Mini review: Big Man

This engaging memoir by the jovial saxophone player for Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band blends fact and fiction seamlessly, and while it misses greatness by a country mile, it held my attention throughout. Barbara King has a perceptive review of Big Man posted on her site. I won't rehash her points except to say that she is right to like the book, and right also to be irritated by what she calls "the steady drumbeat of throwaway lines about women." Don't misunderstand: weapons-grade misogyny is not at issue here. Clemons seems a decent fellow, better at getting married than staying married, as one of his friends quips. Unfortunately, he and co-writer Don Reo lard this memoir with surprisingly juvenile jokes, most of which are collected in one otherwise-pointless chapter.

Reo, a television producer, once wrote jokes for a living, so I blame him for that indulgence, as well as the starstruck name-dropping that afflicts other parts of the narrative (Not all name-dropping is created equal: When Clemons says that Jimmy Buffet told him to stick with the sax because he couldn't write a book, it's par for the course; Clemons moves in those circles. But when Chris Rock, Redd Foxx, and some guy I never heard of are all acclaimed as comic geniuses, I can't help but think that Reo is a little too impressed with the company he keeps while hanging around with Clemons).

The warm relationship that Clemons has with Bruce Springsteen is no surprise ("Without Scooter, there is no Big Man," he says), but I would like to have read more about some of his other friendships, especially with Reo himself. How the two hit it off is never explained. Another conspicuously-missed opportunity involves late great E Street bandmate Danny Federici, who is lovingly remembered without ever having been properly introduced.

I don't begrudge Clemons his co-writer. Nevertheless, Reo would have done well to take a page from another larger-than-life celebrity, George Foreman, whose co-writer in Knockout Entrepreneur had the sense to stay out of the way while Foreman told stories.

Where Big Man shines is when Clemons writes about music (love that river metaphor), or imagines conversations with literary mentors like Norman Mailer and Kinky Friedman. Clemons enjoys doing that, which is good. It's just not enough for me to call Big Man a "must-read" for every musician or music fan, the way some superfan who blurbed the book for a back-cover quote does.