"Since 1973 the Springsteen/Clemons partnership has reaped great rewards and created insightful, high energy rock & roll,'' declared Don Palmer in Down Beat in 1984. I strive to keep it that way.''īut it was his musical contributions on tenor sax that would come to define the E Street Band sound. `Whenever somebody says your name, a smile comes to their face.' That's a great accolade. "It's because of my innocence,'' he said in a 2003 AP interview. His burly frame would have been intimidating if not for his bright smile and endearing personality that charmed fans. The two hit it off immediately and Clemons officially joined the E Street Band in 1973 with the release of the debut album "Greetings from Asbury Park.''Ĭlemons emerged as one of the most critical members of the E Street Band for different reasons. In 1971, Clemons was playing with Norman Seldin & the Joyful Noise when he heard about rising singer-songwriter named Springsteen, who was from New Jersey. He played for Maryland State College, and was to try out for the Cleveland Browns when he got in a bad car accident that made him retire from the sport for good. But his dreams originally focused on football. He was influenced by R&B artists such as King Curtis and Junior Walker. I flipped out,'' he said in a 1989 interview with the AP. I wanted an electric train for Christmas, but he got me a saxophone. My father got that bug and said he wants his son to play saxophone. It's where I belong,'' Clemons, a former youth counselor, said after performing at a Hard Rock Cafe benefit for Home Safe, a children's charity, in 2010.īorn in Norfolk, Va., Clemons was the grandson of a Baptist minister and began playing the saxophone when he was 9. Nearby, someone taped a handwritten sign that read simply "RIP Big Man.'' Outside The Stone Pony, the legendary Asbury Park, N.J., rock club where Springsteen, Clemons and other E Street Band members cut their teeth in the 1970s, Phil Kuntz stopped to place a small yellow flower on a decorative white fence. All this pain is going to come back and make me stronger.'' "This is all a test to see if you are really ready for the good things that are going to come in your life. "God will give you no more than you can handle,'' he said in the interview. "Of all the surgeries I've had, there's not much left to operate on.
Just this week, Lady Gaga's video with Clemons, "The Edge of Glory,'' debuted.Ĭlemons said in a 2010 interview with The Associated Press then that he was winning his battles _ including severe, chronic pain and post-surgical depression. In May, he performed with Lady Gaga on the season finale of "American Idol,'' and performed on two songs on her "Born This Way'' album.