The Ghost of Tom Joad

Springsteen wrote and recorded the album between March and September 1995 at his home studio in Los Angeles, in the year of Greatest Hits, which brought a brief E Street reunion. Seven tracks are solo and five use a band. The title draws on the Tom Joad of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, the Henry Fonda film and Woody Guthrie's Ballad of Tom Joad, and Springsteen also took from Dale Maharidge and Michael Williamson's study of homelessness, Journey to Nowhere.

It debuted at number eleven in America with 107,000 copies in its first week, ending a run of eight consecutive top-five studio albums. It won the 1997 Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album. Mikal Gilmore called it his best album in ten years in Rolling Stone, and it placed eighth in the Pazz & Jop poll. A solo acoustic tour of mostly small venues ran from 1995 to 1997.