Clarence Clemons tribute

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From WBUR Boston, I'm Tom Ashbrook, and this is On Point.

On Point.

Clarence Clemons. You can join the conversation, Did He Send With His Saxophone?

You ride over the moon on Born to Run and so many others.

What did you hear in that Clarence Clemons saxophone wail?

We're at 1-800-423-8255. That's 800-423-TALK.

And you can comment at our website, onpointradio.org, or on Twitter and Facebook at On Point Radio.

Joining me now in our studio is Tim Riley, music critic, assistant professor at Emerson College,

editor of the Rickwells.

Riley Index website. His books include Tell Me Why, A Beatles Commentary, Fever, a big new volume out this fall,

Lennon, as in John Lennon.

Tim Riley, welcome back to On Point.

Good to see you, Tom.

You hear that sax going right there? Wow.

Born to Run.

And with us from Seattle, Robert Santelli, executive director of the Grammy Museum in L.A.,

a longtime blues and rock historian.

He's been following the E Street band since early days in Asbury Park, New Jersey.

He's author of Greetings from E Street, the Story of Bruce Springsteen,

and the E Street band, Robert Santelli.

Bob Santelli, thanks so much for joining us.

Thank you, Tom.

A great day right here to look back on Clarence Clemons, 69.

When did you first see him, Bob?

When did you first get to know the guy who was always, it seemed, at Bruce Springsteen's side?

Well, I grew up on the Jersey Shore.

And in the early 1970s, I was at Monmouth College, which was just a few miles from Asbury Park.

And as a young cub music critic and music reporter,

I was able to more or less see history as it transpired when Clarence and Bruce got together for the very first time.

And it was pretty interesting because Bruce had been playing in a band called the Bruce Springsteen Band

that was playing all original material and tried to cover the concept of soul and R&B from a white guy's point of view.

And Clarence was playing in a...

In a soul band.

And when they put it together, it was absolute magic.

Here's Bruce Springsteen in one of his extravagant introductions.

You've heard these, Tim.

But he loved on stage to let loose, you know, do it up big for Clarence Clemons.

Big feature of the E Street Band Concert.

Here's one performance, Springsteen and the band in London.

The minister of soul!

Secretary of the brotherhood!

The minister of soul!

I'm going to be the next king of England!

Give me a C!

M!

N!

R!

E!

N!

C!

E!

What's that spell?

I have seen the future of the whole...

And this big man, Clarence Clemons!

Do you think you liked him a little bit?

Maybe just a little, and here's why.

Spirit of the Night, Clarence Sacks solo from a 1978 L.A. performance of the song.

Let's go!

Big man!

Excuse me!

Big man!

Spirit of the night.

Tim Riley, what happened when this voice and this sax got together?

Well, there was something really magical about that camaraderie.

And it was a big theme in the overall mythology that Bruce Springsteen wanted to draw for his audience.

And Clarence really was...

It was interesting because it was a white...

And a black man.

They really were Huck and Jim there at the center of the stage taking a journey together.

But it was also highly symbolic of the kind of camaraderie that he felt with the whole band.

So Clarence was a symbol, a stand-in for the rest of the band.

And also a symbol of the camaraderie that Bruce Springsteen was building with his audience.

So it was very much, Clarence really was a stand-in for the whole audience there up on stage.

And just listening to that introduction, it made me think.

I heard Bruce introduce Clarence one night in Madison Square Garden as the next senator from the state of New York.

Wherever he was, he'd be the top.

Bob, what about the interweaving of the music?

I mean, you know, sometimes Springsteen's voice and Clarence's saxophone can sound almost interchangeable in the way they're wailing up there.

You know, is one infusing the other?

And who's drawing from whom here?

Well, both, interestingly enough.

Both.

They draw from gospel music.

Clarence, being an African-American, obviously got his early musical roots, if you will, from the church.

And Bruce studied gospel singers.

And a lot of the even soul singers and R&B singers that he admired had roots in the church.

So there was, despite the difference in skin color, there was an absolute creative common denominator there that they drew from.

So that when they put it together, the sax.

And Bruce's voice, it was just a natural synergy.

Let's get our listeners right in here.

Carmen in Nashville, Tennessee.

Carmen, thanks for calling.

You're on the air.

Hi, Tom.

Thanks for taking my call.

Sure.

I have never called, had never had the desire to call.

But I am a Bruce Springsteen fanatic and even more a Clarence Clemons fanatic.

I screamed more at the concert in Nashville for Clarence.

I did for Bruce Springsteen.

He was a little.

I think he couldn't walk very much.

He had some joint issues after a while.

His joints were tough for him, I think.

But it didn't even matter.

He would scoop and tug along when his car came up and he would blow like you wouldn't believe.

I went crazy.

What do you know here?

Here he was bringing all that in his saxophone to this band.

What did he add?

