C’s presence remained large and his will ironclad. That’s why he was still there. He willed it, and if it’d been up to him, he would’ve died there. That always worried me. We found doctors before each tour to provide him with a full checkup. Somehow he was always ready to play. I told him, “I need to know exactly what you can do and what you can’t do,” but he grew furious if I poked my nose too deeply into his medical business. During the Dream tour he brought along a young mixed-race man as his assistant. For months I never really knew who he was. I just figured he was one of C’s people, who fluctuated regularly and brought some service or comfort to him. It was Jake Clemons, Clarence’s nephew, a saxophonist himself, though he never played, with the exception of joining C one night on “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out.”
Clarence was always the last band member off the stage. As I held up that big body night after night and we slowly made it down the stairs, he often whispered, “Thanks for letting me be here.” I was thankful he was there. Even in his diminished state Clarence’s presence remained rocklike and essential to me. We flew up to Buffalo, New York, where we played the Greetings from Asbury Park album start to finish for the first time. It was the last show of the tour, and the night was filled with high anticipation, camaraderie and the excitement of an adventure completed. The place was in an uproar and the party was on. Old ghosts were there. Mike Appel had accompanied us to the concert, stood in the circle of hands before the show and was deeply welcome. We were alive and farther down the road. The place filled with Mike’s old cackling laugh and carny energy; music played, people drank. Back on the plane, as we drew closer to Newark, from his seat, Clarence lifted his glass and said, “I’ve just got something I want to say . . . this could be the start of something big.” Everyone laughed.
But that’s how it felt. The band was playing great and we were navigating this part of our work life with grace and energy. Half of our set was drawn from new material of the past ten years and we were still thrilled to be amongst one another. We remained in love with the music, with our band and with our audience. With the lights of the Eastern Seaboard sparkling beneath us, carrying us home, we knew we’d worked hard and been lucky.
SEVENTY-TWO
WRECKING BALL
One afternoon, driving back from a séance at my local watering hole, I started singing at the wheel, “You put on your coat, I’ll put on my hat, you put out the dog, I’ll put out the cat . . .” “Easy Money.” Bing . . . the light went on. The muse had materialized along the roadside. “Easy Money” was the key to a record I needed to make.
After the crash of 2008, I was furious at what had been done by a handful of trading companies on Wall Street. Wrecking Ball was a shot of anger at the injustice that continues on and has widened with deregulation, dysfunctional regulatory agencies and capitalism gone wild at the expense of hardworking Americans. The middle class? Stomped on. Income disparity climbed as we lived through a new Gilded Age. This was what I wanted to write about.
I’d been following and writing about America’s post-industrial trauma, the killing of our manufacturing presence and working class, for thirty-five years. So I went to work. I had some music in my notebooks waiting. “Jack of All Trades,” written in a fury. “We Take Care of Our Own” and “Wrecking Ball.” Then I wrote “Easy Money,” “Death to My Hometown” and “This Depression.” I had “Shackled and Drawn” and “Rocky Ground” from a gospel film project I’d been working on and they fit perfectly. Finally, I knew I needed a closer. I had “Land of Hope and Dreams,” with which we struggled to beat our own live version until Bob Clearmountain came in with a transcendent mix. But still, I needed the song that would address the new voices of immigration, the civil rights movement and anyone who’d ever stuck their neck out for some righteous justice and was knocked down or killed for their effort. Where were they? I decided they were all here now and speaking to those who would listen. Those spirits don’t go away. They haunt, they rabble-rouse, from beyond the grave. They have not been and can never be silenced. Death has given them an eternal voice. All we have to do is listen. That would be the message of my last song, “We Are Alive.” Listen and learn from the souls and spirits who’ve come before.
I knew this was the music I should make now. It was my job. I felt the country was at a critical juncture. If this much damage can be done to average citizens with basically no accountability, then the game is off and the thin veil of democracy is revealed for what it is, a shallow disguise for a growing plutocracy that is here now and permanent.
Wrecking Ball was received with a lot less fanfare than I thought it would be. I was sure I had it. I still think I do and did. Maybe my voice had been too compromised by my own success, but I don’t think so. I’ve worked hard and long to write about these subjects and I know them well. I knew Wrecking Ball was one of my best, most contemporary and accessible albums since Born in the USA. I’m no conspiracy theorist, so basically I realized that the presentation of these ideas in this form had a powerful but limited interest to a reasonably large but still select group of people, especially in the United States. For the next several years we toured, crisscrossing the globe, to a wild reception, where Europe, as usual, was a whole other story. There there was a deep and abiding interest in American affairs and anyone singing about them. Their interview questions were political and filled with the stakes I knew I was writing about when I wrote the record. I came to terms with the fact that in the States, the power of rock music as a vehicle for these ideas had diminished. A new kind of super-pop, hip-hop and a variety of other exciting genres had become the hotline of the day, more suited to the current zeitgeist. Don’t get me wrong. I can’t complain. Wrecking Ball went to number one and had a fine success of its own in the United States. Appreciative and understanding audiences met us everywhere. But I thought this was one of my most powerful records and I went out looking for it all.
