Remembering Prince on his 59th Birthday.First Listen: Will Hoge duet with Sheryl Crow – “Little Bit of Rust”.Petty produces former Byrd Chris Hillman’s new album set for 9/22/17 release.Here’s a bit of a rarity: a 1978 B&W version, recorded in New Jersey, and a taste of Bruce playing a smaller Recent posts It is a great song, and it sits atop the rest of the songs for no better reason than it makes me feel alive every time I hear it. In 100 years, Santa Claus will still be around and this song will still be played, through whatever way people to listen to music in 2109.
It made the song timeless and created a moment in music, even among the great moments and music in his still-vibrant career, that will be his legacy more than anything else he’s done.
#CLARENCE CLEMONS HERO BLOGSPOT FULL#
Yet what Bruce Springsteen did that night in 1975 at a small college on Long Island, and what we still hear today, was alive, joyous and full of east coast energy. It’s an arrangement of the song ripped from the version on Phil Spector’s LP, and the song certainly has an old soul. The power and looseness of the live recording came through the grooves then, as it does now via YouTube. Springsteen has no contender for his crown of greatest live performer, and in 1975, this was one of the first chances for a national audience (and into the late 70’s, via live radio broadcasts) to hear what made the band great. One of the few live tunes to be a Christmas classic – maybe that is part of the magic. It is a great version because the music and words and crowd make it that way. It’s silly, really, to attempt much more than what we’ve done here. Roy Bittan’s piano notes that both open and close (with Jingle Bells”) the song are magical Clarence as Santa with his “Ho ho ho’s” and “…you better be good for goodness sake” response are fun and it has one of the great breakdowns and build ups – as really only Springsteen can execute – in recorded rock and roll: a repeated “Santa Claus is comin’ to town” refrain morphing into a band explosion and the Boss’ “whoa – oh -oh” shouted over the music to take the song to it’s conclusion.Īs I write these words, it all sounds too clinical, as if a music critic needed to dissect the meaning and importance of the song, like a premature musical autopsy. To paraphrase David Allen Coe, it’s the perfect rock and roll Christmas song. Post College), Bruce and the E Street Band have not strayed from that arrangement in a live setting in nearly 35 years – and for good reason. Though the version of this song you hear each Christmas was recorded in 1975 (at C.W. Maybe now he is playing his King Curtis-inspired riffs someplace else.īruce Springsteen – “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town” Larger than life? That seems to fit pretty damn well.Īnd maybe he was. It’s feels like we have lost a man who seemed to make those around him better, sometimes by playing, and sometimes just by being close. Other musicians, from U2 to Bon Jovi to Eddie Vedder, seem to sense it too – all three heard about his passing while playing their own concerts, and immediately paid tribute from the stage Saturday night. How exactly? To be honest, I am not sure. And the rock and roll feels different tonight. It was a beautiful representation of the power of loyalty and love.Ĭlemons died Saturday night after suffering a stroke on June 12. Bruce would plant a kiss on the Big Man’s lips at the end of “Thunder Road”, sliding across the stage on his knees as Clarence finished the song with a sax solo. We understood, and waited for Clarence to raise his sax into air and let loose a shout.
Springsteen introduced him last at shows for a reason: because he was the Big Man. A link to the rock sax sounds of the 50’s and 60’s a bodyguard to the band, even in failing health. Clarence Clemons wasn’t so much a hero to me, as an icon in rock and roll music – a symbol of power, spirituality, and an undefinable and immeasurably important piece of the Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band equation. As a music fan, I understand that if we live long enough, it is inevitable that we lose some of our heroes.
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