You know, there's your white guy, Bruce, and there's your black guy, Clarence.

What did Clarence bring, Carmen?

It was a match made in heaven.

Not only was he African-American.

He was so tall and majestic and mysterious.

And he would blow like the soul was coming out.

It was, oh, I just can't take it now.

I'm just, oh, I'm visualizing it now.

Carmen, we love it.

I love it.

We love it.

Bring it on.

Thank you so much.

And one more.

Esme in Acton, Massachusetts.

Esme, you're on the air.

Hi, Tom.

Thanks for taking my call.

I wanted to say that I think Clarence Clemons.

What a giant exclamation point on everything that he, every song he played with Bruce.

Amen.

And he would, you know, in I'm Born to Run, he brought out that, oh, that adolescent,

I'm getting out of here.

And, you know, I fully believe that I'm free.

I'm going to be free.

I'm going to be joyful.

Yeah.

And it's strong, but there's that tiny note of sadness.

I mean, at the saxophone, there's always that tiny little note of hesitancy or something

just in there.

But other songs that are sad, you know, like Jungle Land, some of the other ones that he

has a solo on.

And it's sad.

And he's saying in the music what the words are saying in the song that, unfortunately,

sometimes are overlooked by listeners.

Not today, Esme.

I think you and Carmen are both right on the money there.

Big exclamation mark in his saxophone.

No question about it.

Here's a little tape, Esme, Carmen, of Bruce Springsteen.

This is 1999 when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll.

Hall of Fame.

He made sure to thank Clarence Clements, saying he could not have done it without him.

Together, we told a story of the possibilities of friendship, a story older than the ones

that I was writing, and a story that I could never have told without him at my side.

I want to thank you, big man.

I love you so much.

Of course, Clarence Clements had some fun of his own.

A band on the side, Temple of Soul.

Here's a little bit from...

From that band off the 2008 album, Brothers in Arms.

Temple of Soul, his own.

Brothers in the Temple of Soul

Brothers in the Temple

Brothers in the Temple of Soul

Good, good, nice, nice.

But me, myself, and I, I want him with Bruce, Tim.

I don't know.

Yeah, no, you definitely want him with Bruce.

And he did a lot of session work, and, you know, he played on some very famous tracks.

He played on Aretha Franklin's hit, Who's Zoomin' Who.

Most recently, he played on Lady Gaga's hit, and his last live gig was playing the season

finale of American Idol.

So he was active and loved to play whenever he was asked to play with other people.

But his main gig was Bruce Springsteen, and, you know, he will be remembered.

He was remembered for his work with Bruce Springsteen.

Had a stroke on June 12th, died of complications from that on June 18th.

He was 69 years old.

They've had the funeral.

Bruce Springsteen was there, Bob Santelli, a private funeral, but the boss was right

there for Clarence at the end.

Yes, as soon as he heard of the situation, he flew right down to Florida, and he, along

with other members of the E Street Band, were there when Clarence passed.

And real friendship here, off the stage, beyond the music?

Oh, yeah.

You know, when Bruce said, Clarence, I love you so much, he did.

There was this special bond that these two had that was greater than perhaps any of the

other members of the E Street Band.

And Bruce, you know, clearly created this family concept within the band, and it went

very well, and it went over very well on the Jersey Shore, because on the Jersey Shore,

there's a real interesting mix of a lot of ethnicities.

A lot of Italian-Americans.

Irish-Americans.

African-Americans.

There's a surf culture there, and this sense of bond that everyone having a nickname, Clarence,

of course, the big man, it all led to a solidarity and a situation where it was all for one and

one for all.

Bob, send by if you would.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

We've got to get into this break here.

We'll come right back, and we'll pick it up right there.

Bob Santelli, executive director of the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles.

Tim Riley with me in the studio.

Bobby Jean here with Clarence right in there.

Listeners.

You can join us.

800-423-8255.

What's your memory, your moment of the great big man?

I'm Tom Ashbrook.

This is On Point.

We'll be right back.

On Point.

We'll be right back.

I'm Tom Ashbrook.

This is On Point.

We're talking this hour about the great sax man, the great side man, Clarence Clemons,

the big man, the soul of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, dead last week at 69.

Tim Riley joins us, music critic and historian, editor of the Riley Rock Index.

Tell me why, fever.

Look for his lens.

Coming out this fall, Robert Santelli is here.

Joins us today from Seattle, Washington.

He's executive director of the Grammy Museum in L.A., author of Greetings from E Street,

the story of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

You can join us this hour.

Boy, just enjoying it right here, right now.

You're a friend of mine behind us.

This is Clarence Clemons and Jackson Brown had a hit with that.

Did you soar with Clarence Clemons' saxophone in Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run, Thunder Road, Jungle Land, Dancing in the Dark?

Could you hear why Springsteen loved the big man?

Could you see that love when they played together?