SEVENTY-THREE
LOSING THE RAIN
I was in the studio at my farm on a rainy, wind-soaked day between tours when I received a phone call from Clarence. I’d been trying to get hold of him for a sax session on the new version of “Land of Hope and Dreams” we’d cut for the upcoming Wrecking Ball. He was calling from Los Angeles, where he’d just performed with Lady Gaga on American Idol. He’d played a great solo on her “Edge of Glory” single as well as appearing in the video. I asked how he was and he said he had some numbness in his hand that was inhibiting his sax playing and was making him very nervous. I asked him what he wanted to do and for the first time in our history he begged off a session and asked if he could return home to Florida to see a neurologist and have his hand checked out. I assured him he could catch the session later and told him I’d call him in a week or so and see how he was doing.
Patti’s and my anniversary came up and we left to spend five or so days in Paris. About three days in, Gil Gamboa, our security person, knocked on our hotel door in the afternoon. When I opened the door, all I saw was his eyes glazed with tears. He choked out that Clarence had had a very serious stroke and was in the hospital. I left for Florida.
Clarence’s stroke was massive, shutting the lights out on an entire side of his brain. It had happened in moments as he fell out of bed onto the floor. I visited St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach, where I was greeted by Clarence’s brother, Bill; Jake, his nephew; and Victoria, his wife, and I was ushered in to see the Big Man. He lay in bed breathing heavily in a dimly lit room with tubes and cords emanating from underneath his gown. Clarence’s eyelids, which were always like soft steel doors, languorously opening and closing, were heavily shut. Victoria spoke to him and told him I was there. I took his hand, spoke gently to him and could feel a light grip form around my fingers. Some part of him somewhere was responding. Clarence’s hands were always like heavy stones but when he placed them upon your shoulders, the most comforting, secure feeling swept through your body and heart. Very, very strong and exceedingly gentle—that was C with me.
The folks at St. Mary’s were kind enough to provide us with a small room where Clarence’s brother, nephews, children and friends could gather, play some music and talk about C. It was far enough away not to disturb the other patients and before long, we had the saxophone, guitars and our voices singing during the days and nights we waited to see how Clarence would respond to the efforts of his doctors. There were procedures, medical decisions to be made by the family, doctor’s consultations, but one afternoon, I was taken aside by Clarence’s main physician and was told it would be near miraculous if he ever regained consciousness. If he did, he would most certainly be wheelchair bound, an entire half of his body paralyzed. His speech, his face, his hands dysfunctional. He would certainly never play the saxophone again. I don’t know how Clarence would’ve handled this. He was a strong man with a staggering life force but I know not playing, and not playing in the band, would’ve hurt big. It really wasn’t meant to be. Clarence had been a natural creature of excess, lived hard, never really taken great care of himself and never looked back.
A week passed; C’s condition continued to worsen and all that could be done had been done.
The morning sun laid a pinkish veil over the St. Mary’s parking lot as we entered through the rear door and gathered bedside in Clarence’s small room. His wife, his sons, his brother, his nephews, myself, Max and Garry prepared to say our good-byes. I strummed my guitar gently to “Land of Hope and Dreams” and then something inexplicable happened. Something great and timeless and beautiful and confounding just disappeared. Something was gone . . . gone for good.
There is no evidence of the soul except in its sudden absence. A nothingness enters, taking the place where something was before. A night without stars falls and for a moment covers everything in the room. Clarence’s great body became still. His name was called. A lot of tears fell. We took some time, said our prayers and were ushered gently out by the nun who’d been C’s nurse. Clarence’s brother, Bill, took it very hard for the rest of us. The stillness was broken. In the hallway we comforted one another, talked for a while, kissed and hugged one another, then just went home.
Back in the world, it had turned into a beautiful sunny Florida day, just the kind C loved for his fishing expeditions. I went back to my hotel and took a swim deep into the sea until the noise of the shore drifted from my ears. I tried to imagine my world without Clarence. Then, turning over on my back, I felt the sun take my face and I swam back to land, went inside and fell asleep soaking on my bed.
• • •
The thick Florida air filled my lungs with cotton as we entered the Royal Poinciana Chapel. All of E Street, Jackson Browne, and Clarence’s wives and children, along with Eric Meola, who took the iconic picture of Clarence and me on the cover of Born to Run, were there. Victoria spoke lovingly of Clarence and read his last wishes, which were basically that C wanted his ashes scattered in Hawaii in the presence of his wife and all of the other “special” women in his life. Only Clarence, alive or dead, could pull this one off.
The first time I’d seen C’s massive form striding out of the shadows of a half-empty bar in Asbury Park, I’d thought, “Here comes my brother.” Yet as solid as the Big Man was, he was also very fragile. And in some funny way we became each other’s protectors; I think perhaps I protected C from a world where it still wasn’t so easy to be big and black. Racism was still there and over our years together, occasionally we saw it. Clarence’s celebrity and size did not always make him immune. I think perhaps C protected me from a world where it wasn’t always so easy to be an insecure, weird and skinny white boy either. Standing together, we were badass, on any given night, some of the baddest asses on the planet. And we were coming to your town to shake you and to wake you up.
