TRIBUTE: Clarence Clemons 1942-2011

Over 40 years with Bruce Springsteen, Clarence Clemons picked up a lot of nicknames: the Big C, the Master of Disaster, the Minister of Soul, the Duke of Paducah, the Emperor of E Street, the King of the World. But to millions of fans, the E Street Band’s six-foot-four sax player was best known as the Big Man, whose soul-rooted playing powered Springsteen classics from ”˜Born to Run’ and ”˜Thunder Road’ to ”˜Dancing in the Dark’ and ”˜Badlands.’
On June 18, a week after he suffered a massive stroke, Clemons died at a Palm Beach, Florida, hospital at 69. “Clarence was big,” Springsteen said at his bandmate’s funeral. “And he made me feel, and think, and love, and dream big. How big was the Big Man? Too fucking big to die. And that’s just the facts. You can put it on his gravestone, you can tattoo it over your heart. Accept it”¦ It’s the New World. Clarence doesn’t leave the E Street Band when he dies. He leaves when we die.”
Onstage ”“ and famously on the cover of Born to Run ”“ Clemons and Springsteen formed one of the most iconic duos in rock history. They met in an Asbury Park, New Jersey, club on a much-mythologised night in 1971, when Clemons showed up during a Springsteen gig and ended up sitting in with the band. “He got up onstage [and] a sound came out of his horn that seemed to rattle the glasses behind the bar and threatened to blow out the back wall,” Springsteen recalled during his 1999 induction speech into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “The door literally blew off the club in a storm that night, and I knew I’d found my sax player. But there was something else. Something happened when we stood side by side. Some energy, some unspoken story. That night we first stood together, I looked over at C and it looked like his head reached into the clouds. And I felt like a mere mortal scurrying upon the Earth.”
Clemons grew up in Norfolk, Virginia, the grandson of a Baptist preacher. After receiving a saxophone as a gift at age nine, he became obsessed with the sound of early rock and R&B players, particularly the Coasters’ King Curtis. He attended Maryland State College on a football scholarship, distinguishing himself as a star offensive lineman. He had a tryout lined up for the Cleveland Browns in 1968, but the day before he was in a devastating car accident that damaged his knee and permanently ended his football career.
Clemons found work in Jamesburg, New Jersey, as a youth counsellor for troubled kids. At night, he played sax in bars along the Jersey Shore. A staple of R&B, soul and early rock, the saxophone had fallen out of vogue ”“ and Clemons helped infuse the E Street Band with the spirit of that music. “What he brought to the E Street Band was the power of friendship, redemptive love and inclusion,” says Jackson Browne, who sang on Clemons’ 1985 hit, ”˜You’re a Friend of Mine.’ “He played such supercharged sax. It brought the music back to the origins of rock & roll. It’s almost hard to imagine that music without him.”
Springsteen’s first two albums ”“ Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. and The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle ”“ failed to find a mass audience. His third album, Born to Run, made him a superstar ”“ and Clemons played a key role, with crucial parts on ”˜Thunder Road’ and the title track, along with his greatest recorded moment, the epic solo on the album-closing ”˜Jungleland.’ “The first time I heard the way Bruce built [the solo], I couldn’t talk,” Clemons wrote in his 2009 memoir. “He took what I had played, all those little pieces, and married them to what he heard in his heart, and then put it together in a way that’s timeless. Every time I play it I feel that it represents our musical partnership in a way that’s beyond words. To me that solo sounds like love.”
As if to match his massive presence onstage, Clemons lived an outsize life off it, including five marriages; abundant indulgences in the pleasures of the road, from women to cocaine; and in later years a pre-show regimen involving tequila, weed and injections of vitamins from the two doctors who travelled with him on tour. “He was capable of great magic and also of making quite an amazing mess,” said Springsteen. “Clarence’s unconditional love, which was very real, came with a lot of conditions”¦ He did what he wanted to do, and he let the chips, human and otherwise, fall where they may.”
As the band’s fame exploded in the Eighties, Clemons began a second career as an actor, appearing in TV and movie projects including Diff’rent Strokes and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. But at the end of that decade, everything changed: On tour with Ringo Starr’s All Starr Band in 1989, Clemons received a call from Springsteen, informing him that he was breaking up the E Street Band. “I didn’t speak or even attempt to interject,” Clemons wrote in his memoir. “I got very quiet and stopped smiling. In fact, it looked to Ringo like I was being told about somebody dying.”
Clemons kept busy, releasing a series of solo CDs, touring nightclubs and acting more, including roles on Nash Bridges and The Flash. He sat in with the Grateful Dead a few times in the 1980s, and grew closer to the group when the E Street Band dissolved. “He was in moving-on mode,” says Bob Weir. “Jerry and I were both single at the time, and Clarence suggested that the three of us move in together and have a bachelor pad. Jerry and I almost went for it. It would’ve been a lot of fun, but I don’t think anyone would have survived.”
Springsteen revived the E Street Band in 1999, and over the next decade they recorded three acclaimed albums and embarked on four epic world tours. Clemons loved being back on the road, even as he battled chronic pain, undergoing numerous surgeries, including knee and hip replacements. Although he continued to perform brilliantly, it was clear the road was taking its toll. “That last tour was hell,” he told ROLLING STONE in February. “Pure hell.”
At home in Palm Beach, Clemons devoted his time to fishing, cooking and his collections of teddy bears and candles. He developed a close relationship with Sri Chinmoy, an Indian spiritual teacher who died in 2007. “Clarence’s spirituality was a key to his love, friendships and music,” says his widow, Victoria. “It came across in everything he did and anyone he ever encountered.” His limited mobility kept him home much of the time with Victoria, whom he met at a California Italian restaurant and married in 2008. “He really was a homebody,” she says. “He liked to cook, watch movies and smoke cigars. I served him breakfast in bed every day of the week.”
Clemons was recovering from surgery at his Florida home in January when Lady Gaga’s people called. “They said to me, ”˜Lady Gaga wants you to play on her album,’” Clemons told RS. “This is on a Friday afternoon at 4:00 pm. I said, ”˜When do you want me to do it? I’m free Monday or Tuesday.’ They go, ”˜No, she needs you right now in New York City.’” Clemons took the next flight, arriving at the studio late that night. “She came running down the hall,” Clemons said. “She was like, ”˜Big Man!’” Over three hours, Clemons played sax on ”˜Edge of Glory’ and ”˜Hair.’ “It was wild,” he said. “I was so excited. I’m a Gaga-ite.” Clemons’ final public performance was with Gaga, on the season finale of American Idol in May. “On the set, Gaga grabbed Clarence’s hands,” says Victoria. “She looked into his eyes and said, ”˜I believe in you seven days of the week, not just five.’ He needed to hear those words to get through the night. He loved Gaga dearly. He thought their collaboration was a new highlight of his professional life.”
Speaking to ROLLING STONE this year, Clemons was looking forward to the next E Street Band tour ”“ despite the pain, he couldn’t imagine staying off the road. “As long as my mouth, hands and brain still work, I’ll be out there doing it,” he said. “This is what’s keeping me alive and feeling young and inspired. My spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy told me that my purpose in life is to bring joy and light to the world, and I don’t know any better way than what I’m doing now.”