That history was so audible and evident from the very beginning, even when Springsteen was electrifying growing audiences only in the Northeast and a few other places (I was lucky to discover them so early; thankfully, I lived near Austin, TX when I caught the E Street Band live for the first time in March 1974). Springsteen, of course, is the greatest or near-greatest live performer of all-time--having Clemons to play off of gave Springsteen's show additional layers of meaning and higher heights that perhaps only the Who or James Brown at his most dizzying could match.
Besides the E Street Band concerts, which always turned into dance parties, I caught Clarence and his Red Bank Rockers twice, when they gigged in Detroit and Royal Oak. It was the closest you could get to a steamy Stax Records soul revue in the not-so-magical year of 1983, when British synth pop ruled the commercial airwaves.
I met Clarence around 1991, when he was on an autograph tour. At this time, Springsteen was working with other musicians but I didn't want to allude to that when I
had a couple of words with Clarence. So I told him how much I loved his Red Bank Rockers shows and I wondered what happened to his vocalist, J.T. Bowen.
Clarence, who was probably glad that I didn't ask the same cliched question or two that he undoubtably heard over and over on his signing tour, gave me the kind of smile that had a great degree of wisdom behind it. "He was enjoying the rock'n'roll lifestyle just a little too much," was how the Big Man put it.
That's just one of the many things I loved about Clarence Clemons: Here was a force of nature who could blow the roof off a building with his saxophone, yet he was drenched in goodwill and kept his feet squarely on the ground. Thanks for the lessons of life as much as the music, Big Man.