Clarence Clemons was never the best saxophone player in the world. He didn’t reinvent the instrument like Charlie Parker or John Coltrane. He wasn’t a groove machine like Jr. Walker or Maceo Parker, or a master of tone and soulful funkiness like Pee Wee Ellis or King Curtis. What he was was The Big Man. The perfect foil for Bruce Springsteen’s tales of the Jersey Shore. The Boss’s blend of West Side Story drama and Morricone scope, in tales from the dark, downtrodden streets of fire from where Springsteen came. Bruce needed a foil and Clemons, who died yesterday at the age of 69 after suffering stroke on June 14th, was perfectly cast.
A looming presence onstage in his early white suits and fedoras, his sleeveless silk shirts, maracas and strutting saxophone, here was the gunslinger commanding the attention of not only the crowd but of The Boss as well. While Miami Steve Van Zandt played Keith Richards to Bruce’s Mick, Clarence was a whole other beast altogether. Spinning in time with the dynamo Springsteen their instrument cords miraculously rarely tripping them up. He was the catalyst, the emotive kicker for Springsteen's flights of rock n roll redemption. Taking his cues from the great sax solos behind The Drifters slice-of-life tales and the early rock radio tunes of their youth, The Boss and The Big Man could be seen in your mind’s eye taking on all comers on the boardwalk late at night. In the early years Bruce would do long introductions to songs which took you back to dark nights of menace and desperation when out of the darkness came The Big Man amidst bolts of lightning and chaos and all was settled. Everyone took a step back and just knew the real deal had just arrived. The legend of their meeting told over the years in varying versions by Springsteen as introductions to “The E Street Shuffle” and other tunes, is told below by Clemons.
The first song we did was an early version of "Spirit In The Night". Bruce and I looked at each other and didn't say anything, we just knew. We knew we were the missing links in each other's lives. He was what I'd been searching for. In one way he was just a scrawny little kid. But he was a visionary. He wanted to follow his dream. So from then on I was part of history.
Over the years Clemons recorded eight solo albums under various monikers beginning with 1983’s RESCUE. He even had a hit single in 1985 which featured Jackson Browne called “You’re A Friend of Mine”. That same year his sax solo was featured on the Aretha Franklin hit, “Freeway of Love”. He has done numerous sessions and/or tours with artists as diverse as Todd Rundgren, Ronnie Spector, Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes, Joe Cocker, Twisted Sister, Ringo Starr & his All-Starr Band, The Four Tops. Roy Orbison and Lady Gaga among many others. He’s even performed with the Jerry Garcia Band and The Grateful Dead.
Clemons was also an actor on film not just onstage with The Boss. He appeared in five feature films beginning in 1997 with New York, New York and including Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Fatal Instinct and Blues Brothers 2000. He also acted in 15 episodes of major television shows.
When Springsteen disbanded The E Street Band in the 1989 for ten years (though in 1995 they reunited briefly to record four new songs for the Greatest Hits album), it was Clemons who was most missed by many of the fans on the subsequent tours without the E Street Band. His visual presence as much as the place his dramatic solos played in Springsteen’s music was hard to replace.
Finally, in 1999, Springsteen brought the band back together for highly anticipated Reunion tour, live album and sessions and tour for THE RISING. In 2005, Devils & Dust had a smattering of band members joining the proceedings and the follow year found Bruce with a very different kind of sound and band for the Pete Seeger Sessions CD and tour.
By 2007, the band had reconnected for Bruce’s album The Magic. Half way through the subsequent tour, organist Danny Federici was diagnosed with melanoma and only returned for one final appearance one month before he died. Federici passed on April 17, 2008.
With Clemons death, bassist Garry W. Tallent is the longest running E Street Band musician and only remaining original member. As difficult as it was to accept the band without Clemons during the E Street Band’s ten year hiatus, it will be incredibly hard to see the band without him. He had slowed down in recent years with physical problems (two knee replacements among them) that kept his stage movements to a minimum and found him sitting for much of the set where he wasn’t soloing.
