http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/
June 20, 2011
That’s not to say I didn’t long recognize his central role in that exceptional outfit, his place as musical foil and compadre-on-the-road-of-life for the band’s leader, or that I never appreciated his inestimable contributions to so many cornerstone songs in the band’s long and deep repertoire.
The revelation of Clemons’ passing is the crystallization of how the signature blazing sound of tenor sax work never spent much time in my head—it always went straight to my gut, my heart, my soul.
I never met the man, but through countless Springsteen shows I’ve witnessed, along with the legacy of the band’s recordings, like so many other music fans I considered Clemons and the rest of the E Street Band to be part of my extended family, brothers in musical arms.
Springsteen himself, guitarists Steve Van Zandt and Nils Lofgren, keyboardists Roy Bittan and the late Danny Federici (and, early on, David Sancious), bassist Gary W. Tallent and drummer Max Weinberg each at various times have left me in awe of their mastery of their instruments in a way that Clemons never did.
I’m a sax player too, and like Clemons, I’ve been playing since I was a kid. There have been a lot of players I’ve admired over the years (Lester Young, Stan Getz), many I’ve been daunted by (Charlie Parker, Don Menza), but none I ever felt more of a spiritual bond with than Clemons.
In part that’s because he came not out of the school of jazz that has produced so many technically astonishing players, but from the school of “honkers and shouters”: R&B and soul sax players such as Big Jay McNeely, Sam “The Man” Taylor, Lee Allen, Junior Walker and Clemons’ original role model, King Curtis. As others have accurately noted, Clemons was the E Street Band’s looming connection to the African American foundation of rock music that was so influential on all the band members.
The wondrous thing about Clemons was that everything he played, in solos or accompanying his bandmates, was astonishingly simple from a technical viewpoint, which surfaced in the’70s in striking (and, to me, welcome) contrast to the more sophisticated styles of the likes of Tom Scott and David Sanborn, who were ever-present in studio sessions at that time and since.
Sometimes, as on “Cadillac Ranch,” Clemons would essentially mirror the song’s melody or main guitar riff; in others, “Born to Run” and “Jungleland” being sterling examples, he fashioned indelibly melodic parts that became essential limbs of songs without which they’d be crippled.
In “Badlands,” Springsteen sang of the yearning for something beyond the meager rewards of ordinary life: “I don’t give a damn for just the in-betweens/Honey I want the heart, I want the soul/I want control right now.” When Clemons enters the conversation after Bruce’s guitar solo a few seconds later, he conjures up the sound of the heart and soul unfettered by earthly worries, all in the impossibly short space of eight bars.
More than once, Clemons’ solos were positioned at the end of a song, rather than stereotypically in the middle, Springsteen’s tacit acknowledgement that having expressed himself in words, Clemons’ job was to express the rest of the feeling that couldn’t be contained in words. Think of “Thunder Road” after Springsteen sings “It’s a town full of losers and I’m pulling out of here to win” and Clemons answers with a bristling ascending melody that pushes the lyric into the clouds.
The first track I wanted to hear after learning of Clemons’ death on Saturday was “Sherry Darling,” from “The River.” For me it’s his perfect expression of unbridled joy, and it’s hard not to think that Springsteen dreamed up this rock tango in large part just to give Clemons an excuse to blow so happily. Whenever I hear it, my spirit dances, even in situations where my feet must resist.
For similar reasons, the instrumental “Paradise By the C” was always a much-anticipated concert highlight when it was a regular part of E Street Band tours of the '70s, with its swinging echoes of Gary U.S. Bond’s “Quarter to Three,” itself a Springsteen staple on the road that always gave Clemons room to exercise those ample lungs of his.
And those lungs? Bruce sang in “The Promised Land” about the twister that would “blow away the dreams that tear you apart/blow away the dreams that break your heart”; with his sax in hand, Clarence was that twister.
How or whether the E Street Band can continue without him is unknown. When Neil Young’s longtime steel guitarist Ben Keith died last year, Young estimated that there’s about 70% of his repertoire he feels he can’t play without Keith there at his side.