800-423-8255 is our number.

800-423-TALK.

So many callers.

You're Tom in Buffalo, New York.

Tom, you're on the air.

Hi, Tom.

I concur with just about everything everybody's said so far.

And I think Bruce put it best with what Clarence brought to the band was this sense of something bigger than the songs themselves.

Like, I'm Born to Run.

A lot of it was, you know, cars.

And girls, like, stuff, rock and rolls about, you know, a young man's game.

But Clarence's horn brought this vision and this grandiosity of humanity and friendship.

And I think that's going to be really hard to replace because the character himself, Clarence's character, was such a grandiose human being and such a larger-than-life figure.

I think you're going to find, when that day finally comes where Bruce goes to join him,

I'm not sure how the world.

I'm not sure how the world will react now that Clarence is gone.

I think that's the biggest hole that could happen to the E Street Band was the loss of Clarence.

It's a big, big hole.

There are many saxophone players, but he had that unique chemistry in this setting.

It started very early on with the famous story of them meeting way back in the day.

Bob Santelli, I hope you'll tell us, but we've got a little bit of Clarence Clements himself describing that what became a kind of mythological moment that he and Bruce Springsteen,

sort of made their connection that brought Clemens right into the band.

Here's a 2009 radio interview.

Clarence Clemens describing his first time headed right into the world of The Boss, Springsteen.

And I walked into the club and opened the door and the wind actually tore the door out of my hand and blew it down the street.

So all the bouncers go running down the street after the door.

And I'm standing there with this light.

And then there's thunder behind me.

And I walk in.

It's a black guy walking into a white club.

And I was like, whoa, wait a minute.

And I walked over to Bruce.

I found out who Bruce was.

And I walked over and said, I want to sit in.

He said, sure, you know, whatever you want to do.

So I sat in and it was a magical moment.

I swear I have never, I will never forget that moment.

Clarence Clemens in 2009.

Bob Santelli.

He and Bruce Springsteen.

And Bruce Springsteen told that story again and again and again.

It just got better.

The big black man framed in the door, lightning behind, storm outside, and off goes the career.

Yeah.

It got bigger, too, as the years went by and more romantic.

But in essence, you know, it's on the boardwalk.

It's a windy night and the wind would blow off the ocean.

So the door did go off.

I don't know if it went all the way down the boardwalk.

And I don't know if every bouncer went after it.

But, you know, what Clarence said was true.

You have to understand that in the early 1970s, Esbury Park was torn racially.

In 1970, there was a major race riot there.

And the difference between black and white was very significant.

Springsteen bridged that with not only the music he was playing at the time, which was basically R&B.

He had black people in that band, which was very unusual for the time in that area of Jersey.

And when Clarence came in and actually sat in, this was not something that was unusual either.

Yeah.

And invited people in to play.

Esbury Park had a great tradition of jamming.

After Hours Club, like the Upstage, would encourage this sort of thing.

So it was a natural thing for him to do.

What was unnatural, unusual, was how quickly those two hit it off.

I mean, it was instant.

And before long, people were starting to think, wow, this guy, this new guy's in Bruce's band.

He's amazing.

The guy just adds so much to the sound.

And then they took it from there.

Bob Santelli, Tim Riley, stand by.

Let's get a musician who's been right there.

With Clarence Clemons, knows him from the stage point of view and more than that.

T.M. Stevens joins us right now on tour bus in North Carolina.

Bass guitarist, played with Clarence Clemons' band, Temple of Soul.

He's also played with James Brown and Miles Davis, Pretenders.

You know, Cyndi Lauper, Billy Joel, right on.

He's currently touring with Bootsy Collins on the Funk Unity band.

T.M. Stevens, thank you very, very much for being with us today.

Oh, we just lost him there.

We'll get him back in North Carolina.

We promise.

Let's go to Chris in Baltimore, Maryland.

Chris, you're on the air.

Hey, Tom.

Hey, what do you know?

Hail to the big man.

I just want to put it out there because I know everybody else is wondering,

how do you replace somebody that's irreplaceable?

I mean, Bruce, if you're listening,

it seems to me like you're going to have to pick up on ten horns or somebody to replace this guy.

And what if you're the guy that has the prospect of coming in and filling,

what are you going to do about it?

What are you going to do about it?

What are you going to say?

How do you do it?

Ah, it's a big question.

Bob, let me put it to you.

What do you think Springsteen will do if he wants to bring back those songs?

He's got to have somebody to play that sax.

Yeah, but not to replace Clarence.

That's an impossibility.

You know, you can get other players to play the parts.

But the magic and the intimacy that they expressed on stage is irreplaceable.

It's going to be interesting to see how Bruce approaches, you know, the loss of Clarence.

Obviously, it's premature to say, but it's going to be interesting to see how Bruce approaches,

you know, the loss of Clarence.

