Steven Van Zandt

Steven Van Zandt (né Lento; born November 22, 1950), also known as Little Steven or Miami Steve, is an American musician and actor.

He is a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, in which he plays guitar and mandolin.

Van Zandt was born Steven Lento on November 22, 1950 in Winthrop, Massachusetts, to Mary Henrietta Lento and Vince Borello, and raised in Watertown, MA.

He has Italian ancestry; one grandfather was from Calabria and one grandmother's parents were from Naples.

His mother, Mary, remarried in 1957 and he took the last name of his stepfather, William Brewster Van Zandt.

The family moved to Middletown Township, New Jersey, when he was seven.

Van Zandt found his love for music at an early age, when he learned how to play the guitar.

He watched the performances of the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show and the Rolling Stones on Hollywood Palace in 1964, and referred to the former as "The Big Bang of Rock n' Roll".

He said that when he was 13, George Harrison was his favorite Beatle, and he later became friends with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr.

Around August 1964, he formed his first band, the Whirlwinds, which was short-lived.

He later formed the Mates in 1965 and joined the Shadows in May 1966.

Van Zandt has cited British Invasion bands such as the Dave Clark Five, as well as Ravi Shankar and the culture of India, as early influences.

Van Zandt attended Middletown High School, where he got kicked out for having long hair.

Springsteen met Van Zandt for the first time in 1967 when Springsteen went to the Hullabaloo club in Middletown.

Van Zandt was performing "Happy Together" with the Shadows.

They performed together in bands such as Steel Mill and the Bruce Springsteen Band.

He went back to school to appease his mother and graduated in 1968.

As a teenager, he was involved in a car accident that caused him to smash his head through the windshield, leaving several scars on his head.

To cover this up, he began wearing hats, and later, large bandanas, which has become his characteristic look.

Actor Billy Van Zandt is Van Zandt's half-brother and actress Adrienne Barbeau is his ex-sister-in-law.

He also has a half-sister named Kathi, who is a writer.

Van Zandt grew up in the Jersey Shore music scene, and was an early friend and pre-E Street bandmate of Bruce Springsteen.

During the early 1970s, Van Zandt worked in road construction for two years, before returning to show business.

In 1973, he toured with The Dovells.

The tour ended in Miami on December 31, 1974, with Dick Clark's Good Old Rock 'n' Roll Show at the Deauville Star Theater.

After going back to New Jersey, Van Zandt continued wearing Hawaiian shirts because he did not particularly like winter, which was how he got the nickname "Miami Steve".

He co-founded Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, in addition to The Miami Horns, who got their name from Van Zandt's nickname.

Van Zandt helped establish the rhythm and blues oriented style of music that the band performed.

He also produced Southside Johnny's first three albums.

Overall, Van Zandt wrote a significant bulk of Southside Johnny's music which helped provide them with the success that they achieved.

Van Zandt then started to switch between writing for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes and touring with the E Street Band.

He confirmed in an interview on The Howard Stern Show that he arranged the horns on "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" in 1975 when Springsteen was at a loss, earning him a spot in the E Street Band shortly thereafter.

In the Wings For Wheels documentary, Springsteen revealed that Van Zandt was partially responsible for the signature guitar line in "Born to Run," described as "Arguably Steve's greatest contribution to my music."

Ultimately, Van Zandt officially joined the E Street Band on July 20, 1975, during the first show of the Born to Run Tour.

In those early years, Van Zandt supplied a great deal of the lead guitar work for the band in concert, as can be seen on the 1975 concert DVD within Born to Run 30th Anniversary Edition (later released as the CD Hammersmith Odeon London '75).

Van Zandt has his own solo band called Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, intermittently active since the 1980s.

In 1984, Van Zandt left the E Street Band.

He has appeared in several television drama series, including as Silvio Dante in The Sopranos (1999–2007) and as Frank Tagliano in Lilyhammer (2012–2014).

In 2014, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the E Street Band.

Van Zandt has produced music, written songs, and had his own songs covered by Springsteen, Meat Loaf, Nancy Sinatra, Pearl Jam, Southside Johnny, Artists United Against Apartheid, and the Iron City Houserockers, among others.