Alumna Patti Scialfa Honored
Celebrated by NYUAA for Over 20 Years of Success in the Music Industry
Photo Credit: SONY/BMG
This fall, Gallatin alumna Patti Scialfa (BA ’75) is being honored by the New York University Alumni Association. The musician—who released her latest album, Play It As It Lays, to critical acclaim last year—is receiving the 2008 Distinguished Alumni Award, bestowed on respected alumni who have demonstrated extraordinary achievement in their professional and cultural pursuits.
Though the New Jersey native studied music and the performing arts as a Gallatin student, her musical endeavors began well before she arrived at the School in the early 1970s. The granddaughter of an Irish immigrant songwriter, Scialfa gained an early appreciation for composing and performing. In addition to honing her vocal skills in school musicals, she learned to play the guitar and piano and started her first band by the age of fourteen.
Scialfa first attended the University of Miami School of Music as a jazz major but transferred to Gallatin, then known as the University Without Walls, shortly after the School first opened at NYU. She formed her academic concentration with the guidance of adviser John Castellano and, after graduating in 1975, quickly became involved in New York City’s music scene. She paid her dues by busking (performing in streets and public places), and—as the areas surrounding NYU had come to be her home—she even developed a favorite busking spot on Sheridan Square, in the heart of Greenwich Village. Like many fledgling artists, she struggled to find opportunities to perform as she was coming into her own as an adult and a musician. She worked the New York club scene, playing her own original music, while also touring nationally with Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes.
Scialfa’s career flourished in the 1980s. She signed with Columbia Records and began working on her first album. But in 1984, just a few days before his Born in the USA world tour began, Bruce Springsteen asked her to join the E Street Band. Born in the USA became a smashing success, and Scialfa, the band’s first female member, put her solo career on hold for a time, singing on Springsteen’s subsequent albums, touring, and even recording background vocals for Keith Richards and The Rolling Stones. It was also during these years that Springsteen and Scialfa’s close friendship led to romance; the couple married in 1991.
Singing with Springsteen may have brought her fame and recognition, but Scialfa’s solo career has also thrived. Though delayed, her debut album, Rumble Doll, was released in 1993 to critical acclaim. She had worked on the album for several years, balancing this effort with motherhood and domestic life. She later reunited with the members of the E Street Band in 1999, yet also found time to appear as a supporting artist on Emmy Lou Harris’s 2000 release, Red Dirt Girl.
In 2004, Scialfa released her second solo album, 23rd Street Lullaby, which debuted at #5 on the Billboard album chart. Lullaby, which also received excellent reviews, in many ways pays homage to the experiences she had in New York City immediately following her graduation from NYU. It also includes collaborations with several of the artists she worked with in the 1970s in the Village and Chelsea. Scialfa’s most recent album, Play It As It Lays, was released in 2007, and for the third time her solo work has received accolades from both critics and fans.
Today, Scialfa still performs as a member of the E Street Band. She and Springsteen live in New Jersey with their children Evan, Jessica, and Sam, and she is always careful to manage her work life with that of her family. Yet, at 55, she has enjoyed more than 20 years of success in the music industry—no easy feat.
Gallatin Dean Susanne Wofford states, “Patti has demonstrated exceptional achievement in her career and she brings great pride to Gallatin and the University as a very public member of our alumni community. Her successes in the music industry, which date back to and have been infused by her years at NYU, are especially worthy of the Alumni Association’s honor. But even more,” she continues, “the perseverance she has displayed in following her passions shows that she is an exemplary Gallatin student.”
