Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. the pre-Christmas crush. Both "Blinded by the Light" and "Spirit in the Night" were released as singles by Columbia, but neither reached the U.S. charts. Manfred Mann's Earth Band released a version of "Blinded by the Light" on their album "The Roaring Silence", which reached number one on Billboard's Hot 100 on 19 February 1977 and #1 on the Canadian RPM chart the same day. This recording of "Blinded by the Light" is Springsteen's only number one single as a songwriter on the Hot 100. His best showing on the Hot 100 as a performer was in 1984, with "Dancing
Asbury Park, New Jersey a number of grand hotels were built, including the Plaza Hotel. Uriah White, an Asbury Park pioneer, installed the first artesian well water system. As many as 600,000 people a year vacationed in Asbury Park during the summer season in the early years, riding the New York and Long Branch Railroad from New York City and Philadelphia to enjoy the mile-and-a-quarter stretch of oceanfront Asbury Park. By 1912, "The New York Times" estimated that the summer population could reach 200,000. The "country by the sea" destination experienced several key periods of popularity. The first notable era was the 1890s, marked