The Heart and Soul of the E Street Band

What can I say that hasn’t already been said? Last Saturday, Clarence the ‘Big Man’ Clemons died of complications from a stroke that he suffered the week before. Although initial reports were encouraging that Clarence was responding well to the surgeries he had, the Big Man just couldn’t overcome the damage the stroke inflicted upon him. He was 69 years old.

I first became acquainted with Clarence in the summer of 1978. I’d vaguely heard of this guy named Springsteen, but as he didn’t’ get a lot of airplay on Portland radio; I didn’t know much about him or his band. That was about to change.

On a trip to ‘Everybody’s Records’ I saw this poster of Bruce Springsteen promoting his new album ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town.’ I figured I better pick up this LP and hear for myself what the commotion was about. From the opening chords of ‘Badlands’ I thought ‘this is interesting.’ By the time ‘Adam Raised a Cain’ was over, I was hooked. ‘Who the fuck is this guy?” I said to myself. I went back and picked up ‘Born To Run’ and it was over. This was some of the best music I’d ever heard. It reached out to me, being a 21 year-old at the time, it was amazing. And the Big Man was blowing the dirtiest sax since Bobby Keyes on ‘Brown Sugar.’ The sax solo on ‘Jungleland’ was and is the most beautiful sax solo ever.

During that summer I was an avid reader of ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine, and they were talking about the amazing live shows that Bruce was doing that tour. I fell asleep at the wheel and missed Bruce’s’ first tour through Portland, but heard nothing but great reviews of the shows and the rapport he had with Clarence. It was like a little kid playing with his big brother when they were out there on stage.

As summer turned to fall, and then winter, Bruce and the band were back on tour. On a stop in San Francisco, they did a live broadcast of the show on KSAN-FM, which was broadcast on stations up and down the west coast, including Portland. I’ll never forget that night. I put the headphones on and lost myself for the next three and a half hours. It was the most amazing thing that I’d ever heard. The band was so tight, Bruce was so light and funny on stage, and his foil was always the Big Man. Clarence brought to life the songs that Bruce sang. The albums while good never captured what the E Street Band was all about. The live shows did.

In October of 1980, I finally got to see Bruce and the boys at Memorial Coliseum in Portland. I’d been sick all week, but there was no way I was going to miss this. Three and a half hours later, a friend of mine who was a big skeptic walked out of the coliseum and said ‘That Springsteen takes rock n roll…and fuckin rocks and rolls it.’ I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more accurate quote on Bruce and the band.

Now, 31 years later, Bruce and the band are still here, but not without some casualties.  Last year they lost keyboardist and original member Danny Federici to melanoma, and now Clarence. Danny’s’ loss was hard enough, losing the Big Man leaves a void that cannot be filled. I feel as though I’ve lost a friend. Of course I’ve never met Clarence, but through his music, his gift from God, I got to know him, very well.

So God, you have a new member of the band. If you haven’t heard of him, let me introduce you to the Minister of soul, the secretary of the brotherhood, the king of the world, the master of disaster, the Big Man, Clarence Clemons.