Big Man

by Clarence Clemons

  I smiled at him and with one finger beckoned him up onto the stage.

  The kid never hesitated.

  He stepped onto the stage, turned sideways to the crowd, pointed his horn at mine, and began to play.

  “I’ve had a lot of magical moments,” I told Don and Victoria later. “But that was one of the best. When that kid started playing… I don’t know… it was… everything.”

  Don showed me a picture he’d taken of us with his cell phone. I looked at it a long time.

  “You know what this reminds me of?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “It sort of reminds me of me and Bruce,” I said.

  “Was the kid any good?” Victoria asked.

  “He will be,” I said. “But what he lacks in experience he makes up for in balls.”

  I looked at the picture again and smiled.

  Manchester, England

  Don

  I was walking across the tarmac toward the stairs leading to the door of the big rock-star jet that was going to take us to Ireland.

  I was traveling with the band and the inner circle of assistants and managers who get to travel this way. Bruce was first up the stairs. Patti would follow in her own plane, as she and Bruce didn’t fly together unless their kids were with them, the theory being that if one plane went down the kids wouldn’t be orphans. Patti’s plane was a Challenger 600; she was accompanied by her assistants and friends. On some days Soozie would fly with Patti but not today.

  At the bottom of the stairs Jon Landau stopped next to me, extended his hand, and said, “Hi, I’m Jon Landau.” Thereby inviting me to identify myself. The words he had used were “Hi, I’m Jon Landau,” but everything else—body language, tone, and volume—all said, And who the fuck are you? (In my opinion Jon and Bruce have the best manager/artist relationship since Peter and Jesus.)

  Things were fine after I identified myself as a guest of Clarence’s, but it led me to ask Clarence if Bruce knew about me traveling with them on this flight.

  “Bruce knows everything all the time,” said Clarence.

  It’s hard to believe that this life of police escorts and private jets can become routine, but it does to those involved. It’s another drive, another flight, another show. On these trips Bruce has a routine that dates back to the early days. He walks through the plane (or bus or whatever) and greets everybody on board before departure.

  When he shook my hand that night I said, “Great show,” referring to the performance earlier at Old Trafford. “Hey,” he said. “That’s my job.” As he walked on toward the back of the plane Clarence turned to me.

  “That’s why he’s the Boss,” he said.

  Stockholm, Sweden, 2007

  Clarence

  It was December 10, and the band, now without Danny on the organ, was playing the Globe Arena in Stockholm as part of the “Magic” tour’s European leg.

  The Swedish crowd loved me and let me know. A chant of “We’re not worthy!” began during my solo on “She’s the One” and continued every time I stepped into the spotlight.

  Eventually Bruce and the band started to chant along with the crowd. It was quite a scene.

  This love was probably connected to the fact that I have ties to the country. Bruce calls me “the godfather of Swedish soul” during his introductions. My second wife, Christina, is Swedish, and I have always felt a deep connection to the place.

  My son from that union, Christopher, now twenty-two years old, was at the show that night. He is a fine guitar player and, unbeknownst to me, was invited up onto the stage by Bruce to join us on “Dancing in the Dark.”

  For me, it was an astonishing moment. It’s difficult to describe how it felt to be on that stage with my son. Especially on that song. Why is that song so special? Because the day my wife told me that she was pregnant with Christopher was the exact same day we shot the video for “Dancing in the Dark.” And here we were, twenty-two years later… It was very cool. In fact I think it might have been the best night of my life.

  Los Angeles

  Don

  The question I’m asked most is if Clarence and Bruce are really friends. Are they actually as tight as they appear to be onstage? The answer is yes. They are as close to being brothers as they can be. They have spent more time together in the E Street family than with their real relatives. At times their family has been dysfunctional, but all families are at one time or another. I have never seen or heard about any serious rift between Clarence and Bruce. I have seen many displays of love and respect and concern for each other. Except for Bruce’s highly publicized decision to go out with a different band, I’ve heard of no problems between the two men. In fact, I think it’s fair to say that Clarence is the biggest Bruce Springsteen fan I’ve ever met.

  I was riding with Clarence to the Honda Center in Anaheim for the second of two shows. He was wearing earphones and rocking to music I couldn’t hear. He had his eyes closed and he was smiling broadly.

  At one point he laughed out loud and said, “God damn, this is good!”

  He saw my look of curiosity and took off the earphones.

  “ ‘Light of Day’ live,” he said. “God, this guy is amazing!”

  It took a second for me to realize that he was talking about Bruce. Clarence could marvel at the Boss like every other fan, even though he’s been standing next to him onstage for over thirty-five years.

  Later in the Temple of Soul it was all Bruce all the time. Clarence played “Sad Eyes” over and over, followed by the beautiful falsetto performance on “Lift Me Up.” When that song finished, Clarence shook his head in admiration.

  “Sweet Jesus, he writes great songs,” he said.

  I guess it’s obvious that I, too, have tremendous respect and admiration for Bruce Springsteen. And so does everyone I’ve met on the tour. I’m talking about roadies and personal assistants and bodyguards and other members of the band. Look to the sides of the stage at the next concert. You’ll see friends and employees and occasionally celebrities singing along or watching the show with the same rapt attention as the rest of the audience.

  There are a lot of celebrities who appear or are mentioned in this book. Elvis Presley once called me a namedropper.

  I’ve seen the show a lot. I’ve seen the band perform live a lot. I saw them as an opening act, and I saw them do a four hour plus set in a tiny club. I have seen them in arenas and stadiums all over the world. I know these men and women personally. I have watched them grow and mature and survive for almost forty years now, and they keep getting better. When they take the stage now they take it with the weight of history and experience. They encompass all the others in rock who have gone before and include all who continue to play it now. They are, without question, the greatest rock and roll band in the world.

  And there is a reason for that which lies beyond the brilliance of the songwriting and the arrangements, past the consummate showmanship and the dazzle and the lights and the screens and the energy of those audiences, something beyond the collective talent on and around the stage, and it’s this: Bruce and Clarence.

  Bruce and Clarence personify the dreams of the ’60s, when we were all going to live together in peace and harmony. We may not have achieved those goals as a nation, but up there on that stage they do. Just like they did in Erik Meola’s iconic photographs from so many years ago. Black and white photographs. A black man and a white man who are brothers. That’s what I see in these two men.

  And some nights, once in a while, “the thing” happens.

  It happened on the stage of the Student Prince the first time, but it might happen again tonight.

  When the thing happens Bruce is more than Bruce. He carries the hopes and dreams and troubles and dark places of all who went before. When the thing happens Bruce is Sal Paradise and James Dean and Elvis and Otis and John Galt and Marlon Brando and Gene Vincent and Chet Baker and all the winners and losers and midnight gamblers and fringe players who ever had American dust on th
eir boots; and Clarence is Jimmy Walker and Red Prysock and Stan Getz and Malcolm X and Gerry Mulligan and Iceberg Slim and all the Counts and Dukes and Kings and every black jazz musician who had to go in through the kitchen and every cool rockin’ daddy who stood at the bar at the Metropole and watched Gene Krupa take drums into another dimension.

  They stand on the stage and play like all the other nights and then, by some silent, ancient means of communication, they look at each other.

  There are defining moments in the lives of men and women and nations.

  I mentioned some of this to Clarence while we were sitting in the Temple of Soul, and he started talking about the first night at the Student Prince.

  “At some point I turn and look over at him and he does the same thing at the same second, and there was this connection, and we both felt it and we both knew it was powerful and that our lives would be intertwined forever. I know it sounds like bullshit and it sounds faggy and all that shit, but it’s as true as anything that I know in life. This thing just happened.”