It’s not hard to imagine Springsteen feeling the same way about attempting “Born To Run,” “Jungleland,” “Prove It All Night,” "Badlands," “Rosalita” and so many other songs with all the E Streeters except the Big Man along.
The band has continued after the loss three years ago of Federici, so maybe there’s a way to do it, but it will take a lot of thought. Scratch that. Considering who we’re talking about, such matters should be left entirely to the realm of feeling.
I’m a sax player too, and like Clemons, I’ve been playing since I was a kid. There have been a lot of players I’ve admired over the years (Lester Young, Stan Getz), many I’ve been daunted by (Charlie Parker, Don Menza), but none I ever felt more of a spiritual bond with than Clemons.
In part that’s because he came not out of the school of jazz that has produced so many technically astonishing players, but from the school of “honkers and shouters”: R&B and soul sax players such as Big Jay McNeely, Sam “The Man” Taylor, Lee Allen, Junior Walker and Clemons’ original role model, King Curtis. As others have accurately noted, Clemons was the E Street Band’s looming connection to the African American foundation of rock music that was so influential on all the band members.
The wondrous thing about Clemons was that everything he played, in solos or accompanying his bandmates, was astonishingly simple from a technical viewpoint, which surfaced in the’70s in striking (and, to me, welcome) contrast to the more sophisticated styles of the likes of Tom Scott and David Sanborn, who were ever-present in studio sessions at that time and since.
Sometimes, as on “Cadillac Ranch,” Clemons would essentially mirror the song’s melody or main guitar riff; in others, “Born to Run” and “Jungleland” being sterling examples, he fashioned indelibly melodic parts that became essential limbs of songs without which they’d be crippled.
In “Badlands,” Springsteen sang of the yearning for something beyond the meager rewards of ordinary life: “I don’t give a damn for just the in-betweens/Honey I want the heart, I want the soul/I want control right now.” When Clemons enters the conversation after Bruce’s guitar solo a few seconds later, he conjures up the sound of the heart and soul unfettered by earthly worries, all in the impossibly short space of eight bars.
More than once, Clemons’ solos were positioned at the end of a song, rather than stereotypically in the middle, Springsteen’s tacit acknowledgement that having expressed himself in words, Clemons’ job was to express the rest of the feeling that couldn’t be contained in words. Think of “Thunder Road” after Springsteen sings “It’s a town full of losers and I’m pulling out of here to win” and Clemons answers with a bristling ascending melody that pushes the lyric into the clouds.
The first track I wanted to hear after learning of Clemons’ death on Saturday was “Sherry Darling,” from “The River.” For me it’s his perfect expression of unbridled joy, and it’s hard not to think that Springsteen dreamed up this rock tango in large part just to give Clemons an excuse to blow so happily. Whenever I hear it, my spirit dances, even in situations where my feet must resist.
For similar reasons, the instrumental “Paradise By the C” was always a much-anticipated concert highlight when it was a regular part of E Street Band tours of the '70s, with its swinging echoes of Gary U.S. Bond’s “Quarter to Three,” itself a Springsteen staple on the road that always gave Clemons room to exercise those ample lungs of his.
And those lungs? Bruce sang in “The Promised Land” about the twister that would “blow away the dreams that tear you apart/blow away the dreams that break your heart”; with his sax in hand, Clarence was that twister.
How or whether the E Street Band can continue without him is unknown. When Neil Young’s longtime steel guitarist Ben Keith died last year, Young estimated that there’s about 70% of his repertoire he feels he can’t play without Keith there at his side.
It’s not hard to imagine Springsteen feeling the same way about attempting “Born To Run,” “Jungleland,” “Prove It All Night,” "Badlands," “Rosalita” and so many other songs with all the E Streeters except the Big Man along.
The band has continued after the loss three years ago of Federici, so maybe there’s a way to do it, but it will take a lot of thought. Scratch that. Considering who we’re talking about, such matters should be left entirely to the realm of feeling.
A brotherhood loses its Big Man
By Dan DeLuca
Philalphia Inquirer Music Critic
http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/dan_deluca/
June 21, 2011
Back then, Springsteen concerts were so long that they had to be broken into parts. There was an hour-plus first set about pushing back against social and economic restraints in pursuit of your own identity. Then came a second, celebratory set that lasted even longer, followed by an epic encore when "Jungleland" and the "Detroit Medley" would really take the roof off the Spectrum.
It's Clemons' "Jungleland" performance, building to an operatic crescendo before settling back into a wounded world where poets "just stand back and let it all be," that tops lists as his most memorable solo.
I can't argue against that, though I've got my own list of standout moments by an instrumentalist whose playing was never excessive. There's the Greasy Lake scene-setting lick in "Spirit in the Night," not to mention the battering-ram riffage that busts out in "Night," and the uncharacteristically jazzy tooting that takes "Dancing in the Dark" home.
When I remember those 1980s shows on The River and later, the Born in the U.S.A. tours, it's not "Jungleland" but "Thunder Road" I think of first. And it's not only the majestic wail of Big Man sax that carries Bruce and Mary away from a town full of losers in the climax to that first set. It's also the image of Springsteen running from right to left, and getting down on his knees to slide into Clemons' awaiting arms. At which point the Big Man plants a big, wet soul kiss on the lips of his Boss, in a potent image of the deeply affectionate bond that's also reflected in Springsteen's eyes as he gazes at Clemons on the Born to Run cover.
"I fell in love" is how the guileless, five-times-married Clemons described in his 2009 memoir, Big Man: Real Life & Tall Tales, what happened in 1971 when he first met Springsteen outside the Asbury Park bar the Student Prince. Springsteen doesn't put it quite that way, but in the origin stories he has often told before "Growing Up," it's the addition of Clemons that readies the band to take on all comers. "The change was made uptown, and the Big Man joined the band," is how "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out" puts it. "From the coastline to the city, all the little pretties raise their hands."
A lot of great rock-and-roll bands boil down to the often clashing personalities of two members: Lennon and McCartney, Jagger and Richards. It was never that way on E Street. Instead, the vibe is familial, with the leader able to turn to one foil and musical consigliere, in Steve Van Zandt, and another, in the charismatic, crowd-pleasing Clemons.
For the last 35 years, Clemons was the only black musician in an otherwise all-white band that has striven to talk about the whole of American experience. (For a short time in the 1970s, three African American musicians lived on E Street, when David Sancious was on keyboards, and Ernest "Boom" Carter, who played on "Born to Run," sat on the drum throne.)
The 6-foot-4 Clemons' presence didn't mean that Springsteen succeeded in reaching a sizable black audience. Even in 20,000-capacity arenas, it has often seemed there were more African Americans onstage than in the crowd. But in 2011, interracial rock bands are still rare, and without making a big deal about it, the E Street Band has always looked a little bit more like America than most of its cohorts.
The brotherhood that is a key part of the E Street Band's appeal hasn't always been indivisible. In 1989, Springsteen broke up the band in hopes of pursuing an alternative musical direction he never quite found.
Long before the band broke up, Springsteen's vision had shifted. And as his musical palette became more "rural" than "urban," as he put it on 2010's The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town documentary, there was less call for saxophone.
There were still signature solos - from "Darlington County" on 1984's Born in the U.S.A., or "Waitin' on a Sunny Day," from 2002's The Rising - on which Clemons could let rip with that fat tone that owed so much to 1950s R&B honkers like King Curtis. But long stretches on stage found Clemons biding his time, waiting for his next Big Man moment.
That didn't make him any less essential to the E Street experience when the band got back together in 1999, and other than the guy from New Jersey with the microphone, the larger-than-life sideman who was introduced as "The King of the World" or some variation was always the most popular person in the room.
Throughout a pretty much nonstop tour from 2007 to 2009 that he said was "pure hell," Clemons was beset by health problems. Particularly since organist Danny Federici died in 2008, there's been concern among fans about how long Clemons would be able to continue touring.
