Bio

Vivienne Patricia Scialfa, the New Jersey native with a just-earned degree from NYU had come to the city to test her music. She paid early dues on the street--literally. She developed a favorite busking spot on Sheridan Square, in the heart of Greenwich Village. "It was tough playing on a corner filled with this tremendous amount of noise and input, but it was so empowering, so freeing," she says. "I was doing my own music, making my living my own way, on my own terms." Soon, Patti became a regular on the city's club scene as well, working on her own and with a circle of friends. Occasional waitress stints paid the rent. As her talent became better known, she found work backing up David Johansen, Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes, even the Rolling Stones. When Bruce Springsteen asked her to join the E Street Band in 1984 for the "Born In The USA" world tour, she took the gig. Meantime, she continued to write her own material and made demos that earned her a contract with Columbia Records. Full bio here.

Around 1986 Patti started focusing more on her own music again, and with the strength of her own demo, she was signed to the Columbia label (1986 or 1987?). She worked on and off with her own music in between E- Street tours and giving birth and raising children. Then finally in 1993 the first album was finished... and as they say the rest is history. In her Greenwich Village days, together with Soozie Tyrell and Lisa Lowell, she formed a street group known as Trickster. Both Soozie and Lisa appears on her albums.
The movie No Looking Back - 1998, features a clip of Romeo and an unrealised track Big Girl Now (full length)