  Bruce and Clarence are more than the sum of their parts. They are the whole package filled with dreams and aspirations and soul and talent and rhythm and sha-la-las and bop-shu-bops and ass kicking guitar solos that make the girls act the way you want them to act, and they’re Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan and Lord Buckley and Screaming Lord Sutch and all the Ronettes and Vandellas and Cadillacs and Infernos who ever put on sharkskin and stood on a stage and looked out into the darkness and opened their hearts and brought forth light. They are the complete contradiction and the complete explanation all in one moment, and the moment itself floats away, breaks away from time like an iceberg and floats into our collective memories of yesterday and our plans for tomorrow, and suddenly we’re all in a car with no top on a summer night in a beach town with a hot, slow wind blowing, and our skin is sun kissed and soft and we’re young and we’re strong and the night is endless and we’re headed for a better place.

  Singer Island, Florida

  Clarence

  It was the last time Don and I went deep sea fishing. We spent the day aboard a sixty-foot sport fishing boat in the Atlantic Ocean. I had committed to this trip as part of a charity fund-raiser, a “Spend the day fishing with the Big Man!” silent auction item. The winners were three guys, Shelly, Chris, and Carl. Shelly and Carl had never seen me play and had barely heard of Bruce. Chris, a roofer who spent most of the day on his cell phone doing business, was a fan of sorts. He called me Mr. Clarence. After one of his calls—“I’m telling you those tiles better be on the dock in the morning!”—he snapped the phone shut, looked around at the turquoise ocean, and actually said, “This is great. I get to take a day off to recharge my batteries, and then tomorrow I’m back at work.” Then he got another call. But they were charitable and generally pleasant people.

  The seas today were what boat people call choppy. Nonboat people would call it hell. I like boats, but sometimes I have problems on the open ocean. Being on a boat at sea is like being on a floating prison. A prison from which there is no escape. It was worse for my assistant, Lani, who found out today that she gets seasick. She spent the endless eight hours curled into a fetal position in the cabin and wishing she’d never left Australia.

  To make matters worse, the fish weren’t biting, so the day was spent watching the kite from which the lines were strung. The first guy to do this (Rube Goldberg?) was a genuine genius. Eventually we collectively caught a few barracuda and a couple of dolphin. That day, I felt that catching fish was somewhat depressing. I often forget that the fish I eat was once a living thing that did not want to die.

  I got bored after a few hours of kite watching, and we went inside. My fiancée, Victoria, stayed home today, because her last time out on the ocean she found out that she, too, was prone to seasickness.

  “August sixteenth,” I said to Don. “Save the date.”

  “For what?”

  “On that day in Tiburon, California, I’m getting married for the last time,” I said.

  He congratulated me and called his wife to block out that weekend. Don has been around me enough to have lived through this before. A few times. But this has a different feel to it. I believe that Victoria, who was born in Siberia twenty-nine years ago, is in fact the perfect woman for me. I have never been this happy.

  We talked about the road and the upcoming European leg of the “Magic” tour that was moving on to stadiums. We discussed my various ailments, including my bad hips, knees, and back. I’ve noticed that since the deaths of Terry and Danny, Bruce had become worried about me and had in fact asked the tour medical advisor to keep an eye on me.

  “I’ve already got a ton of doctors,” I said. “I don’t need somebody else checking up on me like a babysitter. I’m a grown man.”

  In fact I had to write Bruce a letter and tell him that I appreciated his concern but I didn’t need another person looking over my shoulder on the road to make sure I was eating my carrots. I’m there to do a job, and as long as I’m doing it well I’d prefer to be left alone. I said that I knew he was coming from a good place and I told him, “I know it’s hard to believe but I actually love me as much as you love me. Maybe more.”

  “Did he answer?” Don asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “He’s great. He said he didn’t mean to cause me any aggravation, and that he wants to keep doing this for a long time and that he wants me to be around. Hard to argue with that.”

  When we were returning to the dock the crew got excited when Alan Jackson, the country singer, passed going in the opposite direction aboard his boat Hullbilly. They seemed to think that I knew Alan and maybe they should turn our boat around and catch up with his and somehow lash the two together so that Alan and I could jam on one of the decks. I guess I put that notion to rest when I said, “Alan who?”

