Adele Ann Springsteen Dies After Battling Alzheimer, Bruce Springsteen’s Mother

Adele Zerilli Springsteen, a longtime legal secretary, musical muse, and concert dance partner who inspired Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Nation and beyond, has passed away at the age of 98. Born in New York City in 1925, Springsteen was a cornerstone of Bruce Springsteen’s anthem “American Land,” which honors various Italian-American families. She was a smart, strong, and creative woman who held the family together through years of hardship.

Bruce Springsteen, in a 2010 Ellis Island speech, praised her “noble” juggling of work and home, finding inspiration in simple acts. He also shared a story of his mom scraping together money when Bruce was a kid, which is sweetly portrayed in another section of “The Wish.”

When Bruce hit the bigtime stage, she worked much larger rooms, from America to Europe. Adele was well-versed in the audience-cameo ritual “Dancing in the Dark” and happily played the musical field. In 2012, she danced and sang background on “Twist and Shout” at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium. In March 2016, when she was 90, mother and son hip-wiggled to the raucous “Ramrod” at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

E Street Band member Steven Van Zandt tweeted Thursday that Adele Springsteen was the “Matriarch of our family and an unrelenting source of inspiring positive energy. One of a kind. She will always be there for us. Dancing in the audience.”