Now, his death has E Street nation in mourning - and given new resonance to Springsteen songs like "Blood Brothers," "If I Should Fall Behind," and the 9/11-inspired gospel lament "My City of Ruins," in which Springsteen sings, "Without your sweet kiss, my soul is lost, my friend / Tell me how do I begin again?"
The statement Springsteen released Saturday night would seem to indicate that the band will go on. "He was my great friend, my partner, and with Clarence at my side, my band and I were able to tell a story far deeper than those simply contained in our music," the 61-year-old Springsteen said. "His life, his memory, and his love will live on in that story and in our band."
Let's hope that the E Street Band will go on, and that somehow, the shows will continue to be great. But without Clarence Clemons, they'll never be the same.
Contact music critic Dan DeLuca at 215-854-5628, ddeluca@phillynews.com, or @delucadan on Twitter. Read his blog, "In the Mix," at www.philly.com/inthemix.
REMEMBERING THE ‘BIG MAN’ WHO GAVE E STREET ITS SOUL
Musical world mourns Clarence Clemons
By Jeff Miers
BUFFALO NEWS POP MUSIC CRITIC
http://www.buffalonews.com/entertainment/gusto/music/
June 21, 2011
It’s one of those moments in popular music that seem to transcend the music itself.
The moment comes during Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s “Jungleland,” near the song’s coda, at the tail-end of one of the most “novelistic” songs in all of rock ’n’ roll. Springsteen’s tale of beautiful losers desperate to make more of themselves against tough odds—the sort that are inherited from previous generations and all too often handed down to subsequent ones—seems to throttle full-bore toward an apex, when Clarence Clemons puts the saxophone’s mouthpiece to his lips and simply explodes with the only notes that matter.
In this deeply emotional yet musically economical series of tones, you can hear all of the frustration, passion, rage, hope and Romanticism that define the lives of the characters in Springsteen’s songs. It’s simply a profound piece of musical drama.
Clemons died Saturday, following complications resulting from a stroke suffered a week previous. He was 69. He’d been ailing for a while, due to hip and knee replacement surgeries, but that didn’t prevent him from signing on for the E Street Band’s most recent tour — one that saw “the Big Man,” as he’s known to the E Street Band’s legion of followers, taking the stage for a transcendent show at HSBC Arena in November 2009.
The immediate aftermath of Clemons’ death found a galaxy of artists — from U2’s Bono to former Guns ’N Roses guitarist Slash; from Coldplay’s Chris Martin to members of the pop-metal band Def Leppard — offering tributes to the man via their websites, through Twitter, or during concert engagements. (According to Spinner.com, Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder learned of Clemons’ passing during a solo set in Hartford, Conn., on Saturday evening, and promptly dedicated “Better Man” to the saxophonist, changing the song’s chorus to “Can’t find a bigger man.” On the same night, U2 concluded its set in Anaheim, Calif., with Bono’s dramatic, unaccompanied recital of the entire “Jungleland” lyric. Even jam-band nonpareil Phish paid tribute over the weekend, with a roughshod but heartfelt “Thunder Road.”)
Not surprisingly, the most poignant remembrance of Clemons came from his musical partner and “soul mate” of 40 years, Bruce Springsteen.
“Clarence lived a wonderful life,” Springsteen said on his official website.
“He carried within him a love of people that made them love him. He created a wondrous and extended family. He loved the saxophone, loved our fans and gave everything he had every night he stepped on stage. His loss is immeasurable and we are honored and thankful to have known him and had the opportunity to stand beside him for nearly forty years. He was my great friend, my partner, and with Clarence at my side, my band and I were able to tell a story far deeper than those simply contained in our music.”
This last bit of Springsteen’s note is most telling, for Clemons’ gift seemed to have as much to do with the traits of integrity, loyalty and commitment as it did with his sax playing. The E Street Band always offered as a subtext to its very existence the notion that rock is a communal experience, one that can welcome ideas of brotherhood, endurance, decency, and even unconditional love. Clemons embodied this conception of rock ’n’ roll community.
