My blog my rules so a quick time out from the Mets to mourn the passing of Clarence Clemons.
Clarence came through Shea in 2003 with the E Street Band…while the camera doesn’t focus on him in this vid, and the mix is suspect, I thought I’d use a clip from our own stomping grounds. From October 2003…and if you listen closely you’ll hear me singing harmony with about 70,000 others.
Clarence lived a wonderful life. He carried within him a love of people that made them love him. He created a wondrous and extended family. He loved the saxophone, loved our fans and gave everything he had every night he stepped on stage. His loss is immeasurable and we are honored and thankful to have known him and had the opportunity to stand beside him for nearly forty years. 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. His life, his memory, and his love will live on in that story and in our band. (Bruce Springsteen)
I was walking a year or two ago passed 48th Street in the morning, Rockefeller Plaza. There was a band playing. There backs were to me, so I couldn’t see them, but the sound was extraordinary. It sounded like Bruce, but I was impressed that it was probably a recent composition, and yet it had all the spark of life and creativity in it. It was/is a great band, and clearly Clarence’s spirit weighed in on it, with his solos. I contrast that btw, w the sax solos you can find in another pop artist’s work, Billy Joel’s, which have none of the passion and all of the bluster. It was an age of the automobile, and the malls, and the sense of sort of being lost, the car as an escape to nowhere. Those Springsteen recordings captured it all.
mets on t.v.- bruce springsteen glory days video filmed in a bar with dwight gooden pitching on television.