Bruce Springsteen signed Bob Dylan to the same label a decade earlier. Despite the expectations of Columbia Records' executives that Springsteen would record an acoustic album, he brought many of his New Jersey-based colleagues into the studio with him, thus forming the E Street Band (although it would not be formally named for several months). His debut album "Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.", released in January 1973, established him as a critical favorite though sales were slow. Because of Springsteen's lyrical poeticism and folk rock-rooted music exemplified on tracks like "Blinded by the Light" and "For You", as well as the Columbia
Asbury Park station the construction of an extension of the New York and Long Branch Railroad (NY&LB), a subsidiary of the Central Railroad of New Jersey and the Pennsylvania Railroad. The NY&LB began as a railroad between Elizabethport (in Elizabeth, Union County) to Long Branch, finished in 1875. The railroad was extended through the city of Asbury Park on July 7 to Sea Girt. However, the station at Asbury Park was built on land donated by the Ocean Grove Campmeeting Association, a part of the Methodist Church. The new station was built for the purposes of serving both Asbury Park and Ocean Grove.