Obviously, it's premature to say, but it's going to be interesting to see how Bruce approaches,

you know, the loss of Clarence.

Obviously, it's premature to say, but it's going to be interesting to see how Bruce approaches,

you know, the loss of Clarence.

Obviously, it's premature to say, but it's going to be interesting to see how Bruce approaches,

you know, the loss of Clarence.

Obviously, it's premature to say, but it's going to be interesting to see how Bruce approaches,

you know, the loss of Clarence.

Obviously, it's premature to say, but it's going to be interesting to see how Bruce approaches,

you know, the loss of Clarence.

Obviously, it's premature to say, but it's going to be interesting to see how Bruce approaches,

you know, the loss of Clarence.

The loss of Clarence. Obviously, it's premature to say, but my guess is that he pushes on, he finds a way to get around it, and will recognize the absence of Clarence in his own unique way, just like he recognized the absence of the late Danny Federici, the organ player.

You've got to remember, now we have lost two members of the E Street Band, and Clarence being the oldest, of course, by six or seven years, but still, to lose two key people who have been with Bruce from the beginning, that's tough.

But Tim, he's going to want to play, and he's going to want to play those songs, and someone's going to have to wail on him. Who would you throw in there? Not to say they're Clarence, but anyway.

Yeah, no, he'll have to figure out some kind of tribute, and there'll be very explicit mention of Clarence, and a tribute to Clarence, and anybody who stands in will...

It will be very self-conscious, there's no way that they can replace Clarence. So they have this dilemma, the way The Who had with Keith Moon. They want to keep playing, and they're going to have to get a new drummer, and they're going to have to fill a space, and the object there will be to not even try to fill it.

The object will be, well, we're moving on in a different format, with a different player, and different goals, and a whole different scene.

Yeah, that'll be a bar to clear for somebody. T.M. Stevens, I hope we have right now, on that bus in North Carolina, touring with Bootsy Collins and the Funk Unity Band. T.M., are you there?

Yes.

Yes, hello, Tom. How are you?

We're good, and we're so grateful to you for coming on. You know Clarence well. Played right there, right with him. Describe this man, this musician to us, T.M.

Clarence, to me, when I met him, because I met him, I was playing with Little Steven. And then when I met Clarence, man, you know, I always saw this big, huge guy, a little scary to me, but he has a heart of a teddy bear.

And I ended up moving in his town, in the Jersey Shore, where I live now, and when he'd come down...

We'd meet in coffee shops, and we'd talk. And I'd never met anybody that humble, with that amount of talent. Ever. And we heard about it a few days ago, and last night, Bootsy, the P-Funk members, we all had a prayer circle for him, right in the dressing room before the show.

Oh, that's good. That's good. And, you know, 6'5", teddy bear, it was real music, T.M. This was not auto-tuned stuff. This was not canned stuff.

Oh, we may have lost him in North Carolina.

North Carolina, again. Oh, maybe we'll get him back a little more. I hope we can. Tim, in Nashville, Tennessee. Tim, thanks for calling. You're on the air.

Hi.

Hi, Tim. What do you know?

Well, I just was listening to your program on Clarence, and I wanted to tell a little story. I'm a musician. I'm a keyboard player.

And I was playing with Alvin Lee when Clarence did some sessions, and we went off and did some shows with a German artist called Peter Maffei.

And there was another saxophone player on that show, a young German guy. He turned to Clarence one day and said,

Clarence, I have the same saxophone, the same mouthpiece, and the same reed. Why can't I get the same sound as you?

And Clarence turned around to him and said, you're wearing the wrong clothes.

That's a great story. What goes as Clarence goes, Tim? What's it take away?

Sorry?

What goes with Clarence? What does he take away?

I mean, he was just a great soul man. He wasn't a jazz player. He was a rock player. Rock saxophonists don't get a lot of chances in the pop business.

And he was just a great guy, and he played great. In the true tradition of rock and roll saxophone, there aren't many rock and roll saxophone players anymore.

Yeah, true enough, though. He managed to bring some back, but it had been a long time.

And maybe again, Tim, thanks for your call. T.M. Stevens, I think I've got you back once more.

You do.

Give me the heart of it, my friend, before I lose you again. What goes with this man? What was unique in him?

Everything is unique. I mean, today the music business is throwaway. It's cookie cutter. You know, you download it, you do this.

But I mean, he's an artist, artist, artist. Those things are very valuable.

You know, he takes a lot with him, and we have to keep it. That's our job to keep it up.

That's what Bootsy told me.

That's what Bootsy told me last night.

Yeah.

We have to keep that up. True art.

Right there in the prayer circle, right there in the music. T.M. Stevens, we're so grateful to you for spending a couple of minutes with us on the road today.

Thank you very much for helping us remember Clarence Clemons. Really, really great.