  I told Don that I had played the rain forest concert last week at Carnegie Hall, and that I had run into Billy Joel and asked him if he had in fact been in Islamorada when we were there last February. He was. He said that he has a vacation home in Miami, and when he feels the urge to take a vacation from his vacation home he and a buddy put their motorcycles on a boat, take the boat somewhere, then take the motorcycles off the boat and drive around. One of those places was Islamorada. There are lifestyles and then there are lifestyles.

  Our plans for the evening were still evolving. Either a chef was cooking at my place or we were going out for Chinese food. There was talk of going to a cigar bar to watch the sunset. This is often the way it is when you’re hanging with me. You must remain flexible.

  An hour later I sent Don the following text message: You would not believe the shit I’ve been going through since I got home because I did not take her [Victoria] fishing. I’ll call you in a few.

  I called him an hour later.

  “It’s unbelievable,” I said. “She didn’t want to go ’cause she got sick the last time, but apparently she wanted me to ask her to go even though I knew she didn’t want to.”

  “Women are complicated,” Don offered. “Relationships are complicated.”

  “I know. I’ve been in enough relationships and enough women to be aware of that, but I just don’t understand this,” I said.

  “She didn’t want to go, but she wanted you to ask her to go so that she would know that you wanted her to go, and then she would’ve said she didn’t want to go,” he said.

  “That’s just crazy.”

  “That’s just women.”

  “I can’t deal with this,” I sighed.

  “You keep talking like that and I’m going to have to rewrite this chapter,” he said.

  “Or write a new one,” I replied.

  Of course by the next morning this was all forgotten and life went on. Bruce had decided to add more shows, so the wedding date was moved up a week to August 8. We all went out to dinner that night and wound up in a cigar bar in a marina in West Palm Beach. Victoria shares my love of cigars, which, considering how much I like
to smoke them, is a good thing. It’s tough to hang with me if you’re not cigar tolerant. (At least it was at that point in time. Now my cigar-smoking days are over.)

  When I go anywhere down here I know that we’re in for special treatment. It would be disingenuous to say I don’t enjoy the attention that comes with fame. Don gets a big kick out of it. He says that it’s fun to inhabit this glamorous world on a temporary basis. But that’s bullshit ’cause Don’s had a pretty glamorous life, too. I like to set Don up to tell some of his show-business stories and momentarily deflect the attention from me. That happened when an old guy with white hair that was way too long started talking about the first condo he bought in 1974 in a place called Inverrary.

  “That’s where Jackie Gleason lived,” the guy said. “Everybody hated him.”

  I turned to Don and said, “Tell him some of your Gleason stories.”

  “You knew him?” the guy said.

  “Actually I worked for him once in 1974 in Inverrary,” Don said.

  “Everybody hated him,” the guy said.

  “Yes,” said Don. “He was not a nice guy. Brilliant but not nice.”

  “Everybody hated him,” the guy said.

  “I came down here for six weeks to help write a Honeymooners special,” said Don.

  “We met Gleason the first day outside of the tennis club they had there. It was about a hundred and sixty degrees. He sat with his back to the sun and ran down the show. He had most of it mapped out, and, in fact, we wrote the bulk of it that first week. The other writers were Allan Katz, Frank Peppiat and his partner John Aylesworth, and Gleason’s guy, Walter Stone. Gleason would only look at and talk to Walter. If I asked him a question he would answer Walter. Walter, who was nearly bald, would break out in sweat along his former hairline whenever Jackie came into the room. We went to work on his opening monologue. I’ll bet we wrote a hundred jokes a day. He asked for them to be put on separate pieces of paper, and he’d sit behind his desk while we watched him read them one at a time. Using one finger he’d slide a sheet of paper off the pile, look at it, then slide it to the other side of the desk and off it into a wastepaper basket.