R.I.P. Clarence Clemons

Came home from class n culture night in Boise (you know, roller derby) to hear the sad and the bad news that legendary E Street Band member Clarence Clemons had succumbed to the stroke he suffered earlier in the week.

Here is the copied-and-pasted official word from brucespringsteen.net:

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. Bruce Springsteen said of Clarence: 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.

I will leave it to better writers, more familiar with the subject to write him the eulogy he deserves.

But I can’t fucking sleep tonight for thinking of him, and Springsteen and by extension, my own mortality. I’m sure I’m not the only aging Bruce Springsteen fan up tonight, losing sleep to the same thoughts.

I didn’t see the E Street Band live till the Tunnel of Love tour in 1988—I was a bit late to the Bruce party, even though I’d been buying his albums faithfully since Darkness On The Edge of Town. It always seemed like the tickets for his shows were gone before I had peddled down to the box office to purchase one.

Since the late ’80s, I’ve seen Bruce with and without a band a few times. Always from really lousy seats because by the time I figured out how to properly game the system, tickets to his shows had become exponentially harder to secure, and more expensive.

But it was clear to me, especially on the E Street Band tours since 1999, that Springsteen shows had their own beginning, middle and end. There was a narrative structure to the song selection, and the action occurring on stage was just as dramatic.

Springsteen’s two onstage foils were Little Steven Van Zandt and Clemons and the trio brought every bit of humor, pathos and affection they shared offstage into their performance. As much as it was part of the show, it was clear it was also a reflection of a genuinely affectionate bond between the three men.

And videos of the band, from before Bruce broke them up for a few years in the ’90s and Clemons still enjoyed full, robust health, show that the chemistry between he and Springsteen then was even more palpable.

Little Steven got more center stage time with Bruce, but when Clemons wailed, Springsteen ceded the spotlight to him. Literally bowed down before him, his arms flung wide and head back. And he usually shared a stage kiss with him before the show was over.

When Danny Federici died in 2008 it first occurred to me (and no doubt the rest of Springsteen’s core, aging fan base) that the ride was not going to last forever.

But Federici, even though a 40-year-member of the band, was never the center of attention that Springsteen always made sure his beloved Big Man was. The next time Springsteen takes the band out onto the road, I can’t imagine anyone else ripping into one of Clemons’ solos and the audience not bursting into tears.

Clemons’ last live performance, on American Idol, no less, with Lady Gaga is here.

All of a sudden, Gaga’s decision to scrap the elaborate video planned for her latest single, which features Clemons on saxophone, and do it instead with just Clemons and herself doesn’t look like a career misstep after all.

Although his screen time is all too brief, the somber setting serves tonight’s news well. The Big Man’s last video: