Clarence Clemons suffers stroke

WRLTHD Music News

By Jay Lustig/The Star-Ledger
A source close to Clarence Clemons has confirmed that he has suffered a stroke. The source, who offered the information on the condition of not being identified, did not know how serious the stroke was.

Veteran entertainment journalist Roger Friedman wrote, on the web site showbiz411.com that the beloved saxophonist, known as the Big Man, had suffered a stroke at his Florida home, and is "seriously ill."

Clemons is an original member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, and the oldest member of the band, at 69. He is someone whose importance to the New Jersey music scene can't be overstated, and who is utterly irreplaceable.

His big, immediately recognizable, saxophone sound is one of the cornerstones of the E Street sound. Songs such as "Born to Run" and "Jungleland" wouldn't have sounded remotely the same without him, and his larger-than-life personality has always made him a crucial element of the band's stage shows.

 Springsteen even gave him a crucial role in the autobiographical song "Tenth Avenue Freeze-out," singing, about the moment when it all changed for the E Street Band: "When the change was made uptown and the Big Man joined the band/From the coastline to the city all the little pretties raise their hands."

Although the E Street Band is currently on hiatus, Clemons has been in the news, lately, after performing on Lady Gaga's new album, "Born This Way."

He was also the subject of a documentary, "Who Do I Think I Am? A Portrait of a Journey," that premiered at the Garden State Film Festival in Asbury Park, in April.

The film documented traveling that Clemons had done, in China, after Springsteen's "Rising Tour" of 2002-03. “I was kind of looking for myself,” Clemons told The Star-Ledger, in March. “The tour with Bruce was just so long: It took me out of my body, it took me out of myself. And finding who I am was what this (trip) turned into.”

He was still, at the time, undergoing "major, major rehab," he said, from the knee replacement and spinal surgeries he has undergone over the last few years, but was hopeful that the band would tour again in 2012.

He also published a memoir, "Big Man: Real Life and Tall Tales," in 2009.