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Clarence Clemons
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Clarence Clemons (born January 11, 1942) nicknamed The Big Man, is an American musician, best known as the saxophonist in Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band.
ons was born in Norfolk, Virginia, and raised in Norfolk County. He attended Maryland State College (now the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore) on a football athletic scholarship — he was a lineman with professional football aspirations until an injury derailed his sports career. He majored in sociology.
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Encyclopedia
Clarence Clemons (born January 11, 1942) nicknamed The Big Man, is an American musician, best known as the saxophonist in Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band.
Biography
Clemons was born in Norfolk, Virginia, and raised in Norfolk County. He attended Maryland State College (now the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore) on a football athletic scholarship — he was a lineman with professional football aspirations until an injury derailed his sports career. He majored in sociology. He played the saxophone, and during summer breaks often signed on to play with combos or larger ensembles, working with such outfits as the Vibratones, the Newark Bears, and the Jersey Generals. He quit college just before graduating and moved north to Newark, New Jersey, where he became a counselor for emotionally disturbed children. While holding the day job he spent many nights jamming in various bands along the Jersey Shore.
Clemons was working with a group called Joyful Noise--performing principally R & B covers--when his path crossed Bruce Springsteen's. Both artists were playing in Asbury Park, New Jersey, at bars about a city block apart. One rainy night, Clemons strolled down to observe Springsteen's show. Clemons recounted the event in People magazine: "I had my saxophone with me, and when I walked in this club--no lie--a gust of wind just blew the door down the street. Boof! I say, 'I want to play. Can I sit in?' Bruce says, 'Hey, you can do anything you want. Take a couple of background singers, anything.' I sat in with him that night. It was phenomenal. We'd never even laid eyes on each other, but after that first song, he looked at me, I looked at him, and we said, 'This is it.' After that I was stoked."
Known as "The Big Man", Clemons has been playing with Springsteen since 1973; his sax parts are an easily recognized feature of the E Street sound, with the most famous being his long, elegiac solo during the song "Jungleland." With the band Clemons plays mostly tenor saxophone, but has also occasionally played soprano and baritone saxophone. He also plays various percussion instruments during songs that do not have a saxophone part.
In addition, Clemons has a larger-than-life persona within the band; he serves as a visual foil to Springsteen during concerts (as well as on the Born to Run foldout album cover) and as the crowd favorite is always the last player mentioned during band introductions, usually after a lavish, over-the-top build-up from Springsteen. His arrival into the band is celebrated by Springsteen in the song "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out"; many spoken introductions or interludes during Springsteen shows have also delivered tall, sometimes supernatural tales regarding Clemons' initial appearance to Springsteen.
After breaks in the 1990s, Clemons continues to be connected to the E Street Band. On January 18, 2009, he participated in the musical opener for the We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial. On February 1, 2009, Clemons performed at the halftime show at Super Bowl XLIII.
Outside of his work with the E Street Band, Clemons has recorded with many other artists and has had a number of musical projects on his own. The best known of these are his 1985 vocal duet with Jackson Browne on the hit single "You're a Friend of Mine", and his saxophone work on Aretha Franklin's 1985 hit single "Freeway of Love". In the mid-1990s, he recorded a Japan-only CD release called Aja and the Big Man "Get it On" (on the now-defunct Dream Train Records) with singer/songwriter Aja Kim (formerly of the tribute band The Iron Maidens). In the 2000s Clemons has been working with a group called The Temple of Soul, and has also recorded with philanthropic teen band Creation. During the 1980s Clemons owned a Red Bank, New Jersey nightclub called Big Man's West.
Clemons has appeared in movies and on television making his debut in Martin Scorsese's 1977 musical, New York, New York in which he played a trumpet player. He can be seen as one of the Three Most Important People In The World in the 1989 film Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. In 1985, Clemons was a special guest star in Diff'rent Strokes episode "So You Want to Be a Rock Star", in which he played the role of Mr.Kingsley, a young saxophonist player helping Arnold Jackson to learn to play his sax. He has also been a guest voice in an episode of The Simpsons. He also played the role of Jack in Swing starring opposite Lisa Stansfield and Hugo Speer, directed by Nick Mead. He appeared alongside Michael McKean and David Bowie as a miner in one episode of musician Weird Al Yankovic's children's television show The Weird Al Show. He appeared in an episode of Damon Wayans' television show, My Wife And Kids as a musician and performed an original composition, co written with bassist, Lynn Woolever, called "One Shadow In The Sun". Clemons twice appeared as a Baltimore youth-program organizer in HBO's crime drama The Wire.
Clarence Clemons is the son of Clarence (a fish market owner) and Thelma Clemons. He has been married four times - Chistina (1981), Elizabeth Connell-Barr (2000), Yanhong Meng (2004), and Viktorya (2008). He has three children from his first two marriages - Clarence III, Charles, and Christopher.
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