This story originally appeared in the Asbury Park Press on June 20, 2011.
The music of Clarence Clemons with the E Street Band brought joy to millions around the world.
Bruce Springsteen is joined by Clarance Clemons & Nils Lofgren during Prove It all Night as Bruce brings the E-Street Band into the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford for the start of “The Rising” tour 2002 on August 7, 2002.
But in Asbury Park, Clemons’ role went beyond the music. The Big Man’s joining of the band the Joyful Noyze in 1969 integrated a segrated music scene.
“There were no black bands playing Mrs. Jays and the Wonder Bar,” said Norman Seldin, who as leader of the Joyful Noyze asked Clemons to join the then all-white band. “It broke barriers, but we had to pay hell at the time.”
Seldin’s Joyful Noyze took a hit initially when club promoters refused to book the integrated band.
Clarence Clemons and Bruce Springsteen perform with the E Street Band during a concert at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on May 21, 2009.
“You know what it was like at the Shore in those days — there was a Black side and you never crossed the tracks,” Clemons said in a 2009 interview with NJ Press Media. “You didn’t mix the two together.”
Clemons to that point had been a member of the Chosen Few, which backed Asbury Park West Side vocal groups like Broadways, featuring Asbury Park’s Billy Brown, Leon Trent and Ronnie Coleman.
Once he hit the Boardwalk clubs, Clemons was hit.
“He had the ability to command an audience,” Seldin said. “I was the lead singer but he could hold a crowd. He was influenced by (saxophonists) King Curtis and Junior Walker and I noticed it right way. We used to do the ‘New Orleans Strut’ and Clarence would lead the audience around the club in a line.”
Seldin and Clemons became such hit that others in the scene started to notice.
As Seldin recalls, Bruce Springsteen first played with Clemons at a Joyful Noyze show at the Beacon Manor in Point Pleasant.
“You could tell they had the chemistry the minute he sat in,” Seldin said.
Despite Clemons’ departure from the Joyful Noyze in 1972, Seldin and Clemons remained friends. Their last meeting was in 2009, backstage at Madison Square Garden in New York City prior to an E Street Band show.
“Clarence felt that God wanted him to spread a message of love,” Seldin, of West Long Branch, said. “He was not afraid to venture into new waters.”
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Clarence Clemons integrated rock scene
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