Remembering Bruce Springsteen sideman Clarence Clemons

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Clarence Clemons plays “Badlands” with Bruce Springsteen on May 12, 2009, at the United Center. Springsteen’s concert there four months later would be his last in Chicago with the core of the E Street Band. | Tom Cruze~sun-times

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Updated: June 20, 2011 2:09AM

The final time Bruce Springsteen and the core of the E Street Band performed in Chicago was on Sept. 20, 2009, at the United Center.

The audience was witness to a stunning concert that covered the breakthrough “Born to Run” album in its entirety. It was only the second time the band performed the album live.

Released in 1975, “Born to Run” brought E Street saxophonist Clarence Clemons into the spotlight, through music and personality. The black-and-white cover photo of Springsteen leaning on Clemons’ shoulder is one of the most iconic works of art in rock ’n’ roll history.

Mr. Clemons died of complications from a stroke Saturday night in a hospital in Palm Beach, Fla. He was 69.

The Springsteen songbook is defined by Mr. Clemons’ emotive saxophone, ranging from the gritty mood of “Backstreets” to the unbridled freedom of “Rosalita.” But Mr. Clemons’ signature accomplishment may have been the warmth he gave to “Jungleland” from the “Born to Run” album. Mr. Clemons released his autobiography, Big Man (Real Life & Tall Tales), a month after the United Center show. He wrote of spending 16 straight hours working on the “Jungleland” solos with Springsteen. When they finished at 8:30 a.m., they jumped in their cars and drove to Providence, R.I., to begin a tour.

That on-and-off tour lasted nearly 40 years. It ended Saturday night.

This is what was so memorable for those of us at the United Center in 2009: These warriors had been born to run. The concert was born to reflect.

Mr. Clemons was frail and walked slowly on stage. He had endured hip and knee replacements, and word was he moved around backstage on a golf cart.

But friendship never grows weak.

In a statement posted on his website, Springsteen said in part, “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.”

There are many stories of how Springsteen met Mr. Clemons. This is the one Mr. Clemons told me in 1983, when he was in Chicago to promote his solo debut album “Rescue” with his band the Red Bank Rockers.

Mr. Clemons said it was around 1971 when he was playing tenor sax in a band called the Joyful Noyze at the Wonder Bar in Asbury Park, N.J. The Noyze lead singer told him about Springsteen.

“One day we were both playing in Asbury Park,” Mr. Clemons recalled. “Bruce was at a club called the Student Prince. And I walked down the boardwalk with my horn to meet him. Him and Stevie [Van Zandt] and the rest of the band was taking a break outside, and I walked up to him and asked if he was the man. Bruce always jokes by saying, “As big as I was, would I say no?’ So Bruce said. ‘Yeah,’ and I sat in with him. It was like sparks flying when we played. Right away I knew this was where I was supposed to be.”

One of the first songs they played together was “Spirit in the Night.”

Springsteen paid tribute to these moments in “Tenth Avenue Freeze-out” when he wrote, “When the change was made uptown/and the Big Man joined the band.”

Mr. Clemons was not a technically adroit saxophonist. He carried more of the robust soul of King Curtis and Junior Walker than the precision of Sonny Rollins. He created character and personality through his instrument. Framed by the seminal Stax-Volt horn arrangements from Van Zandt, Mr. Clemons became the perfect foil for Springsteen. Mr. Clemons told me, “I look at the saxophone as an extension of myself; it is something that is part of me.”

Alto Reed, saxophonist for Bob Seger’s Silver Bullet Band since 1972, told me Sunday, “There’s a lot of pride Bruce took in watching the response that Clarence would get from the audience with his solos. The songs would come to life with the first note of a sax line. He was brilliant. His tone was not your typical, classic horn-section sound. It was growly, gassy. You could feel the energy coming out of his sax.

“Big Man, big sax, big sound.”

The dynamics between Reed and Seger are strikingly similar to those of Mr. Clemons and Springsteen.

“We evolved from the guitar armies, the British invasion,” Reed said. “We approached the instrument as the George Harrison approach to melodic soloing. For me, a big challenge was gaining validation of being that lead instrument, the visual guy on stage. That’s what Clarence did. Bob let me do it. And Springsteen let the Big Man do it.”

Mr. Clemons stood 6-foot-5 and weighed 270 pounds. He was born in Norfolk, Va., where his father owned a fish market. Mr. Clemons attended Maryland State University on a football scholarship and was a teammate of running back Emerson Boozer, who went on to play for the New York Jets. After college he moved to New Jersey, where he worked as a youth counselor and played semi-pro football.

His career away from the E Street band covered the whole nine yards. Mr. Clemons released seven solo albums, including 1985’s “Hero,” which produced the hit “You’re a Friend of Mine,” a duet with Jackson Browne. Mr. Clemons played on the Aretha Franklin hit “Freeway of Love,” and his acting career included appearance on the HBO series “The Wire,” where he portrayed the organizer of a youth program. He jammed with President Bill Clinton at the 1993 inaugural ball.

Mr. Clemons’ final appearance was with Lady Gaga on the season finale of “American Idol.” He was featured on Lady Gaga’s “Hair” and “Edge of Glory,” released earlier this year.

In the foreword to Big Man, Springsteen wrote, “The story I have told throughout my work life I could not have told as well without Clarence. When you look at just the cover of ‘Born to Run,’ you see a charming photo (made by Eric Meola), a good album cover, but when you open it up and see Clarence and me together, the album begins to work its magic. Who are these guys? Where did they come from? What is the joke they are sharing? A friendship and narrative steeped in the complicated history of America begins to form and there is music already in the air.”

The sprits shall always remain in the night.