In memory of Clarence "The Big Man" Clemons

I can't believe Clarence Clemons has passed away, at age 69.

I didn't really get into music until college but it was a great time to become a fan of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, which I did thanks to my friend Dan Kennedy.

This was a few years after Born to Run and just before Darkness on the Edge of Town, so there was a tremendous sense of anticipation. The double-LP The River is my favorite from that era. I remember listening to it on my combination turntable, eight-track player.

Of course, it was several years before I got a chance to see the band onstage. In those pre-MTV, pre-YouTube days, there were no videos or concert footage. All you had were the albums and maybe some bootlegs.

But friends of mine, including Dan, had seen Springsteen perform. I'd heard stories about how unforgettable his concerts were, including the banter between Bruce and "The Big Man," saxophonist Clarence Clemons.

I finally got my chance in 1984 in Hartford, Conn., when Springsteen and the E Street Band toured after Born in the U.S.A. came out. I remember Bruce told the story, with great theatricality, about the night he and Clarence met, at a bar in Asbury Park, N.J.

The concert was thrilling - everything I thought it would be. I had another chance to see Springsteen several years later, in Syracuse. I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that I'll probably never fall in love with a rock 'n' roll band the same way again.

Clemons' saxophone solos were such a well, big, part of making Springsteen's sound unique. I also loved his duet with Jackson Browne, "You're a Friend of Mine." You can listen to it here. My condolences to Clemons' friends and family and to his E Street family. Here's the New York Times obituary and here's the statement from Bruce Springsteen's official website:

It is with overwhelming sadness that we inform our friends and fans that at 7:00 tonight, Saturday, June 18, our beloved friend and bandmate, Clarence Clemons passed away. The cause was complications from his stroke of last Sunday, June 12th.

Clarence lived a wonderful life. 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. His life, his memory, and his love will live on in that story and in our band.

Bruce and I wish you a Merry Christmas

Peace, love and Merry Christmas to everyone celebrating today.

Here's Bruce Springsteen, 2009 Kennedy Center honoree and supporter of marriage equality in New Jersey, with "Santa Claus is Coming to Town":



"Like many of you who live in New Jersey, I've been following the progress of the marriage-equality legislation currently being considered in Trenton. I've long believed in and have always spoken out for the rights of same sex couples and fully agree with Governor Corzine when he writes that, "The marriage-equality issue should be recognized for what it truly is -- a civil rights issue that must be approved to assure that every citizen is treated equally under the law." I couldn't agree more with that statement and urge those who support equal treatment for our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters to let their voices be heard now."

Thank-you for speaking out, Bruce!

Say it ain't so Bruce

Seeing Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band was my only reason for tuning in the Super Bowl yesterday. (Okay, I was a little curious about the commercials, but the ones I saw weren't too memorable.)

I'm more in agreement with my friend Dan at Media Nation than I am with Stephen Metcalf at Slate about Bruce's halftime performance. He says Bruce should have played "The Wrestler." I don't know - I loved the 12-minute medley: "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out," "Born to Run," "Glory Days" and "Working on a Dream." I love how at age 59, Bruce can move around the stage with so much energy. He still puts on a great show.

One thing I did notice was the wildly enthusiastic crowd. Little did I realize until I read Metcalf's column that they weren't lucky football fans plucked from the stands to get an up-close view of the Boss. They were plants!

According to this story from Tampa Bay Online, producers of the halftime show sent out a call for 2,000 excited fans. "Volunteers will get to be on the field at Raymond James Stadium as part of the concert, but won't get tickets to the game. Show organizers advise those selected to record the show at home and watch it later."

I should have realized that this was a 12-minute music video and the "audience" wasn't in the stadium but the millions watching at home. I guess Courtney Cox wasn't some random fan pulled onto the stage in the "Dancing in the Dark" video either. I am so gullible!

Springsteen and son

My fellow Bruce Springsteen fans, I did a double-take when I saw this photograph.

Doesn't Evan, at right, (with his mom, Patti Scialfa, dad, brother Sam and sister Jessica) look exactly like his famous father? I couldn't find the old picture of Bruce in his younger days that this one reminds me of, but the resemblance is pretty incredible.

The picture, by Gary Walts, is from the Syracuse Post-Standard. Jessica Springsteen competed in this weekend's Syracuse Invitational Sporthorse Tournament and she'll be taking several prizes back home to New Jersey, including the Maclay ASPCA Horsemanship Award. So congratulations, Jessica! It's great to see the whole family there supporting you.

I'm not sure why Evan is wearing an AIG T-shirt, but I don't think he's making a statement on the financial crisis. In the comments section, someone mentioned that the company is a sponsor of England's Manchester United football team.

Zimmy & Me

On Sunday, Bob Dylan will perform at the Virgin Mobile Festival in Baltimore. In honor of the occasion, fans of Zimmy are weighing in at The Washington Post with their Top 5 Dylan songs.

Dylan has always been one of my favorite songwriters, even when I preferred other people singing his songs. I was shocked that so few people mentioned my all-time favorite, so I came up with a list of my own. (For a different take on the matter, my friend Dan weighs in with his picks at Media Nation.)

1. Blowin' in the Wind (1962) - Based on a spiritual, "No More Auction Block," this song became an anthem of the civil-rights movement, especially after it was recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary. I think it's an American classic, and Dylan's finest song. (I'm certain it's also the first Bob Dylan song I ever heard). While some critics contend that the lyrics are ambiguous, I disagree. "Blowin' in the Wind" resonates deeply more than four decades later with a simple, direct question that continues to define the struggle for equal rights: "How many years can some people exist before they're allowed to be free?"

2. The Times They Are A-Changin' (1963) - While Dylan always rebelled against being labeled a protest singer or the voice of his generation, in songs like "The Times They Are A-Changin," I think he perfectly captured that generational divide. "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, don't criticize what you can't understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command. Your old road is rapidly agin'."

3. Like a Rolling Stone (1965) - I think "Like a Rolling Stone" is a great example of Dylan's skill as a storyteller. I also think that the sense of alienation in the lyrics, the sense of being a little adrift and uncertain of your place in the world, must have struck a chord with people in the mid 1960s: "How does it feel to be on your own with no direction home, a complete unknown. Like a rolling stone?" Haven't we all felt like that at one time or another?

4. Mr. Tambourine Man (1964) - Sometimes the lyrics in Dylan's songs can be a bit cryptic, but I think this is one of his most beautiful, with some of his most evocative and unusual imagery: "Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind. Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves. The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach. Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow."

5. Chimes of Freedom (1964) - My favorite version isn't Dylan's, but Bruce Springsteen's cover of it. Springsteen performed it in 1988, and it was released to benefit a tour in support of Amnesty International. I love the mixture of poetry and protest in the lyrics: Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake. Tolling for the luckless, the abandoned an' forsaked. Tolling for the outcast, burnin' constantly at stake. An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing."

Ok, you're probably sensing a theme here. All of my favorites were written in the early to mid-1960s. What can I say? I've always been interested in the history, politics and culture of the sixties. As much as Dylan fought against it, his music really did help to define that decade. In many ways, I guess they're the obvious picks. They're probably Dylan's most well-known songs. I know he wrote plenty of great music after 1965, but these are the ones that I love listening to the most. It's my folkie side coming out, I guess.

I've only seen Dylan perform once, on Aug. 31, 1988, at The New York State Fair, in Syracuse. (Wow, 20 years ago this month. I didn't realize it had been that long!) As usual, he didn't say much between songs. But it was a great concert and he played a couple of my all-time favorite tunes. Here's the track list:

Subterranean Homesick Blues, I'll Remember You, Tangled Up In Blue, All Along The Watchtower, Every Grain Of Sand, Highway 61 Revisited, To Ramona, Girl From The North Country, Don't Think Twice, One Too Many Mornings, I Shall Be Released, Silvio, Like A Rolling Stone, Times They Are A-Changin', Barbara Allen, and Maggie's Farm.

In a great bit of coincidence, a week after that anniversary I'll be making my first visit to Minneapolis, where a teenage Robert Zimmerman came from the North Country city of Hibbing to attend the University of Minnesota, where he got involved in the folk music scene, and where he became Bob Dylan.

The magic is back

My friend Dan introduced me to Bruce Springsteen's music in college in the late '70s and I grew to love it. I can't quite explain it, but somehow lyrics like "Someday we'll look back on this and it will all seem funny" really spoke to me.

This was the Bruce of "Born to Run," "The River," "Darkness on the Edge of Town" and "Born in the U.S.A." In fact, I even had a poster in my dorm room of Bruce in t-shirt and jeans, guitar in hand, against an American flag backdrop. And I saw him in concert twice - in Hartford, Conn., and Syracuse, N.Y.

(Contrary to the totally exaggerated story some of my friends tell, I did not rush the stage in Syracuse. We were seated on the floor, about midway back, and I merely walked up several rows toward the front at one point to get a better view. Honest.)

One of the things I've always liked about Springsteen is the storytelling aspect of his songs, the specific images they evoke. Listen to "Glory Days," or "The River" or "Badlands"and you get a sense that he's writing about real working people, their lives and their frustrations.

But over the years, my passion dissipated and while I still dutifully bought every album, and then CD, as it came out, I did it more out of a sense of obligation than anything else. Somehow, the music stopped meaning what it meant to me in my twenties. It just didn't excite me as much anymore.

So, when Bruce's latest, "Magic," was released earlier this month, I didn't rush out to buy it. But with an older, pensive, somewhat mournful and weathered face staring out at me from the cover, I knew I wouldn't be able to resist for long. And I'm glad I didn't.

I love hearing Bruce rockin' again with The E Street Band. Many of the songs, like "Long Walk Home," sound as if they could have come from those earlier albums that I loved. I'll still have to take this CD out for a few more spins. Maybe it's simply an exercise in nostalgia. But right now, I'm inclined to say that "Magic" reminds me of those glory days.