Clarence Clemons: Death of the Central Side Man

In the image accompanying this post—one of the most famous in the history of rock ‘n’ roll—Bruce Springsteen’s right hand rests on the gargantuan shoulders of a man wailing blissfully on a saxophone.

 The photo—engraved permanently on my memory as a teenager, from all the times I peered at Springsteen’s epic album, Born to Run—was my first clue about the blood-brother bond between The Boss and "The Big Man," Clarence Clemons. 

Springsteen’s midlife decision to put the E Street Ban on a long hiatus (an act thankfully rescinded for good a decade later) might have somewhat strained that bond, but only death could really severe the 40-year musical partnership and friendship between him and Clarence. And now, that prospect is upon us with the death this past weekend, from complications of a stroke, of Clemons, at age 69. 

Ever since reading Clemons’ 2009 sort-of-memoir, Big Man, I knew he had suffered all kinds of medical ills the last several years, so I can’t say that the news of his stroke was a complete surprise. Still, when someone has formed such an indelible part of your musical life over the years, you can’t really believe he’s gone. 

In a Time cover story on Born to Run at the time of its 1975 release, Springsteen spoke of “the stage thing, that rush moment you live for. It never lasts, but that's what you live for.” Many of those "rush moments" came from his interaction with the E Street Band, several of whose members had played together before but never with as much cohesion as here. 

I would not see them perform in concert for another three years, but already I sensed that they were less a group of hired musicians than a band of brothers. The most commanding presence was Clemons, a linebacker-sized Sancho Panza who could play effortlessly off The Boss and even dominate in his own right. 

It was Clarence’s sax that gave the final triumphant punctuation to "Thunder Road," that put the bar-band strut and bounce in "Tenth Avenue Freezeout," that, in "Jungleland," transformed a song about gangs facing off on the streets into a tragedy filled with all the aborted hopes of the demilitarized zone of the heart.

 

To a kid like myself growing up in a city that had seen its share of tension between blacks and whites, the obvious and unfeigned affection between Bruce and Clarence was a revelation, yielding the possibility that people could find a plane of friendship high above class tensions and cultural distrust. Clemons might not have been the most technically proficient of the E Street Band (take your pick between Roy Bittan and Nils Lofgren), but in his undying humor and passion, he was the central side man. In fact, he might be the indispensable one. Can you imagine anyone else even attempting his “Jungleland” solo?