Patti Scialfa put her career on hold to start a family with Bruce Springsteen. Now she's back in action, writes Tony Clayton-Lea

She's not married to the Boss, she's married to the man people call the Boss. "He's that on stage, all right," says Patti Scialfa of Bruce Springsteen, "but when he comes off the stage he's my husband." Scialfa wears the trousers, too, it would seem. Her new album, 23rd Street Lullaby, is a big, impressive surprise: no grandiose statements, no heavy commentaries, no bombastic music. Instead, it's as low key as a hobbit's front door, a record that makes no huge claims for its presence. Across its 12 songs it stakes any claims it may have on the appearance of real people: Rose the waitress, a gypsy on the waterfront, Mabel from a Minnesota dirt farm, Daniel, drunk on cheap wine with a monkey wrench in his hand.

Scialfa sings of disparate, romantic and sharply drawn figures low on courage but high on faith in a musical setting that's equal parts Willy DeVille, Tom Petty and John Prine. The music couldn't sound more American if you put the CD in a burger bun, pebble-dashed it with tomato ketchup and gherkins and sang Star-spangled Banner.

You could, of course, assume that Scialfa has made a record with the strong arm of her husband pushing doors open. She's very much an unknown quantity, after all. Think again. She had her own, admittedly low-profile, career long before she met Springsteen: her early status as a singer-songwriter mutated into that of a backing singer for the likes of the Rolling Stones, David Johansen and Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes.

She rolled on board the Springsteen wagon train in 1984, for the Born In The USA world tour, and subsequently stole the Boss's heart. Between marriage, three children - "back to back," she says, incredulously - and a début album, Rumble Doll, from 1993, she has graciously allowed her career to drift. But not, thankfully, her creativity. "I don't have any ambivalence about writing," she says, "but I do about putting records out. I don't have a tremendous amount of ambition, in a way; that is, the kind of ambition that makes me work faster. I get sidetracked, too, having three children, Bruce touring and me in the band. I write all the time, though.

"The other reason about the time delay is that I didn't have a support team: no manager, no band as such. What got 23rd Street Lullaby started was, I'd bumped into [the producer\] Steve Jordan, who lived in the same street as myself, and we just started making the record. Essentially, he reflected back my musical identity, my own autonomy, which I kind of needed. I mean, I work in one of the biggest rock 'n' roll bands in the world, and then I'm married to Bruce . . . . Even though he's completely supportive I knew I needed to develop a space with my own oxygen. And Steve provided that for me."

The nature of the songs, Scialfa implies, is against the grain. If you feel good about yourself all the time then why feel the need to write, she asks, reasonably. For Scialfa feeling good is fine, but it's the questions about herself that she finds more interesting.

She was inspired to write by her Irish grandfather. "He helped raise me, playing his piano with a cigarette in his mouth and a nip of something to keep him high; the fact that someone could write something about what they were feeling or thinking was very mysterious and beautiful to me."

She graduated to writing her own material when she reached her teenage years. "Well, I tried to write when I was a teenager, but it was disaster. It's such a craft that you don't understand precisely what kind of craft it is. It's a craft and a mystery all at once. You need the craft part to hook the mystery part out of the air and to organise it into something structured.

"But I just kept at it until I got it right. I really wanted to create songs with characters in them. I like that and have always admired that in other people's songwriting. To take parts of their life and to be able to put them into a song that has some meaning for yourself and, hopefully, other people: that's what it's all about."

If Scialfa comes across as less resilient than the people in her songs, don't be fooled. She might be sitting in the lap of luxury, but she has seen life from the other side of the fence. She says she felt quite fragile and insecure when she was younger, traits that prevented her from pursuing her ambitions with the drive and urgency that lesser talents had little problem displaying. She was, she says, strengthened by therapy.

"I started therapy very late in my life - 35 - but that was a big thing for me. It explained myself back to me and made me more comfortable with myself. And I have to say my relationship with Bruce was a very big help. If you're lucky enough to find somebody who will support you . . .

"Anyone can love the beautiful things about a person, but that's not compelling to me at all. I find the broken, ragged pieces the most interesting, the items with the most depth. If you can find someone who can understand those pieces of you they can make you very strong. If your flaws are accepted then you truly feel recognised. You don't spend time hiding."

She seems enamoured with the peace of mind therapy can provide. "I'm a huge supporter of therapy. It was a real gift I gave to myself, and I still do it. It has opened up my ability to give and receive love on a much larger level."

And what of her husband, quite likely the political conscience of the blue-collar US? Is life with the superstar all it's cracked up to be? Scialfa chooses her words carefully. "Truly, that part of our lives, the one you see when he's on stage and I'm the backing singer in one of the most famous rock 'n' roll bands in the world, is the working part of our lives. It can only magnify how famous your partner is. If you bring that home with you, then once you walk in the front door and close it you don't have a chance with a relationship or trying to raise your children in a healthy manner.

"So I just think this: Bruce is dedicated to his writing, his music and his performances. He's just as dedicated, however, to making our family unit as strong and normal as he can."

23rd Street Lullaby is on Columbia Records