When Springsteen first erupted from New Jersey in the early ’70s, Clemons’ role in the band was a pivotal one — his deep early R&B influences rooted the E Street Band in a stirring blend of soul and rock ’n’ roll, and in concert, Clemons was Springsteen’s visual and musical foil. This version of the band peaked, appropriately, with the breakthrough success of the “Born to Run” album, its LP sleeve photo of a leather-jacketed Springsteen leaning on Clemons’ shoulder now considered one of the most iconic images in all of rock.
As Springsteen’s music changed — largely abandoning the raucous, New Orleans “second line”-style horn codas, ramshackle sense of swing and Van Morrisonesque soul-folk in favor of a lean, taut, song-centered approach — so, too, did Clemons’ presence within that music. He seemed to accept a more limited and orchestrated role in the E Street sound with grace and good cheer, and if his playing was more specifically composed and less improvisational, it was no less powerful and eloquent.
“Like all of the greatest musicians, he redefined his instrument,” says Gary Zoldos, longtime Springsteen fan and singer with Buffalo rock band the Pillagers. “He did for the saxophone what (the late Who bassist) John Entwistle did for the bass guitar. Nobody played like Clarence, and nobody sounded like Clarence, and you could tell that it was him from the very first note.”
Among those contributions, it is likely that the “Jungleland” coda looms largest, but Clemons provided dozens and dozens of Springsteen’s songs with emotional heft, well-placed color and texture, and visceral excitement. Early on, he brought a smoky elegance to “Spirit in the Night”; led the band through soul-rock masterpieces like “The E Street Shuffle,” “Linda Let Me Be the One” and “Thundercrack”; and translated the rugged dignity of the unrepentant narrative within “Badlands” into a torrid burst of notes.
“To get some sense of how important Clarence Clemons was to Bruce Springsteen’s early career as an artist, you have to flash back to the mid-1970s, when the scrawny, charismatic Springsteen played poete maudit to Clemons’ siren of R&B romanticism,” says The News’ Poetry Editor R. D. Pohl.
“Take the stunning live 1978 You Tube version of ‘Jungleland,’ (from the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, N. J.) featuring the 3- minute signature solo that would forever establish Clemons as one of rock ’n’ roll’s greatest sidemen.”
Local jazz promoter and author Bruce Eaton recalls his initial exposure to Clemons as an eye-opening experience.
“Back then, in 1973, there was no Little Steven Van Zandt — Bruce and Clarence were it,” recalls Eaton, who booked Springsteen and the Band to perform at Hobart College while Eaton was a student there.
“Clarence played so much back then — he was really the primary soloist, and it was immediately apparent that he was a huge part of the sound, the vibe, the spirit and the image of theEStreet Band,” Eaton said.
It is indeed difficult to imagine an E Street Band concert without Clemons flanking Springsteen and blasting out the immensely thick-toned, long notes that helped define some of the most significant and enduring rock music of the last 40 years. Indeed, the rumor mills are already churning out the idea that Clemons’ passing spells the end for the band.
“From the first time I saw him, back in 1973, Clarence was always bigger than life,” says Bruce Moser of Buffalo’s Could Be Wild Promotions.
“He was an iconic figure on stage, and he was also the spark plug of that band. Clarence helped re-establish the saxophone as a prominent rock ’n’ roll instrument during a time when it was considered unfashionable. The sax parts played a huge part in the way those songs were received by people. The fans loved him so much. He’s just not replaceable. TheE Street Band was able to carry on after (keyboardist) Danny (Federici) died (in 2008), even though he was truly missed. But without Clarence, there really is no E Street Band.”
It should be noted, however, that Springsteen concludes his clearly anguished online tribute to Clemons with these words.
“His life, his memory, and his love will live on in (the story told by our music) and in our band.”
Rest in peace, Big Man.
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jmiers@buffnews.com
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