Inside the making of one of rock's greatest album covers

Half a century on, ‘Born to Run’ photographer Eric Meola tells Sarfraz Manzoor about how a two-hour session, and one candid moment, helped create a Bruce Springsteen classic

- By Sarfraz Manzoor

It is one of the enduring images of rock history: a black and white portrait of a tousle-haired, leather jacket-wearing Bruce Springsteen, his Fender Telecaster slung over his shoulder as he leans against his bandmate and sax player Clarence Clemons. The portrait, snapped by Eric Meola, is featured on the cover of Springsteen's breakthrough album Born to Run, released 50 years ago this week. It helped elevate Springsteen to rock'n'roll superstardom and forever ensured Meola's place in music history.

It was the summer of 1973 and Meola was 27, a successful commercial and editorial photographer whose work had already been featured on the cover of Time magazine. "I used to live near a venue called Max's Kansas City in midtown," Meola recalls now, "and one day in the summer of 1973, I happened to walk by and it said that Bruce Springsteen was appearing the next evening supported by Bob Marley and the Wailers." He went along to check it out and was instantly captivated: "I said to myself I'm going to photograph Bruce no matter what."

The following year, Meola had run into Springsteen during a summer rain shower. "I was standing on the corner of Central Park West and 5th Avenue under an awning and I looked up and there was Bruce," he says. They only exchanged a few words – but the chance encounter only made Meola more determined to photograph him. "In person, he was real shy and quiet but there was also something hypnotic about him," he says.

Inspired by the postcard cover of Springsteen's debut Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ, Meola sent him a postcard of his own. On the back was a simple plea: "Bruce – I'm back in town for a couple of weeks ... Would like to get together sometime soon and take some shots – either at your place in Asbury or here at my studio. What are the chances?"