A LITTLE FROM THE BIG MAN

Clarence Clemons isn’t about to stop now—he’s too much on a roll. A rockin’ roll. He has to do it this way, because “it’s easier to keep on going than to stop and start again.”

Throughout the extensive 18-month tour as sax man for Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Clemons always kept himself busy with outside projects of his own. He found time to visit Detroit and participate in Aretha Franklin’s “Freeway Of Love” video (he played sax on the single, too); he also stopped by former E Street guitarist Steve Van Zandt’s Sun City project. And his new son Christopher, planned to the exact day, was born in the middle of a four-week break before the European part of the tour. While the rest of the band went back to their hotel rooms exhausted after a show, Clemons was studying Lamaze classes on a Betamax, preparing for the birth. “I want to write a book on the pregnant father,” he says of the ordeal.

Meanwhile, Clemons, was also writing and recording his new LP, Hero. He even managed to squeeze in a video for “You’re a Friend Of Mine,” his recent single with Jackson Browne. Why doesn’t the Big Man take a breather, you’re wondering? He chuckles. “Once the creative juices get to flowing,” he says, “and they have been for a couple of years, it’s hard to rest when you know what you want to do. So I believe in going on and just doing it.”

Hero is quite a bit livelier and more poporiented than Clemons’s first recorded effort. Rescue, the Clarence Clemons & The Red Bank Rockers LP, (on which Springsteen lent a few songs), was a good R&B debut album, but it garnered only mild interest. By comparison, Hero is full of bright, uptempo “happy” songs, some of which seem to be personal reflections. Don’t look for any Springsteen songs, though. This is purely the Big Man’s effort, with some help from Narada Michael Walden—producer and co-writer of “Freeway Of Love”—and additional assistance from Michael Jonzun and Arthur Baker. It’s a much different sound this time.

“This one is a little more modern. This is the Big Man moving into the ’80s. I almost think of it as my first solo effort because I am doing all the vocals this time. And I’m happy about how it came out. The last album had to do with my roots. I went in and did something I always wanted to do. You do your first album, you do what you know best, and from that you grow and progress.”

Hero reflects a man who is at peace with himself. Someone who has grown personally. “I’m living a different life, and I’m a different person, a much happier person. I’ve found myself,” Clemons says. He met Narada Michael Walden at the Aretha Franklin video shoot, and it was Walden who later introduced Clarence to guru Sri Chinmoy during the recording of Hero. It was also Walden who gave Clemons a new spiritual name— “Mokshagun,” which means “liberation fire.”

“The saxophone is an extension of myself. My father bought one for me when I was nine years old. I wanted an electric train...and I still haven’t gotten over the shock. ’’

“Sri Chinmoy has given me a new energy. I feel like an inspiration flame for people to grow. I look at myself that way—as a hero. This new-found energy and happiness is reflected in the music of Hero.”

Clemons hopes to tour this spring with his new band, hitting small clubs in major cities in the U.S. and, possibly, Europe. He also plans to take time off in between shows—there’ll be no marathon touring for him. Clemons will also appear in Miami Vice and Hill Street Blues segments in the near future; recently he was seen on Diff’rent Strokes. He’s looking at movie scripts as well. But showbiz isn’t something new to Clarence—we’re talking about a man whose movie debut was with Robert DeNiro and Liza Minnelli as a trumpet player in New York, New York.

But it’s the saxophone that gives Clemons the most satisfaction. “The saxophone is an extension of myself. I’ve been playing for 35 years. My father bought it for me when I was nine years old for Christmas. I wanted an electric train, but he bought a sax, and I still haven’t gotten over the shock,” he says. “When I was playing for Aretha in that video, I kept thinking ‘Wow, this is where King Curtis stood,’ and he is the idol for me.” As for himself, Clemons never uses paper or pencil to write sax parts. Instead he “plays what comes from my heart.”

As far as future tours with Springsteen, he’ll always be available to play sax for him. “I am anticipating another tour with Bruce. I don’t know when, but he calls to let me know what’s happening ahead of time. Then I am able to do what I have to do, and still have time for him.”