Actors - Steven Van Zandt

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	Actors - Steven Van Zandt

Steven Van Zandt (born November 22, 1950, as Steven Lento in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American musician, songwriter, arranger, record producer, actor, and radio disc jockey, who frequently goes by the stage names Little Steven or Miami Steve. He is best known as a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, where he plays guitar and mandolin, and as an actor on the television drama The Sopranos
, where he plays Silvio Dante.

Van Zandt grew up in the Jersey Shore music scene, and was an early friend and pre-E Street bandmate of Springsteen. He subsequently arranged the famous horn intro to Springsteen's Born to Run track "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out", and after that album he joined the E Street Band.

Van Zandt subsequently became a songwriter and producer for fellow Jersey shore act Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes in the mid- to late-1970s, penning their signature song "I Don't Wanna Go Home" and co-writing other songs for them with Springsteen. Van Zandt then went on to share production credits on the classic Springsteen albums Darkness on the Edge of Town, The River, and Born in the U.S.A..

He left the E Street Band in 1984 (Springsteen's song "Bobby Jean" is said to be inspired by the split) and has been involved in numerous solo musical projects and collaborations since then, ranging from soul music to hard rock, sometimes fronting a group known as The Disciples of Soul. Van Zandt returned to the E Street Band when it was reformed (briefly in 1995, permanently in 1999) and remains with it.

Always active in political causes, in 1985 he created the music-industry activist group Artists United Against Apartheid as an action against the Sun City resort in South Africa. Forty-nine top recording artists, including Springsteen, U2, Bob Dylan and Run DMC, collaborated on a song called "Sun City" in which they pledged they would never perform at the resort.

In 1999 he took one of the core acting roles in The Sopranos, playing level-headed but deadly mob consigliere and strip club owner Silvio Dante. He has gained acclaim for his performance as Silvio, but has contended that he has no interest in acting beyond The Sopranos. His appearances in the show's second season were limited somewhat by conflicts with the E Street Band tour schedule.

Starting in 2002 until the present he has hosted Little Steven's Underground Garage, a syndicated radio show that celebrates garage rock and similar rock sub-genres. He is the program director for the Sirius Satellite Radio station of the same name, as well as Sirius' Outlaw Country channel.

Van Zandt maintains a certain look, always wearing gypsy clothes and a bandana on stage, while donning a noticeable hairpiece on The Sopranos. Both are to cover permanent loss of hair from a car accident where he hit the windshield with his head.

Among E Street Band members he often gets the second-most amount of "face time" in concert after Clarence Clemons, frequently mugging for the audience and sometimes delivering his unpolished, nasal backing vocals while sharing a microphone with Springsteen. His playing or singing is most prominently featured on the songs "Two Hearts", "Land of Hope and Dreams", "Badlands", and "Murder Incorporated", among others.

Discography

1982 Men Without Women
1984 Voice of America
1987 Freedom - No Compromise
1989 Revolution
1999 Born Again Savage
1999 Greatest Hits

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Steven Van Zandt ]

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