Together, we told a story that transcended those I’d written in my songs and in my music. It was a story about the possibilities of friendship, a story that Clarence carried in his heart. We both did. It was a story where the Scooter and the Big Man busted the city in half. A story where we kicked ass and remade the city, reshaping it into the kind of place where our friendship would not be such an anomaly. I knew that that was what I was going to miss: the chance to stand alongside Clarence and renew that vow on a nightly basis. That was the thing that we did together.
Clarence was one of the most authentic people I’d ever come across. He had no postmodern bullshit about him. Other than my old man, a true Bukowski character come to ass-on-a-bar-stool life, I never met anyone else as real as Clarence Clemons. His life was often a mess. He could spout the most inane bullshit you’ve ever heard and believe it, but there was something inside of his skin that screamed life was ON and he was the master of ceremonies! He made himself extremely happy and horribly miserable, he dogged me and blessed me, was side-splittingly hilarious and always treading near pathos. He collected a cast of characters around him that often had to be seen to be believed. He was sexually mysterious and voracious but he was also incredibly lovely and my friend. We didn’t hang out. We couldn’t. It would’ve ruined my life. There was always too much. But the time I spent with him was filled with thrills and big laughs. We were physically comfortable with each other, often hugging and embracing. Clarence’s body was a vast world in and of itself. He was a mountainous, moving, kind citadel of flesh in a storm.
I miss my friend. But I still have the story that he gave me, that he whispered in my ear, that we told together, the one we whispered into your ear, and that is going to carry on. If I were a mystic, Clarence’s and my friendship would lead me to believe that we must have stood together in other, older times, along other rivers, in other cities, in other fields, doing our modest version of God’s work.
Clarence was elemental in my life and losing him was like losing the rain. In his last days, he moved slowly to the stage but when he got there, there was a big man in the house.
On returning to New Jersey and work, I reentered the studio. My producer Ron Aniello was there working on Wrecking Ball. He gave me his condolences and said after he heard about Clarence’s death, he didn’t know what to do. So while he was in LA, he had carefully pieced together Clarence’s solo from a live take to fit our new version of “Land of Hope and Dreams.” I sat there as C’s sax filled the room.
SEVENTY-FOUR
THE WRECKING BALL TOUR
Clarence once mentioned to me during a negotiation that he should be paid not only for playing but for being Clarence. I said no and it was funny, but he had a point. Was there another one? Nope. There was only that one. In truth he was paid for being Clarence, as he’d been the most highly remunerated member of the E Street Band since close to its inception. So what did we do now? That was all that was on my mind as our tour approached.
Ed Manion, our longtime Jukes/E Street/Seeger saxophonist, was a great player and an all-around good guy and would get the job done. But “the job” was tricky. It was less of a “job” than a position of faith that had some distinctly shamanistic requirements. There was a fellow out in Freehold whom I’d played successfully with, who had C’s tone down, was great onstage, but . . .
I received a small collection of DVDs from guys who could play rings around the moon, but we didn’t need John Coltrane. We needed a to-the-bone rock ’n’ roll saxophonist. I sat in bed going through them one morning as Patti sat at my side going, “Nope, nope, nope, nope.” Out of curiosity I even went on the Internet and checked out the top “tribute” bands to see how they were handling it . . . No.
Jake
Though he traveled with the band for the better part of the Magic/Dream tour, I’d never really heard Jake play ’til Clarence’s funeral. There, he did a lovely version of “Amazing Grace.” He was physically big like C. He and his brothers, to the unknowing eye, could appear to be a misplaced tribe of Maori warriors. Jake was bespectacled, sweet and soft too. Somewhere along the way, a mama had been good to him, and he carried with him the limitless sunshine that was C’s specialty on a good day. He was talented
, a good songwriter and singer. He loved music, was young and hungry, and I could perceive inside of him the beginning of a star.
After C’s death, many months went by. Jake and I stayed casually in touch and though we both knew what we were thinking, it was appropriately never mentioned. On the street I was confronted regularly with the same question from friends and fans. “Whaddyagonnado?” That’s how it always came out. One thought, one word, one critical, life-defining, all-important, existential “I gotta know NOW ’cause it’s driving me CRAZY that this thing I loved might no longer be there!!!” question. “Whaddyagonnado?” My answer was always “We’re gonna think of something.”
Steve on Jake: “He’s black. He plays the saxophone. His name is Clemons. He’s the guy! He’s the only guy!” Steve dismissed my other candidates as . . . white.
I knew what he meant. He was saying that “thing,” that world, that possibility that Clarence symbolized going back to the early days of race-divided Asbury Park was tied to his overwhelming blackness. It was. And that “thing” was a critical piece of the living philosophy of the E Street Band.
I agreed that Steve was right but by definition, there being only one true Big Man, one true Big Man whom neither chops, nor size, nor the blackness of night could replicate, it didn’t really matter . . . maybe. I knew the band had changed the minute C breathed his last. That version of the E Street Band would be Never No More! There would be no replacing Clarence Clemons. So the real question was, “So what’s next?” Next . . . now.
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