E Street Band’s Clarence Clemons Dies at 69:

Clemons – known affectionately to fan and friends as the Big Man – was the heart and soul of the E Street Band. His playing on tracks like “Born To Run,” “Thunder Road,” “Jungleland,” “Dancing In The Dark” and countless more represent some of the most famous sax work in the history of rock & roll. “The story I have told throughout my work life I could not have told as well without Clarence,” Springsteen wrote in the introduction to Clemons’ 2009 memoir Big Man: Real Life and Tall Tales.

Born to Run was such a seminal part of my childhood, listening to the record brings vivid memories of listening to Thunder Road on a tape deck in a busted old Volkswagon Rabbit puttering throughout the two lane roads of rural Ohio. Eventhough we would speed past She’s the One and Meeting Across the River, the sound of the Big Man’s sax would flow through the two working speakers, making the drive monumental.

He will be missed.