Nils Lofgren (born June 21, 1951 in Chicago, Illinois), is an American rock 'n' roll singer and guitarist.

Lofgren joined Neil Young's band at age 17, playing piano on the album After the Gold Rush among others. From 1971 to 1974 recorded four albums with his own band, Grin. After that he continued as a solo artist, and had FM radio hits in the mid-1970s with "Back It Up", "Keith Don't Go" (about Keith Richards' Toronto drug arrest crisis), and "I Came to Dance".

In 1984, he joined Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band as the replacement for Steven van Zandt in the second guitarist role. The E Street Band was mostly inactive for the decade after 1989, but both he and van Zandt rejoined it when Springsteen revived the band in 1999.

He continues to record, and to tour as a solo act, with Springsteen, with Patti Scialfa, with Neil Young, and as a two-time member of Ringo Starr's All-Starr Band. Many of the people he worked with on those tours appeared on his 1991 album, Silver Lining. Nils recently got his own "Nils Lofgren Day" in Montgomery County (August 25).

Lofgren is also an accomplished player of the accordion, his first instrument.

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The Swedish scientist Nils Lofgren developed the local anaesthetic lidocaine (xylocaine) in 1943.

External links

Nils Lofgren (singer) website