I had heard he had a stroke a week ago, I had also heard that he has been in bad shape for some time before that. But yesterday on the phone talking to my brother I couldn't believe he was dead. I couldn't believe I hadn't heard at first, and then couldn't stand the fact it was true.
As a disciple of Springsteen, Clarence is part of his Holy Trinity, even non-believers associate The Big Man with almost nothing but The E Street Band. So it may be a surprise that when I think of Clarence the first thing I think of is a magical Grateful Dead show on December 31, 1988. In my mind it was the height of the band with Bret Mydland on keyboards and Jerry's licks were in full bloom. I found the video in my possession somehow and remember sitting on my college couch excited that I had another video to check out. About midway through I noticed a large black mass standing on the side of the stage with a sax in his hand and couldn't believe it was Clarence. I mean what the hell was he doing playing at a Dead show?
To me it showed the connection of music in a way that many people don't see or even think about. Hey man if you are a musician you dig music, then good music regardless of the Genre is what you dig. The show culminated with two epic, long running Dead tunes: "Morning Dew" in which one is privy to probably the greatest Garcia solo ever performed, there is one section where Jerry brings it together with so much skill it boggles the mind, at that point I will never forget Clarence taking his mouth off of the reed and mouthing "Wow" as he was bending at the back backwards and looking up to the sky. Then it was "Standing on the Moon" which admittedly gets me all choked up every time it comes on, Clarence noticeably was affected in the same way.
At the time I couldn't stand how people didn't get the Dead and wrote me off as that typical college fake hippie (meanwhile I was the farthest thing from it) but they got Springsteen and screamed "Thunder Road" at crowded parties dancing on tables. Now right there in front of me and my roommate's faces was the validity that I craved. From that point on they opened their minds and forgot about the stereotypes, they just started digging the music.
Not a lot of people know that Clarence had a tryout for the Cleveland Browns but the day before was involved in a terribly serious car accident or that after moving to Newark, New Jersey he worked for eight years as a counselor for disturbed and troubled boys at Jamesburg (which was the Juvie hall my parents would threaten me with whenever I got out of line). Nor that he was a devout Baptist from his youth in Virginia.
But they know the sound, if Bruce was the nervous system for the band then there is no doubt Clarence was the backbone. At times his playing was melodic and haunting ("Jungleland") then other times it was a Harley Davidson with straight pipes grinding up eardrums and elevating heartbeats (solo from "Promised Land"). Without Clarence there as no band.
I often wonder if the music created the brotherhood between Bruce and Clarence or the brotherhood created the music. But look at some old pictures of the two from the 70's and you can see it, feel it right there in front of you. Black, White...skinny, fat. It didn't matter they were brothers. In today's world where every commercial has some bullshit group of friends all of different ethnic races, constructed to appease the political massses here was a real life representation of color blindness. But hell, music has been breaking down barriers for decades. Frank and Sammy (where Frank wouldn't play anyplace that made him walk in the back door), Elvis, and Keith Richards' colorless life.
And with his passing another musician whom the next generation will never have the privilege of knowing. I hope to God the industry will change sometime so my son will have the heros I had growing up in music. I hope the Boss will continue to play in some capacity but pray they don't supplant the sax with a lesser human much like the remaining members of the Dead did after Jerry's death. If you want to play Bruce then do so with the E Street Band sans sax if you could make it work. I can't imagine it will and as much as I would love to head out to Giants Stadium for four hours of preaching you can't have a mass without the cornerstone the chuch was founded upon.
