The E Street Band: Where Are They Now?

If you want a versatile pianist, look no further than Roy Bittan. After keyboardist David Sancious left in 1974, Bruce Springsteen placed an ad in the Village Voice, looking for someone who could play anything from "classical to Jerry Lee Lewis," according to Bittan's official E Street Band bio. 30 musicians responded, and Bittan came out on top. It was a good thing too, as Springsteen had composed a lot of Born to Run on piano, but wasn't a good enough player to translate his vision on record. Bittan immediately synched with the Boss, and proved instrumental in making Springsteen's ideas to reality, thus turning the album into a beloved smash hit. Bittan's synthesizer skills were later instrumental in many of Springsteen's 1980s hits, like "Born in the USA" and "Dancing in the Dark."

Bittan's work with Springsteen made the keyboard wizard a highly in-demand musician, who has played with everyone from David Bowie, to Dire Straits, to Meat Loaf, to Bob Dylan. In 2014, he recorded — if you can believe it — his first solo album, Out Of The Box, which he described to Rolling Stone as "incredibly instructive, from beginning to end." 

Bittan remains the only E Street Band member who has co-written songs with Springsteen, and he's such a powerhouse that even the band's disbanding in 1989 didn't affect him: Bittan continued to run with the Boss' new backing crew during E Street's hiatus.

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