Clarence Anicholas Clemons Jr. (January 11, 1942 – June 18, 2011), also known as The Big Man, was an American saxophonist. From 1972 until his death in 2011, he was the saxophonist for Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band.
Clemons released several solo albums. In 1985, he had a hit single with "You're a Friend of Mine", a duet with Jackson Browne. As a guest musician, he featured on Aretha Franklin's song "Freeway of Love". As an actor, Clemons appeared in several films, including New York, New York and Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. He also made cameo appearances in several TV series, including Diff'rent Strokes, Nash Bridges, The Simpsons, My Wife and Kids and The Wire. Clemons published Big Man: Real Life & Tall Tales (2009) with his friend Don Reo. The book is a semi-fictional autobiography told in the third person. A documentary about his life directed by Nick Mead, titled Clarence Clemons: Who Do I Think I Am? was released in August 2019.
Clemons died in 2011 at the age of 69. In 2014, he was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the E Street Band.
Early life
Clarence Anicholas Clemons Jr. was born on January 11, 1942, in Norfolk County, Virginia (later the city of Chesapeake), the son of fish market owner Clarence Clemons, Sr. and his wife Thelma. He was the oldest of their three children. His grandfather was a Baptist preacher and, as a result, the young Clemons grew up in a very religious environment listening to gospel music. When he was nine, his father gave him an alto saxophone as a Christmas present and paid for music lessons. He later switched to tenor saxophone and played in a high school jazz band. His uncle also influenced his early musical development when he bought him his first King Curtis album. Curtis, and his work with the Coasters in particular, would become a major influence on Clemons and led to him switching to tenor saxophone.
As a youth, Clemons also showed potential as a football player, and graduated from Crestwood High School (now Crestwood Middle) before attending Maryland State College on both music and football scholarships. At 6' 4" and 240 pounds, he played as a lineman on the same team as Art Shell and Emerson Boozer and attracted the attention of the Cleveland Browns, who offered him a trial. Clemons also tried out for the Dallas Cowboys. However, the day before, he was involved in a serious car accident which effectively ended any plans of a career in the National Football League. He would eventually be posthumously inducted into the university's Athletics Hall of Fame on February 24, 2012.
At age 18, Clemons had one of his earliest studio experiences, recording sessions with Tyrone Ashley's Funky Music Machine, a band from Plainfield, New Jersey, that included Ray Davis, Eddie Hazel and Billy Bass Nelson, all of whom later played with Parliament-Funkadelic. He also performed with Daniel Petraitis, a New Jersey and Nashville legend. These sessions were eventually released in 2007 by Truth and Soul Records as Let Me Be Your Man. While at Maryland State College, Clemons also joined his first band, the Vibratones, which played James Brown covers and stayed together for about four years between 1961 and 1965. While still playing with this band, he moved to Somerset, New Jersey, where he worked as a counselor for emotionally disturbed children at the Jamesburg Training School for Boys between 1962 and 1970.
Music career
E Street Band
The story of how Clemons first met Bruce Springsteen has entered into E Street Band mythology. "The E Street Shuffle" contains a monologue about how they met, and the event was also immortalized in "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out". They allegedly met for the first time in September 1971. At the time, Clemons was playing with Norman Seldin & the Joyful Noyze at The Wonder Bar in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Seldin was a Jersey Shore musician/entrepreneur who, as well as playing piano and leading various bands, had his own record label, Selsom Records. In 1969, Clemons had recorded an eponymous album with this band. In 2008, tracks from this album were reissued on an anthology, Asbury Park — Then and Now, put together by Seldin. It was Karen Cassidy, lead vocalist with the Joyful Noyze, who encouraged Clemons to check out Springsteen, who was playing with the Bruce Springsteen Band at the nearby Student Prince. Clemons recalled their meeting in various interviews: