Clarence Clemons, a.k.a. "Big Man"

By Richard K. Barry

I'm doing a bit of light summer reading at the moment with the Clarence Clemons autobiography, written with his long-time friend Don Reo.

If you don't know, Clemons, who died last year at the age of 69, was the tenor saxophone player in the E Street Band, Bruce Springsteen's band. He was called "Big Man" because he was. He was a rock and roll saxophone player, which is a very special skill, one I have been working on for years, but that's another story. Anyway, Clemons could play.

The book, also called Big Man, is like so many other books about rock and roll bands, including tales of struggle followed by success, not to mention girls, drugs, and music. Don't forget the music.

The best part of the book so far is Clemons relationship with Springsteen, which seemed special.

I'll probably make Springsteen fans angry at me, but whenever I read books like this I am reminded that the distance between making a lot of money in music and just being another rock and roll bar band is pretty short. And much of the success that comes has to do with crafting the perfect image, and far less to do with the music. Hell, if it was just about the music, a lot of studio musicians would be famous.

This might be a strange thing to say, but in so many ways books about celebrities are about people who live very ordinary lives, and are very ordinary people except for the one thing they do that makes everyone know their names. Does that make sense? It kind of made sense in my head.

Here's a clip of Clemons blowing hard on the Letterman show a while back, followed by an interview.


(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)