Six Degrees of Bruce Springsteen

I don't know if you were watching the Grammy show on Sunday -- I wasn't, out of (among several reasons) fear that the Beach Boys reunion performance would be horribly painful (it wasn't, as I have since learned, but whatever).

But Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band did themselves really proud.



That said, you may notice that there was no attempt to fill the humongous hole left by the departure from this sad vale of tears of the late great Clarence Clemons.

Via the intertubes, however, I have since learned that on the upcoming Springsteen tour, said hole will be filled -- as far as it is humanly possible -- by a gent named Ed Manion. Who already deserves to be immortal due to his sax stuff on the first three utterly classic Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes albums.

And therein lies an (admittedly) self-indulgent tale.

The short version: Sometime in the late 70s, as I was in the process of trying to become a bass player (having decided that my guitar skills were hopelessly inadequate if I wanted to continue performing the kind of music I loved), I found myself at a session with my old bandmate Tony Forte.

The song (one of Tony's, natch) was called "Improbable Mating," and the studio where we recorded it, which was located somewhere in the swamps of New Jersey, was run by its chief engineer, a lovely guy named Steve Becker. Who was at the time gainfully employed as the drummer of the aforementioned Asbury Jukes.

In any case, after we finished the track, Steve remarked that a sax solo might well fit into the song and that he had just the guy for the job if we were interested. We were, obviously, and Ed Manion showed up soon thereafter.

He asked us "What do you have in mind?" We replied "Something that sounds like King Curtis." And we were off to the races.

Here's the finished product. I'm on bass, the redoubtable Artie Scarano is on drums, and Tony's doing just about everything else (except for Ed's sax solo, obviously).





Bottom line is -- Ed deserves his new gig with Springsteen. And not, solely, because he didn't charge us for the session or ask for royalties after Tony issued the track on an indie single in 1981.