When the Big Man Joined the Band

"and all the little pretties raised their hands" The year was 1973.
The year I left my teen years behind. I was living in my hometown back then and like all my friends, just trying to figure out where my life was going. It was not that that long ago when the little towns that made up the central coast of New Jersey became all but deserted after Labor Day. With the exception of a few locals the boardwalks were void of couples strolling and the beachfront buildings stood vacant and boarded up. The short days and long nights were dull and barren, as barren as they once busted at the mid seams back in July. We were the sons and daughters of fishermen or tradesmen mostly. We were young and looking for some direction, but didn't know who or what it would be, even as it began to happen. Word started getting around of this new sound and these bands that were making a hit at some of the local rock clubs. Out of these emerged this one band, Bruce Springsteen and his E Street Band. Word got around that he practiced right over on 10th & E st - hence the name. His music rocked but it was his raw voice and definitive lyrics that drew us all to him. He sang about us, and about life where we lived. In 1973 he released two albums that weren't hits on the charts, but we grabbed off the shelves as fast as we could. This was our music, we owned it, 'least we thought we did. But in 1975, Born to Run was released and Bruce soon became a rock icon. He belonged to the world now, but to this day, we still claim him as ours. During that time though, other Jersey bands sprouted and new bars opened. One bar in particular, The Stone Pony, became synonymous with the Jersey shore sound. Come Friday and Saturday nights we stood three deep in line down the street and around the corner to get to inside. We rocked to bands like The Blackberry Booze Band with Johnny Lyons and 'Lil Steven Van Zandt. Van Zandt left the band to join up with his buddy Bruce and the E Street band while Johnny Lyons formed Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. Mad-dog Vini Lopez, Bruce's ex-drummer, formed Mad Dog and the Shakes.
These were all great musicians who were trying to find their way..alot like the rest of us. But it was Bruce's sound that emerged above all the others, especially when his sax player, a huge ex-football player turned musician named Clarence Clemons, wailed through a solo. I would dance around my kitchen back then, cleaning to songs like Thunder Road and Rosalita. (Oh how true, the Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle) And I still pause and close my eyes to the Big Man's sad, but oh so sweet, solo in Jungle Land.

I can't say exactly why, but we girls usually remember the last time we get carded
for 'proof' of age. I remember where I was: standing in line at the Pony not long after Born in the USA was released. It was a hot summer nite. I'd recently turned thirty and it was a big night out. I didn't know it then, but it was also the last time
I'd dance in the Stony Pony. See, throughout those years of rock and roll, we all did one thing together, we got older. With two children now, my Saturday nights were story books and bedtime. Places like the Pony and Hotel California were now fond memories. But the music never left me, and I could never leave the music. It's part of all my fondest memories, the memories I grew up with and raised my children with. They will always be a part of me, like hearing the ocean from my bedroom window, or the smell of dried seaweed permeating the air at low tide. I still get a chill when I hear 10th Avenue Freeze Out because that's the day "When a change was made uptown and the Big Man Joined the Band, from the coastline to the city all the little pretties raised their hands" In memory of Clarence Anicholas Clemons, Jr. 1942 - 2011 (My fondest memories (c) 2011)