Topic: Patti Scialfa

Vivienne Patricia "Patti" Scialfa ("SCIAL-fah") (born July 29, 1953) is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. She is married to Bruce Springsteen and they have three children.

Scialfa was born in Deal, New Jersey. She was the middle child of Joseph Scialfa and Patricia (née Morris) Scialfa. Her father was of Sicilian ancestry and her mother is of Scots-Irish ancestry. She also has half-siblings from her father's second marriage. Her father was a successful local entrepreneur, who started with a single television store and became a real estate developer.

Scialfa was writing songs from an early age and first worked professionally as a back-up singer for New Jersey bar bands after she completed high school. In 1994, she stated in a Lear's Magazine interview that she had little talent for anything but music and that she attended college as a way to further her ambitions as a performer while also satisfying parental expectations. She has a music degree from New York University, earned after she transferred from the University of Miami's highly-respected jazz conservatory at the Frost School of Music.