A brotherhood loses its Big Man

Listening to Born to Run over breakfast in the wake of the death of saxophonist Clarence Clemons, who died Saturday at 69, brought me back to when I first started going to see Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band shows during The River tour in 1980.

Back then, Springsteen concerts were so long that they had to be broken into parts. There was an hour-plus first set about pushing back against social and economic restraints in pursuit of your own identity. Then came a second, celebratory set that lasted even longer, followed by an epic encore when "Jungleland" and the "Detroit Medley" would really take the roof off the Spectrum.

It's Clemons' "Jungleland" performance, building to an operatic crescendo before settling back into a wounded world where poets "just stand back and let it all be," that tops lists as his most memorable solo.

I can't argue against that, though I've got my own list of standout moments by an instrumentalist whose playing was never excessive. There's the Greasy Lake scene-setting lick in "Spirit in the Night," not to mention the battering-ram riffage that busts out in "Night," and the uncharacteristically jazzy tooting that takes "Dancing in the Dark" home.

When I remember those 1980s shows on The River and later, the Born in the U.S.A. tours, it's not "Jungleland" but "Thunder Road" I think of first. And it's not only the majestic wail of Big Man sax that carries Bruce and Mary away from a town full of losers in the climax to that first set. It's also the image of Springsteen running from right to left, and getting down on his knees to slide into Clemons' awaiting arms. At which point the Big Man plants a big, wet soul kiss on the lips of his Boss, in a potent image of the deeply affectionate bond that's also reflected in Springsteen's eyes as he gazes at Clemons on the Born to Run cover.

"I fell in love" is how the guileless, five-times-married Clemons described in his 2009 memoir, Big Man: Real Life & Tall Tales, what happened in 1971 when he first met Springsteen outside the Asbury Park bar the Student Prince. Springsteen doesn't put it quite that way, but in the origin stories he has often told before "Growing Up," it's the addition of Clemons that readies the band to take on all comers. "The change was made uptown, and the Big Man joined the band," is how "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out" puts it. "From the coastline to the city, all the little pretties raise their hands."

A lot of great rock-and-roll bands boil down to the often clashing personalities of two members: Lennon and McCartney, Jagger and Richards. It was never that way on E Street. Instead, the vibe is familial, with the leader able to turn to one foil and musical consigliere, in Steve Van Zandt, and another, in the charismatic, crowd-pleasing Clemons.

For the last 35 years, Clemons was the only black musician in an otherwise all-white band that has striven to talk about the whole of American experience. (For a short time in the 1970s, three African American musicians lived on E Street, when David Sancious was on keyboards, and Ernest "Boom" Carter, who played on "Born to Run," sat on the drum throne.)

The 6-foot-4 Clemons' presence didn't mean that Springsteen succeeded in reaching a sizable black audience. Even in 20,000-capacity arenas, it has often seemed there were more African Americans onstage than in the crowd. But in 2011, interracial rock bands are still rare, and without making a big deal about it, the E Street Band has always looked a little bit more like America than most of its cohorts.

The brotherhood that is a key part of the E Street Band's appeal hasn't always been indivisible. In 1989, Springsteen broke up the band in hopes of pursuing an alternative musical direction he never quite found.

Long before the band broke up, Springsteen's vision had shifted. And as his musical palette became more "rural" than "urban," as he put it on 2010's The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town documentary, there was less call for saxophone.

There were still signature solos - from "Darlington County" on 1984's Born in the U.S.A., or "Waitin' on a Sunny Day," from 2002's The Rising - on which Clemons could let rip with that fat tone that owed so much to 1950s R&B honkers like King Curtis. But long stretches on stage found Clemons biding his time, waiting for his next Big Man moment.

That didn't make him any less essential to the E Street experience when the band got back together in 1999, and other than the guy from New Jersey with the microphone, the larger-than-life sideman who was introduced as "The King of the World" or some variation was always the most popular person in the room.

Throughout a pretty much nonstop tour from 2007 to 2009 that he said was "pure hell," Clemons was beset by health problems. Particularly since organist Danny Federici died in 2008, there's been concern among fans about how long Clemons would be able to continue touring.

Now, his death has E Street nation in mourning - and given new resonance to Springsteen songs like "Blood Brothers," "If I Should Fall Behind," and the 9/11-inspired gospel lament "My City of Ruins," in which Springsteen sings, "Without your sweet kiss, my soul is lost, my friend / Tell me how do I begin again?"

The statement Springsteen released Saturday night would seem to indicate that the band will go on. "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," the 61-year-old Springsteen said. "His life, his memory, and his love will live on in that story and in our band."

Let's hope that the E Street Band will go on, and that somehow, the shows will continue to be great. But without Clarence Clemons, they'll never be the same.