Clarence Clemons, 1942-2011

Growing up in western Kentucky in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I knew only one guy who liked Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. He had gone to UK Medical School, and was way more sophisticated than most of us who spent virtually all our time between Hoptown and Cairo. He used to hang out with the young people at our church, and he would tell Matthew and me these great stories about Springsteen's legendary concerts -- how the band would play for three or four hours every night, how they would vary the song list from night to night, how they would do these amazing covers of songs like "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and "Devil with a Blue Dress." It was sort of odd, in a way, because I didn't have any idea what he was talking about -- I had never heard anything from Springsteen, other than "Hungry Heart," and I had certainly never heard him live.

By the spring of 1985, however, I was in college, and everyone knew about Springsteen. Nowadays, the rock 'n' roll era has given way to the video game era, and so it may not be possible for any band to be as big a deal today as Springsteen and the E Street Band were in the mid-1980s. But certainly no band has come close -- or even tried to come close, really. They had an enormous impact on me as I was trying to move beyond my high school personality and develop a grown-up personality. From 1985 until I went to law school in 1988, it seemed like I listened to Springsteen almost every day. And I definitely thought about him every day. When you're trying to be a man, you look for role models wherever you can get them, and I learned a lot from Springsteen. I learned that men could be vulnerable, poetic, and even artsy. I also learned the importance of hard work, of treating your art as a craft, of belonging to a tradition (even a tradition that was fading), and of being true to that tradition, regardless of whether times had changed. And I learned a lot about friendship.

Clarence Clemons was, of course, the saxophonist for the E Street Band, and his legendary playing in songs like "Jungleland" and "Born to Run" were critical in establishing the band's unique sound. But from my perspective, what was most important about Clarence Clemons was his relationship with Springsteen. After the Born to Run album in 1975, Springsteen took his sound in a different direction. Like so many of us, as he grew older he became more and more sensitive to the benefits of good editing. Instead of the long, flowing songs with which he had started, he tended to hone everything down, making his songs tighter and leaner than before. Under these circumstances, it would have been easy for him to simply ease Clarence out of the band. On the other hand, it would have been tempting for Clarence to complain that he didn't have enough to do.

But, at least in public, they did a great job of avoiding any such controversies. Although Springsteen is an eccentric genius, he recognized the benefits of being loyal to the folks who helped make him rich. And Clemons was willing to accept a lesser role in order to stay in the E Street Band. I have no idea what was the true story in their relationship, or why they each made the decisions that they did. When I was 21 and 22, however, it was very good for me to see such a good example of loyalty and friendship -- of the benefits of being part of a team, and sublimating yourself to a group.

I don't listen to Springsteen nearly as often as I used to, but I still think about those lessons a lot. And so I thank Clarence Clemons, not only for his great music, but for all he helped to teach me about growing up.