Bruce Springsteen has praised his wife and bandmate Patti Scialfa as he inducted her into the New Jersey Hall Of Fame.
The rock legend, who was also honoured by the Hall of Fame in 2008, called Scialfa his “secret weapon” and his “baby” as he presented her with the award at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark on Sunday, October 31, People reported.
Springsteen, who made a surprise appearance at the ceremony after postponing the remainder of his 2023 live tour due to a “monster” peptic ulcer, recounted how he met Scialfa in the ‘80s at The Stone Pony, a historic music club in Asbury Park.
“I met Patti at Stone Pony. Where else? She was sitting in with the house band, Cats on a Smooth Surface, and I heard that voice of hers and I wondered, ‘Who is that girl?’ I went to find out,” Springsteen said.
“She went on to record and produce with Steve Jordan, her second album, ’23rd St. Lullaby’, and third record, ‘Play as it Lays’, once again co-producing with Steve Jordan and Ron Anello, and both are wonderful pieces of work which if she hadn’t been married to some suck-the-air-out-of-the-room attention whore, they would have be much more widely known,” Springsteen joked.
He also said that Scialfa was a “second to none” songwriter with “deft lyrical work” and a “street-smart, fascinating, lovely, sexy, beautiful redhead with a sound completely her own”.
Scialfa, who grew up in Deal, New Jersey, thanked Springsteen for his introduction, joking, “I’m going to record him … saying this before I go to sleep or ask him to say it again.”
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Scialfa was among the 15 inductees of the 2023 class of the New Jersey Hall Of Fame, which also included actor Ed Harris, singer Dionne Warwick, comedian Jon Stewart, rapper Queen Latifah and more.