Clarence Clemons (1942-2011). Live in Toronto, 1984.
And earlier in the week I linked to a picture of Abigail Clancy. Here’s the picture:
One likes to believe in the freedom of music.Rush – Spirit of Radio.
I wasn’t always a Bruce Springsteen fan. When The River was released in 1979, I well remember the hype CHUM FM gave the album, and not having a clue what the fuss was about. Where’s the hot guitar solos? Springsteen himself wears a suit vest onstage for gosh sake. All hype, seemed a reasonable response. 
It’s not that I disliked, you understand, not really. Born to Run, I would have to admit was a great song. And the other songs I knew, Tenth Avenue Freeze Out, Candy’s Room, Prove it All Night and later Hungry Heart, were all good songs. And if I had sat and put it together in that way, thought about his songs, I probably would have been a convert much earlier than I was.
There really was no excuse. Darkness on the Edge of Town is a great album, a work of art as much as any album of the rock era can be called that. I was 15 when Darkness was released in 1978, so I had no excuse. Except, I knew nobody who had it, liked it, talked about it. An album that good, by an artist that good, an artist we all knew just never listened too, and it seems nobody in my high school bought it.
I regret that I didn’t get Springsteen then. I was doing the concert scene by then, and had I seen Springsteen in ‘78, I would have been catching an astounding performer at his absolute peak. Even a few years later, when I had less excuses, I would have been seeing him perform at a level that few others ever do.
The conversion would take a few more years. It began in the middle of the night in 1983. I was working midnights at the local Food City, and had the night off. I stayed up, and when the TV was done for the night, turned on the radio. At 4:30 the DJ said he had tickets to Springsteen’s legendary sidekick and saxophonist, Clarence Clemons, and his band, the Red Bank Rockers at the El Mocambo. I called, got through immediately and had my name put on the list for the show – apparently virtually nobody else was listening at that time. On one days notice, and knowing nobody who was a Springsteen fan, I couldn’t find any takers for the second ticket, so I went by myself.
Upstairs at the El Mocambo was a small place, wider than it is deep with a low ceiling. It holds maybe a hundred people, who sit four each at a table. Rows of table run only 2 or 3 deep, thus about ten across. It is, it must be said, an intimate setting. I took a seat about ten feet from the stage and settled in to see I had no idea what. All I really knew was he played saxophone for Springsteen, and was on that album cover, the one where he’s leaning on Bruce. Hey, I was going to be ten feet away from a man on an album cover, and that was pretty cool. However, I was only ten feet away should it prove to be not very good and I wanted to leave halfway through.
I needn’t have worried. I remember sprinklings of the night. He started and ended with a couple of instrumentals. He brought out a little guy who sang great R&B, and had an on fire band behind him. He played for what must have been close to an hour and a half, but it seemed like ten minutes. And by the last song, Fire, I was dancing on my table, as was everybody else in the place.
I had often heard it said that music has energy, that it could be electric. I had no real idea what that really meant until that night when, like Ben Franklin standing in the storm with his kite, I learnt exactly what that electricity felt like. It was magical. I have said before that I learnt the meaning of the phrase raised the roof that night. The energy was so palpable in that little tiny room it felt like the roof must have moved upward so that the walls wouldn’t blow down.
How sad to hear the Big Man, he was 6’5” and 270 pounds, with the ever present big smile died yesterday, one week after suffering a stroke. He was 69, too young, too talented. I’ve seen Springsteen six times now, seen Clemons absolutely nail that astounding Jungleland solo. Seen him hanging out beside the speakers, like hoods at the drug store, while playing Rosalita. Seen him standing on one edge of the stage, while Bruce was on top of the piano, yet Clemons is the guy who was hard not to look at. I’ve even seen him kiss Springsteen, the singer on his knees after sliding across the stage to where Clarence was playing. But what I’ll always remember is that night 28 years ago when he seemed to come within’ an inch of literally blowing the roof off the El Mocambo. The night I learnt Rock ‘n’ Roll didn’t have to come wrapped in loud guitar solos and wailing singers.