And so much feedback here online. Lisa, or here's what, Tony, God bless the big man. Lisa, may the four winds take him home.

Nate says, a light goes out on E Street Springsteen's passion, eloquence, and soul.

We're matched pound for pound in Clarence's playing. A few more pounds in Springsteen, I think, in the physical man.

And then here's one on Twitter. It says, Clarence's horn brought the spiritual hopes of humanity to bear.

Tim, this starts to get pretty big here. But Bob says it, too, that gospel flowed right into that saxophone, into this music.

Oh, absolutely. You can hear the gospel overtones in many, many things, in the way he played the saxophone, in the way that Springsteen addressed the audience.

And Springsteen would do this great put-on as a rock and roll preacher more and more self-consciously as his career progressed.

And Clarence would be the guy he would lean on to help him do that, definitely.

You know, there had not been saxophone much in the rock and roll arena until Springsteen put this one front and center.

Yeah. And, you know, the ironic thing there is that it's kind of a nostalgic move because we're talking about the history of saxophone and rock and roll.

And you've got to go back to the coasters and King Curtis. And that's clearly.

That's clearly the kind of saxophone that Clarence Clemons wanted to play.

And you forget that the R&B tradition, the saxophone really was front and center.

It was a lead instrument and it was sparring with the vocalist a lot.

And it came out of the big band jazz tradition.

But when those combos got smaller in R&B, they held on to the saxophone and it slowly disappeared as we got to guitar bands and guitars started to take over.

Springsteen is reviving this older tradition and that's part of his larger historical mission is to say he wants to embrace.

The whole sweep of rock and roll.

Clarence Clemons, the big man, we're looking back and listening back on his life today.

I'm Tom Ashbrook. This is On Point.

Let's hear a little bit of that, maybe influence on Clemons himself.

King Curtis. Here's King Curtis playing the sax on Yakety Yak, the 1958 hit by the coasters.

Don't hold back.

Bob Santelli, it sounds a little, I don't know, you know, sort of jittery and a little too chipper there.

Clarence takes it in a whole other direction.

But right there you can hear what he did indeed pick up on and draw large in the E Street band, Bob.

Yes. You know, the roots of King Curtis are undeniable.

However, there's an interesting thing because when Clarence first goes into the recording studio, he takes a lot of cues from Bruce.

Bruce is, in a way, instructing Clarence on exactly what kind of feel, what kind of tone he wanted.

And on those great songs that we first hear Clarence in a very serious way, Jungle Land, Thunder Road, Born to Run, the great Born to Run album, I've said, 1975.

You have...

You have a great working connection between these two where Bruce is asking him for that King Curtis kind of sound and soul feel.

And Clarence is getting from Bruce almost like a roadmap to articulate exactly the kind of song, the notes and the kind of feel Bruce needs for the songs in order for them to be successful.

So it really was a great working relationship.

And we shouldn't forget, too, that Bruce was well versed in this music.

You know.

He grew up on the coasters.

Being on the Jersey Shore, there were so many bars in Asbury Park, Seaside Heights, Point Pleasant Beach, all of these places where these kind of traditional bands would play for summer audiences.

And you could not, if you were a musician and you were paying attention, you got an education every summer into the history of rock and roll.

If it's collaboration, we'll take it here as a Clemens solo on the ties that bind off the 1979 album, The River.

Tim Riley, what do you hear in the back and forth between these two men, their minds, their vision?

Springsteen, I don't know the conductor here, but Clarence teaching, too.

It just flows right through the horn.

Well, right.

No, Springsteen providing the perfect frame that Clarence can then fit into and expand.

And step outside of a little bit.

I kind of like your comparison earlier with the way that the sax and the voice work together.

It's kind of the analogy I think of is kind of Robert Plant's voice and Jimmy Page's guitar.

And there's an interesting duet that goes on there where the voice is trying to mimic the guitar.

And the guitar is actually fitting inside the sound of the voice and mimicking the voice.

So there's this, they're trying to create something new.

They're trying to fit inside one another's sounds and fuse the physical and stage camaraderie in musical terms.

But definitely the stage camaraderie.

I mean, it just blew it up and made it big.

Springsteen's big already, but that sax was perfect for the big venue.

Just to blow the top off.

And the other thing that is very, very important to that camaraderie is that Bruce is becoming a bigger and bigger star.

It's very clear how much he needs this sideman, needs this best friend to lean on.

And there are often times when Bruce Springsteen would take the stage and get a huge ovation.

But the biggest ovation yet would come when that.

When that first sax solo came and the spotlight would hit Clarence Clemons.

And you have to imagine that that was a tremendous sense of support for Bruce Springsteen.

Because he's carrying so much of the load already as the songwriter, as the band leader, as the lead singer, many lead guitar solos.

And so him.

Take it away for a minute here, Clarence.

Take it away from him.

And being able to lean on somebody else.

And that was a very important part.

Springsteen saying that Clarence Clemons brought on the energy, the myth.

The light.

We're talking about the great sax man, the great sideman, Clarence Clemons.

The big man from the E Street Band with Tim Riley and Robert Santelli.

You can join the conversation 800-423-8255.

800-423-TALK.

I'm Tom Ashbrook.

This is On Point.

We'll be right back.

Santa Claus is coming to town.

Ho, ho, ho, ho.

Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho.

The church was a-rockin'

The choir sang some love songs

Brothers on a sleaze of break-in

Ho, ho, ho, ho.

I'm Tom Ashbrook.

This is On Point, and we're talking this hour about the great sax man,

Bruce Springsteen's side man, Clarence Clemons, the big man.

Springsteen called him in the E Street band, dead last week at 69.

Here he is in his own band, Temple of Soul, the song Father John,

off the 2002 Temple of Soul album, live in Asbury Park.

Of all things, Tim Riley joins us today, music critic and historian.

Robert Santelli is with us from Seattle, executive director of the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles,

author of Greetings from E Street, the story of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street band.

You can join us.

Where did Clarence Clemons take you, and with what song?

Did you know, do you, the back story, the almost Cleveland Brown?

He was a football player early on the door, torn off its hinges, famously the lightning.

800-423-8255 is our number, 800-423-TALK.

Let's get Phil.

From Pepperell, Massachusetts, on the air.

Hi, Phil.

Thanks for calling.

Hi, Tom.

Thanks for taking my call.

Yeah.

Great show.

I just thought I'd throw out a little memory I have of seeing Clarence.

First time I saw Springsteen in the E Street band was, I'm thinking it was 1977.

I was in high school, and we played at a place called the Music Hall in Boston.

It's now called the Wang Center.

But it was four hours of just powerful music, but at some point in the middle,

in the Music Hall, there's not a center aisle.

There's an aisle on the left, an aisle on the right.

So, Bruce Springsteen starts coming up my aisle, and I was sitting right on the aisle with a wireless guitar,

and Clarence starts coming up the other aisle with a wireless mic on his sax.

Well, Springsteen isn't all that big, and within a couple rows, he was mobbed by fans,

and they had to haul him back to the stage.

But I looked across the other aisle, and there's Clarence Clemons just marching up and down the aisle.

It was like Moses parting the seas or something.

Nobody would dare touch him.

Just this powerful presence walking right out into the crowd.

It was a great show and a great memory.

Six, five, and sometimes I think I've heard three.

He could definitely part the waters with that.

And Springsteen, it's funny, Bob.

Springsteen, you know, for all that kind of muscle and cocky jut on the front of his albums,

not a tall guy, certainly not next to Clarence Clemons, Bob.

No, and back in the day when they met, Springsteen was not only a bit smaller, but a whole lot skinnier.

It's not until the early 1980s that Bruce discovers weights and begins, you know,

a fitness regimen that makes him quite buff by the born-in-the-USA days.

But, no, when you looked at the two of them, clearly Bruce had to look up at big man in more ways than one.

Clarence Clemons played around, played a lot.

Here's some of him playing with Aretha Franklin on her 1985 hit single, Freeway of Love.

Hmm.

With the wind and your fingers in my hand.

I kind of think we're going for an extended throwdown.

So drop the top, baby, and let's cruise on into this better-than-ever street.

You know him when you hear him.

Sky in West Union, Ohio.

Thanks for calling, Sky.

You're on the air.

Hi, Tom.

Thank you for this show so very much.

Sure.

I used to be in the concert business, and we had a hall that could hold like 16,000, 18,000.

But Bruce, that was early on, and we only sold like 7,000-plus seats, so we put a big curtain up.

So it seemed very intimate that night.

And I usually used to watch part of the shows.

I'd go work.

I'd be backstage, whatever.

But that night, like everyone else in the audience, I was on my chair the entire time.

And especially, everybody got on their chairs with Clarence.

He did his thing.

That's when everybody got up and didn't sit down for the whole concert.

And then after the concert, I took my friend backstage.

I'm short, and she was very tall, like 6'1".

I said, oh, you've got to meet Clarence.

And while I introduced her to him, and you know, people go out to eat afterwards.

You go to bars.

Sure.

He was very, very gracious to her all night, and he was just a wonderful man.

Well, let me ask you then, Sky.

While I've got you married five times, we read in the wires.

Four of those wives at his funeral, this was a man with some allure, Sky.

Oh, yeah.

Well, he and Bruce both.

I mean, you just, you walk in, and I like it.

You know, I've been around all these famous people, and I remember Bruce was standing

in a little room by himself, sweating to death.

And I went up to him and said something inane like, you are rock and roll.

You know, but yeah, you walk up to either one of them, and they have such charisma

and such grace, I think.

They have such grace.

I appreciate that memory very much, Sky.

Thanks for calling with that.

Clemens just kept going.

It was just a few months ago.

He got a call from Lady Gaga's people, of all things.

He's featured on two songs on the new Lady Gaga album, Born This Way.

Here he is playing on the song, The Edge of Glory.

I'm on the edge of glory

And I'm hanging on, I'm moving with you

I'm on the edge with you

Yeah, yeah, yeah

I'm on the edge with you

I was reading you got that call.

Lady Gaga might want to perform with you.

He said, sure, I'd love to do it sometime.

They said, no, right now.

He was in New York and at the microphone in no time at all.

There he is now, already on the album.

The man himself is gone.

Tyrone in Chesapeake, Virginia.

Tyrone.

Thanks for calling.

You're on the air.

Thanks for taking my call.

Yeah, just real quickly.

I'm a kid from Queens, New York.

I went to school in Queens and grew up in the 70s.

And I grew up in the projects, but I was into rock and roll, you know.

And then it was like the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin in Chicago.

And I really enjoyed horn sections.

So I'd go back and forth between Chicago and Earth, Wind & Fire.

And then one day I heard the E Street Band and I heard Clarence Clemons.

And that was it for me.

And I played a little role in a school play.

And we were in a band.

And I played a part of Clarence Clemons in the school play.

And from that experience, when I went to junior high school, I started playing the alto saxophone.

And it's...

It just opened up a whole new world for me.

You know, I did better in all my classes and school and everything.

And I was a little short kid, but I was cool because I played the saxophone.

And, you know, the girls liked the saxophone, you know.

And it was just a phenomenal, phenomenal time in my life.

And I remember, you know, the synergy between Bruce Springsteen and Clarence Clemons

and all the barriers that they broke down with, you know, the universal language.

of music and the love that was in their music was truly phenomenal.

And coincidentally, when I moved from New York to Virginia,

I now live in Churchill Peak, Virginia, on Butt Station Road, where Clarence Clemons is from.

Wow. So you're right there on the home front.

Tyrone, I appreciate that call.

I want to ask about that, you know, lines that were crossed and what the symbolism there was.

But, Bob, just a little bit on that youth.

Clarence sort of bouncing from one kind of saxophone to another.

A big football player when he was young.

And I think he was on his way to a tryout for the Cleveland Browns when he had a car accident that ended that.

But he had been on that track before he got thrown off with some bad luck, Bob.

Yeah, that's right.

And that bad luck led to a lot of good luck because, as we've been saying, you know,

he finds his way into New Jersey.

He's working as a counselor and then playing in bands at night.

And that lucky, fortuitous meeting with Bruce occurs.

But, you know, if it didn't happen that night, it would have happened another night.

I mean, clearly they were on a course that their paths would meet because Asbury Park is in a very large city, town.

And the musicians seen there, the community is very, very tight.

Everyone knew each other.

People in the Bruce Springsteen Band and the early E Street Band knew.

Of the players on the other side of the tracks, even though they didn't play in the black clubs there, they certainly knew of them.

And Gary Town, bass player, Southside Johnny's also from there.

There was a lot of give and take.

And, of course, Bruce had an African-American player even before Clarence.

And that was David Sanchez, who played keyboards for him.

So there was this great connect.

And, you know, I don't know if Clarence would have made a good football player or not.

But I'm real glad that he didn't choose football or football didn't choose him.

We got a lot in return.

But think about that moment.

Of course, in the mythology, it's this instant connect, the blown away door and the lightning.

And it all happens right there.

But think about that with us for a second.

This clearly was not the first saxophone player Bruce Springsteen had heard.

You know, how did they get to know each other?

Do you think that Bruce heard something in Clarence's sax about where he wanted to go or heard it and thought, I can bring that toward me?

Do you have a sense of that by play?

You know, one of the key components of whatever they call it.

The Jersey Shore sound was horns.

Bruce had a horn section in the Bruce Springsteen band.

Horns and saxophones were not alien to his sound at the time.

What Clarence brought and they were good players and there still are great players in the Asbury Park area.

I mean, all you have to do is look at some of the jukes.

Half of just about all of the band that Max Weinberg had with Conan O'Brien from Jersey Shore and played in the jukes and Asbury Park bands.

What Clarence brought in addition to being a good saxophone player.

And then later a great one was that he had charisma.

Bruce knew right away that what he could do with him on stage would be very special, that he couldn't do that with any of the other players that he had.

Clarence bought charisma.

His size had a lot to do with it.

His geniality and his sense of tenderness had a lot to do with it.

Bruce recognized that right away.

And Clarence, someone said it before, Clarence dressed great.

He looked just very cool up on stage.

So much so that you start.

Looking at from like 1974, 75, you have Little Steven, who at the time was Miami, Steve Van Zandt and others really start to emulate the look of Clarence Clements that are all dressed out.

