{"id":950,"date":"2007-11-30T00:46:55","date_gmt":"2007-11-30T05:46:55","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-05-03T00:54:23","modified_gmt":"2009-05-03T00:54:23","slug":"linsgrth-exclusive-l-insg-clarence-clemo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/linsgrth-exclusive-l-insg-clarence-clemo\/","title":{"rendered":"<ins>RTH Exclusive:<\/ins> Clarence Clemons Autobiography, <em>No Small Parts for The Big Man<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QSCmBo3pn4s?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><blockquote><p>After weeks of negotiations, Rock Town Hall has obtained exclusive rights to run excerpts from E-Street Band legend <strong>Clarence Clemons<\/strong>&#8216; forthcoming autobiography, <em>No Small Parts for The Big Man<\/em>. In our first installment Clarence recounts the day The Boss presented him with a new assignment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>By <em>The River<\/em> Danny was already getting half of my &#8220;touches&#8221; with that rinky-dink Farfisa organ. Some folks couldn&#8217;t leave that wheezy thing back in the garage. The garage rock contingency in the E-Street Band was always trying to make itself heard above he more complex, subtle members of the band, like Roy and Max. God bless &#8217;em! I always saw myself as the bridge among the musicians, and it goes without saying that all roads led to <strong>The Boss<\/strong> himself. Now I don&#8217;t want you to get the wrong idea. I was all-state footballer long before anyone outside Norfolk County, Virginia had heard me blow my horn. The Big Man was a lineman, so &#8220;touches,&#8221; that is, opportunities to carry and catch the football, were not in my repertoire. I was in the trenches, making the quarterback and all the other pretty boys look good. These may not have been my glory days, but The Big Man could play. Attended Maryland State College (now the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore) on an football athletic scholarship. Thought I was headed for the show, the National Football League.<\/p>\n<p>As it was, the Man with the Plan had another show in mind. My parents gave me the gift of my first saxophone, but the Lord gave me the breath to blow down any walls set in my way. With the spiritual guidance of our Maker and as many <strong>King Curtis<\/strong> records as I could lay my hands on, I was prepared for that first time The Boss called for &#8220;Big Man!&#8221; to step forward and take it home with a solo.<\/p>\n<p>Bruce called us together for the first rehearsals toward an album he said would take us in a new direction. &#8220;My Daddy said to me the other morning at breakfast, &#8216;Bruce, when you gonna grow up and play some real music?&#8217; I said, &#8216;Pops, whaddaya talkin&#8217; about? I been playin&#8217; real music&#8230;&#8221; Well, you know how Bruce can get on a roll about his breakfast chats with his dad. Long story short, according to him the old man sold him on the idea of streamlining his sound and putting out an album that would once and for all move beyond his comfort zone of middle class kids from the Northeast corridor. Sounded good to me.<\/p>\n<p>Bruce began by walking us through a new song called <strong>&#8220;Born in the USA&#8221;<\/strong>. <!--more--><br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tIekamBDiAw?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe>.<br \/>\nThere was a lot of standing around and headscratching among the E-Streeters while Bruce insisted that Max do nothing more than bang his snare on the downbeats. The Boss was passionate, though. We&#8217;d never heard him sing with such fire. He was singing about our country and how we&#8217;d done wrong by our own veterans. Powerful stuff. As each verse built and The Boss called in more troops, I clutched my sax, keeping the keys loose, just waiting for my cue: <strong>&#8220;Big Man!&#8221;<\/strong> <\/p>\n<p>After all the years playing with the E-Street Band I could quickly pick out the key of whatever we were playing and literally hear my opening notes before I ever played them. No matter what the key, what the song, I tell you, I <em>knew<\/em> what I&#8217;d be playing. To me, this is proof that these aren&#8217;t my notes, but a higher power&#8217;s notes. I&#8217;m just blessed to serve as His vessel.<\/p>\n<p>Bruce and Max get to that breakdown, where it sounds like the song&#8217;s about to fall apart and end before it kicks back in like the canon-fire of <strong>1812<\/strong>. I&#8217;ve got goosebumps as I set the sax in my lips in anticipation of that call to arms. A little while later, the song wraps up and I haven&#8217;t played a note. That&#8217;s cool, I think, The Boss isn&#8217;t one to rush ahead and set his ideas in stone.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Whaddaya think, Big Man,&#8221; Bruce calls over to me, &#8220;nowhere to run, nowhere to hide?&#8221; I just chuckled, not sure of what The Boss wanted me to say. Then Danny kicked over a <strong>milk crate<\/strong> filled with percussion instruments. I had my own tambourine for times when I wasn&#8217;t blowing, but the milk crate was for all to share. Danny, Nils, Steven, even Roy had had opportunity to fish through it for a way to make the wall of sound bigger, in some cases, or to bide time for a more meaningful part, in other cases. Cool, my turn to go fishin&#8217;!<\/p>\n<p>I settled on a unique combination of maracas banging on a cowbell. I told myself long ago, <em>There are no small parts for The Big Man<\/em>. &#8220;Born in the USA&#8221; and the album of that title would be our breakthrough hit, taking us to unimagined levels of influence and adventure. I&#8217;d spend a lot of time fishin&#8217; during the sessions for <em>Born in the USA<\/em> and the tours that followed, but it was worth every moment. I gave it my all. <\/p>\n<p>Fans would come up to me during this period and say, &#8220;Clarence, when are you gonna blow that horn?&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m blowin&#8217; as much as ever,&#8221; I&#8217;d tell them. &#8220;Boss plays them four-hour shows. I still get two and a half hours to blow.&#8221; I could have sulked, I could have accepted the pity offered by my fans, but that&#8217;s not my way. That&#8217;s not His way. I had my own thing going on too. You think Bruce felt left out when Jackson and I started working together? We&#8217;re all in this together, whether together or apart. When Bruce hooked up with that Hollywood chick and set us free for a few years to do his whole LA thing, we were cool with that. I gotta say, though, Patti&#8217;s a real E-Streeter. I&#8217;ll go fishin&#8217; with her any day of the week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After weeks of negotiations, Rock Town Hall has obtained exclusive rights to run excerpts from E-Street Band legend Clarence Clemons&#8216; forthcoming autobiography, No Small Parts for The Big Man. In our first installment Clarence recounts the day The Boss presented him with a new assignment. By The River Danny was already getting half of my <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/linsgrth-exclusive-l-insg-clarence-clemo\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[167,52],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}