THE ART OF BEING THE BOSS

He makes no effort to hide—black T-shirt, blue jeans, Wayfarer sunglasses, honky-tonk cowboy boots—but for a few minutes, the most famous son of the Jersey Shore achieves a kind of anonymity, even in the one place his sudden appearance seems most plausible: the Asbury Park boardwalk.

- - By Eric Cortellessa/Asbury Park, N.J.

Passing Madam Marie’s, the fortune teller immortalized in his 1973 ballad “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy),” I suggest that if people look for him anywhere, it’s here. Springsteen chuckles, recalling a T-shirt sold in local shops: I HEARD BRUCE MIGHT SHOW UP.

Soon, we discover what happens when he does. Near the Convention Hall, a double take becomes a selfie request. More follow. A restaurant owner begs him to stay for dinner. Outside the Bruce Springsteen Archives store, a cashier leaps up in delight, serendipitously wearing the very shirt we had just been discussing. “My cloak of invisibility is rapidly fading,” Springsteen says, half-amused, half-resigned. We find refuge in an empty Stone Pony, the fabled club that launched his career, where we spent the afternoon talking about his life and legacy. As for the crowd he slips into a car to leave behind, he says, “I always took it as just part of the job.”

For a half-century, Springsteen’s job has been unlike any other. He has released 21 albums, collecting 20 Grammys, an Oscar, a Tony, the Kennedy Center Honors, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He’s written a bestselling memoir, recorded a podcast with Barack Obama, and sold more than 150 million records worldwide. He’s one of the most in-demand live performers on earth, commanding crowds who embrace him with something close to religious devotion. His most recent tour grossed more than $700 million—the largest haul of his career, eclipsing the Born in the U.S.A. juggernaut of the ’80s.