM NEW JERSEY.

The money is starting to flow in now: Springsteen takes home $350 a week...[He] lives sometimes with his girl friend Karen Darvin, 20, a freckled, leggy model from Texas, in a small apartment on Manhattan's East Side. More frequently, he is down on the Jersey shore, where he has just moved into more comfortable--but not lavish--quarters, and bought his first decent hi-fi rig. He remains adamantly indifferent to clothing and personal adornment, although he wears a small gold cross around his neck--a vestigial remnant of Catholicism--and, probably to challenge it, a small gold ring in his left ear, which gives him a little gypsy flash. When he is not working, Springsteen takes life easy and does not worry about it. "I'm not a planning-type guy," he says. "You can't count on nothing in this life. I never have expectations when I get involved in things. That way, I never have disappointments."

--TIME, Oct. 27, 1975