No, Rock ‘n’ Roll is good time music, and nobody did good time better than Clarence, the Big Man, Clemons.
All the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities
In the new book “Primetime Propaganda,” Ben Shapiro argues the television industry is overwhelmingly left wing. Not just that, but conservative/Republican’s are blacklisted in the industry. To be sure, if you have enough talent, or enough success before you get discovered as a conservative, and you’re a fiscal conservative with Libertarian social outlook, you can still work. There are two subjects, however, were according to Shapiro, dissent is not tolerated: abortion and gay rights. 
To prove the point, 30 Rock’s Tracy Morgan went off reservation on a stand-up performance last month, that is being described as a “homophobic rant.” The hammer is coming down on Morgan, the same way it did on Michael Richards and Grey’s Anatomy star Isaiah Washington. Besides being called out by 30-Rock co-star Cheyenne Jackson (ed: who?) and fellow comedian Chris Rock, Morgan is being called to the carpet by his NBC bosses.
“We will always recognize an artist’s freedom to express him or herself, but not when reckless things are said no matter what the context,” said NBC Entertainment chief Robert Greenblatt.
Understand, along with the heckler case at the BC Human Rights Commission, that there is now one subject completely and utterly that may not be talked about in any way shape or form.
Sad news out of Florida this past weekend.
Bruce Springsteen’s long time sax player and sidekick, Clarence Clemons had a major stroke. Early reports suggested he was paralyzed on the left side of his body. More recent news suggests that Clemons is making “miraculous” progress.
Good luck to the greatest rock and roll saxophonist as he fights his latest health problem.
Gene Simmons and his long time common law wife, Shannon Tweed, had a blow out on The Joyce Behar Show this week. Behar was asking Simmons about his legendary promiscuousness, when Simmons made a small joke about it. Tweed stood up offended and took off her microphone, saying “nice.”
Tweed then paced the room while Simmons tried to talk his way out of it, ostensibly blaming Behar for asking the question.
There has been trouble recently between the two, with rumours of a split circulating. On the other hand, their reality TV show, Gene Simmons Family Jewels, begins it’s sixth season next Tuesday.
Speaking of legendary promiscuousness, Hugh Hefner and his affianced, Crystal Harris have split. Five days before the octogenarian and the 24 year old bleached blonde were to tie the knot, Harris broke it off.
“What the hell am I thinking?” she is rumoured to have thought to herself.
Interestingly, Harris is on the cover of this months Playboy. In an interview with Ryan Seacrest she said:
For a while I’ve been having second thoughts… I haven’t really been at peace with myself recently.
It’s all about priorities: first, you get on the cover of Playboy, then you find internal peace.
There’s always one question on the minds of right thinking people: who’s the next Bond girl. It’s one of those issues that affects real lives, and so it is always a going question. Upon announcing the current one, who’s next will inevitably crop up.
So, who’s next?
According to actress Naomie Harris, the next Bond girl will be… Naomie Harris.
Please tell me no.
In March the proiducers of the Broadway musical Spiderman-Man: Turn of the Dark, shut down the show to overhaul the music, storyline and to address safety concerns.
U2’s Bono and The Edge re-wrote their score, and the revamped show premiered this week.
(The show) has become a straightforward children’s entertainment with a mildly suspenseful story, two-dimensional characters, unapologetically bad jokes…
OK, the story rewrite didn’t go so well, what of that reworked score:
The score sounds like a double album of B-sides
Bruce Springsteen tells the story from the stage. After a gig, a young Bruce and sidekick Steve Van Zandt are walking the Asbury Park beach late one summer night. 
Walking towards them is a huge guy, dark, frightening looking guy. There’s nobody else on the beach, and as tension mounts they realize, he’s carrying a…a…a… saxophone!
Thus goes the story of how Bruce met the guy who would be his on stage foil for the next forty years (and counting).
A former football player, Clarence Clemons said in his autobiography, Big Man, that he had stuck with Springsteen all these years because he loves his music. It’s not hard to argue a large reason that music is so lovable is the linebacker with the saxophone.