I’ll never forget the first time I heard Clemons play live. It was November 1, 1976 in Robertson Gym at UC Santa Barbara. Bruce opened with a piano backed opening of “Thunder Road” followed by an incendiary “Tenth-Avenue Freeze-out”, Clarence and Miami Steve strutting by his side. And we believed that "wne the change was made uptown and The Big Man joined the band / from the coastline to the city all the little pretties raised their hands," because even that night, early on, hands were thrust in the air towards that growling sax sound. We were in the third row of this general admission show and after that solo the girl next to me sat down on her chair and began to cry, “This is the best thing I’ve ever heard in my life” she repeated over and over again. The show ran nearly three hours and I knew that this moment would reinvent how I thought of live music and life in general. To this day, I yearn for another show as life affirming and riveting as those three hours.
Two years later I traveled to he East Coast for the first time with the woman who would become my wife and companion for the next 25 years. She’d seen Bruce at the Main Point in 1975 and watched his career blossom as Philadelphia embraced The Boss long before the rest of the country knew who was in charge. We drove down to Cape May Point, New Jersey to meet her parents the morning after I arrived in Philadelphia. While we were there she asked, “What do you want to see while you are back here?” My answer was immediate: “Asbury Park.”
We drove up the Garden Start Parkway and when we hit the boardwalk there were still remnants of all of the places I'd heard Bruce and the E Street Band immortalize on those first three albums. I rode on The Tilt-A-Whirl, played pinball in the Casino, took my picture in front of Madame Marie’s and the Stone Pony. I even kissed her underneath the boardwalk. And I pictured Clarence Clemons walking through the storm to join the band and change rock n roll forever. On the way home, we heard on the radio that Keith Moon, legendary drummer for The Who had died, another mythic figure of rock n roll royalty.
Yesterday we lost another rock n roll icon, “the Master of the Universe, The King of the World, The Big Man, The Biggest Man You Ever Seen…Clarence Clemons.”
What follows are some songs featuring Clarence Clemons on sax including the tune that documents his becoming an E Streeter, “Tenth-Avenue Freezeout”, his most famous showpiece “Jungleland” and one of the most transcendent rock tunes of the era, “Born To Run.”
Clarence on playing with Bruce, spirituality etc.
“The River” with Clarence intro and very different arrangement from the original.
Clarence on being in the E Street Band and more
Bruce is a total goofball – now this has got to be one of the most over-the-top intro of The Big Man ever!
rare live “Kitty’s Back” from 1974 (audio only but great quality and killer version)
Clarence discusses his “Jungleland” solo
For comparison: first is an early version from 1975 at the Main Point – audio only but wow!
With some early lyric differences….interesting but without Clarence’s defining solo, the drama of the song is just not there…
Now listen to this one…Here is a later version of Clarence’s "Jungleland" solo which has settled into it’s more famous iconic spot as the emotional lynchpin of this bigger than life tune…
Interview with Alan Thicke in 1983 and he plays “Woman’s Got The Power” with his Red Bank Rockers.
CC’s big hit with Jackson Browne. The dated 80s drum sound and production was the first big production hit for the great fusion drummer Michael Narada Walden (Mahavishnu Orchestra)…boy, was this a bad and cheesy video. A the early days of MTV…
I had an opportunity to get to know "Maurice" (Pat Ieraci), a wonderful man whose name and image you may have seen on the back covers and in credits of the Jefferson Airplane's Volunteers and Jefferson Starship's Dragonfly albums as well as numerous other great recordings by Harry Nilsson, Steve Miller etc. He was a insider at RCA, liaison between bands and the label, eventually being part The Airplane families many projects as production coordinator and general troubleshooter. Pat is also a huge collector of music with a garage full of old 45s and an extensive knowledge of the history of rock music. I asked him once about what he thought was the greatest recording of all-time. Not the greatest song per se, but the ultimate record. He said immediately, "The one record I can think on which I wouldn't change a thing is the song, 'Born To Run'. It has everything a rock record should have." ... I agree. There are tons of incendiary live versions of this song but I included the classic studio cut here because I agree with Pat...great overall sound, ferocious production, amazing vocals and relentless propulsion and the timelss sax solo is perfect. There is no doubt that the band is communicating their leader's vision and that they and Bruce believe what he is singing and are desperate for you to believe it too.
R.I.P. Clarence & Danny
