New Jersey Stage published its 25,000th story in December 2021. As the site approached the milestone, we posed the question on social media as how we should celebrate.  One response was to highlight our favorite stories from over the years.  We liked this idea, but could not narrow things down to just 25 favorites so we will present a favorite each day from different genres. Every Monday we feature one of our favorite stories in music. Since today is Valentine's Day, we thought we'd spotlight our feature on Nils Lofgren - actually two features.

Our main feature on Nils was publish April 20, 2015 and is available here. He had just finished 26 months on tour with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street band and was heading out for solo shows in support of Face The Music, a ten disc set that serves as a comprehensive retrospective of his career as an artist. While many music fans know him from his work in the E Street Band or Neil Young, he's had a remarkable solo career as well.  We talked about his early days, how he started playing guitar while flipping on a trampoline, and how he met his future wife at The Stone Pony.

We've been fans of his long before he ever joined up with Springsteen, but we had to ask about that connection as well.  It became the focus of a second feature - The Story of Nils & Bruce. Lofgren replaced Steven Van Zandt just before the Born In The USA Tour in 1984 and has been with the band ever since.  He first met Bruce Springsteen in 1970 when his band Grin shared a bill with Steel Mill at the Fillmore West.  Over the years, Lofgren saw Springsteen perform live several times and the two became friends.