Happy 70th Birthday Clarence Clemons, for being the Big Man, and for that solo in Jungleland. Never has a saxophone felt so at home in rock and roll.
One likes to believe in the freedom of music.Rush – Spirit of Radio.
Dec 31, 2010 6:25 PM
This shall be one long lonely night.
The above was written on the Facebook wall of somebody I’m close enough to be bothered by it. It wasn’t serious, not a cry for help or a desolate person in desperate need of company. But left alone on new years, she felt a little saddened by it.
I didn’t have a wild and crazy new years eve myself, although I was out among friends. A few drinks, some nice finger food to nibble on and the conversation of a couple of good friends. Did I drink? Why yes you honour. Much? No, not very much at all. Which perhaps explains how, at around noon on New Years Day, I was working out.
I put Bruce Springsteen’s Live at Hyde Park, a Christmas present, in the DVD player to work out with. As it was playing, Dancing in the Dark came on:
Message keeps getting clearer,
Radio’s on and I’m moving around the place.
I check my look in the mirror,
I wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face.
Man I ain’t getting’ nowhere, just sittin’ in a dump like this
There’s something happenin’ somewhere, baby I just know there is.Stay on the streets of this town, they’ll be carvin’ you up all night.
They say you gotta stay hungry, hey baby! I’m just about starving’ tonight.
I’m dying for some action, I’m sick of sittin’ round here trying to write this book,
I need a love reaction, c’mon baby give me just one look.
Springsteen has always had that one line, that phrase that could express so much. The intensity and passion of Born to Run, summed up in:
I wanna die with you Wendy on the street tonight,
In an everlasting kiss.
The sadness of The River:
And for my nineteenth birthday,
I got a union card and a wedding coat.
We went down to the courthouse,
And the judge put it all to rest.
No wedding day smile, no walk down the aisle,
No flowers no wedding dress.
You kind of know that’s not going to be a happy song.
But Dancing in the Dark was always different. It was the pop song, the song Courtney Cox danced to. It meant, well, nothing much.
In fact, it may have meant something very much more. During recording of Born in the USA, Springsteen’s manager and producer Jon Landau sent him home one night with a simple instruction: the album is good to great but it needs a hit. It needs a radio song. Go home and write it.
He did. Interesting then that he references writing so prominently in Dancing in the Dark:
I’m dying for some action,
I’m sick of sittin’ round here trying to write this book,
I need a Love reaction…
Suppose you change the word book for song, and it’s not hard to imagine you are looking into Bruce Springsteen’s very heart at that moment. It seems light enough, until…
“This shall be one long lonely night.”
It’s the knowledge that someone you love is lonely that changes the song. It becomes not a dance song, but a sad song with a happy face.
When the Born in the USA album came out, there was a fair bit of remark about Springsteen’s appearance. A once gaunt, skinny, weak looking kid (well, young man), he was now muscular, built up on weights. Meanwhile his foil, The Big Man, Clarence Clemons, had also hit the weights, adding bulk, losing fat. Springsteen gained weight, it was reported, Clemons lost. It seems unremarkable, except:
I check my look in the mirror,
I wanna change my clothes my hair my face.
Again you ask yourself, was Springsteen giving us a peek into his very darkest place, at 120 beats per minute of happy synthesizer pop?
And again you remember the words of Jon Landau: “go home and write a hit song.” Not a carefully crafted examination of your psyche. Not a scream for help. A pop song. So Springsteen did, all the while leaving a song that 25 years and hundreds of listens later, there was still something there to be discovered.
“That’s why,” as Clemons said in his recent autobiography, Big Man , “he’s the boss.”
…(she’s) a drunkards dream if I ever did see one…
Ringo Starr’s Allstar Band, 1989 (the first one).
Ringo Starr
Billy Preston
Dr. John
Joe Walsh (Eagles)
Levon Helm (Band)
Rick Danko (Band)
Garth Hudson (Band)
Nils Lofgren (Bruce Springsteens E-Street Band, Neil Young’s Crazy Horse)
Clarence Clemons (E Street Band)
And of course, no Ringo Starr Cool For Cats Friday would be complete without Mrs. Ringo Starr
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