Half of them look like young pimps, but but they really did create this look.

And really, Clarence had a lot to do with it.

I want to talk about the meeting of races there as well.

But here's a little bit from 1978.

Clarence trading solos with Springsteen on the song Badlands from the 78 album Darkness on the Edge of Town.

You'll hear.

Bruce on guitar first, then Clarence Clemons.

Well,

oh,

Badlands there, 1978.

I'm Tom Ashbrook. This is On Point.

Tim Riley, we talked earlier with the great music critic Nelson George,

African-American music critic, terrific guy.

We were talking with him about Clarence and Bruce.

And, you know, he said that one of the ironies, Nelson told us,

of Clarence Clement's career was that he was a black musician

famous in a white context, Nelson said.

He said, you know, look, he's black, but Springsteen, Nelson George said,

didn't have that much of a black following.

He played in this big white rock band that, in Nelson George's view,

didn't have that much connection to black culture.

Yes, and it's one of the things that they opened themselves up for criticism for.

And critics who would go and see Springsteen after hearing all the hype

would come out of shows.

And say, well, you know, there's a degree of tokenism going on here.

Springsteen's clearly just got a black man up front just for show.

Just, it doesn't have anything else to do with the rest of the band.

It doesn't have anything to do with the rest of his audience.

He wasn't attracting any black people.

The rainbow look, but the music itself, doesn't the argument break down there?

I mean, wasn't Clarence's contribution genuine?

Right, and the other thing is the more you get to know the Bruce Springsteen story,

the more you understand that Clarence Clemens was the surviving black member

of the E Street band, and that the drummer on Born to Run

is a black man named Ernst.

Ernest Boom Carter, and that Carter goes off to join David Sanchez

when Sanchez leaves the band.

So there are actually three black people in the band before,

and Carter, I mean, Clemens is the remaining black member of the band.

The other thing that needs emphasis here is that even though he took this criticism

for tokenism, he stuck with Carter, and Carter remains a key figure

in the E Street band for 40 years.

And so he is very clearly, it goes way beyond tokenism

because these men are very clever.

Clearly invested in this partnership, in this relationship,

and everything that it signifies.

Bob Santelli, I think we've heard from African-American listeners

with enthusiasm in this hour, but what did Clarence think of it?

You've seen Springsteen concerts.

They're generally white audiences there.

How do you look at it, Bob? Do you know?

Yeah, that's true, but I can tell you right from the early days in 1971, 1972,

even though black people weren't coming to the white clubs,

Clarence being an exception,

and that famous story, the fact of the matter was

when black people on the Jersey Shore, in particular Long Branch,

Asbury Park, happened to see Springsteen or happened to hear him,

there was absolute respect.

They realized that this guy not only was a great performer

and a great rock and roll artist, but also had done his homework.

He had understood and brought into this sense of music R&B, gospel, soul music.

It wasn't where he was just, oh, let me just imitate this.

No.

He had a strong understanding of it.

He was a student.

Bruce, more than anything else, I've always said, is a student of rock and roll.

He knows his history.

He knows where things came from, which is why I always thought Born to Run,

with Clarence being one of the key components of it,

was one of the greatest rock and roll albums of all time

because it referenced so beautifully the past

and brought the past into, at the time, the present

in such a way that no one had been able to do in the mid-1970s.

So many people writing.

Sully was a Saturday night in Hartford.

I saw Eddie.

Vedder there introducing the song Better Man,

talking about Clements dedicating that song.

Lots of musicians coming out.

Tim, we're going to go out with Jungle Land.

You know, not that high highway, a little more somber,

a little more sober, but everybody.

Talk to us about Clarence in this song.

Well, in this song, it's a very special sax solo

because it really captures the epic sweep of the lyric

that Bruce Springsteen has laid out.

And in the middle, you get this giant instrumental section

that seems to just take it to a whole different poetic level.

And it's very...

It's very much about who Clemens is

and the role that he plays in the band.

And it's really got...

It's got the essence of the music all built right into this one sax solo.

It's a very special moment for Clarence Clemens fans.

Well, we will not forget and thank heavens for this duo,

these two together, and for Clarence Clemens

and all that he brought to it

and brought to so many audiences over so many years.

Tim Riley, author of Tell Me Why, Fever,

and look this fall for his latest Lennon, The Man,

and the Myth, the Music, the Definitive Biography.

Great to have you with us, Tim.

Thank you, Tom.

And Robert Santelli joining us today from Seattle, Washington,

executive director of the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles,

author of Greetings from E Street,

the story of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

Bob, terrific to have you with us today.

Thank you so much.

My pleasure.

We go out with Jungle Land.

You cannot miss the big man, Clarence Clemens.

Listeners, thanks for joining us.

I'm Tom Ashbrook.

This is On Point.

On Point.

On Point is a production of WBUR Boston and NPR.