Tzruya “Suki” Lahav, the kibbutz-born songwriter, poet, and author who briefly played the violin in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band half a century ago, has died at 74 after a “short, tough battle” with an illness, her family said.

“My beloved, beautiful mother has been gathered to infinity,” Lahav’s son Yonatan wrote on Thursday. “She wrote songs that touched people’s hearts. She was a special woman — wise and pure-hearted — and loved life. She was the best mother I could wish for.”

Lahav, who won the ACUM (Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers in Israel) lifetime achievement award in 2011, wrote material for the classic 1975 album “End of the Orange Season” by the Shalom Hanoch-Ariel Zilber band Tamouz, and lyrics for songs performed by leading Israeli artists, including Rita (her 1990 Eurovision song contest entry), Yehudit Ravitz, Rami Kleinstein and Yehuda Poliker.

Born on Kibbutz Ayelet HaShahar in 1951, Lahav was known outside Israel, however, as Springsteen’s violinist from late 1974 to early 1975 — playing with the E Street Band, and adding poignancy on stage to ballads like the sparse “Lost in the Flood” from Springsteen’s debut album, the sprawling “Incident on 57th Street” from his second, and the take-a-chance-on-me saga that became “Thunder Road” from his then-unreleased breakthrough third album, “Born to Run.”

She is credited for her playing on the gangland drama “Jungeland” on the “Born to Run” album liner........

© The Times of Israel