This morning - June 20, 2011 - I received this email from Eric Meola, subject of the column that follows on the passing of Clarence Clemons. Eric and I talked yesterday, for a long time, about their friendship. Today, Meola woke up and was overwhelmed when he realized the meaning of a coincidental date ... a realization that caused him to send me this note:

'Sean, As I was typing this I happened to glance at the date on the article and realized that the Born to Run cover was shot TODAY -- June 20th. 36 years ago ... I just went downstairs to check the date...it's in the intro to the Unseen Photos book. ... Best, Eric'

For Eric Meola, this is the way rock immortality happened: In 1975, a couple of relatively obscure musicians came to his Manhattan studio for a shoot. He was already a witness to the close and joyous nature of their friendship, and he was after one photograph that would capture it exactly. He understood that on any given day, it might not happen.

This time it did. Meola knew it when he saw it. He took the photo to Columbia Records, whose artists transformed it into one of the great album covers of all time: “Born to Run.” The image captured Bruce Springsteen and Clarence Clemons, saxophone player in Springsteen’s E Street Band, as they leaned toward each other amid a burst of clowning. Everything about their joyous bond — and an era — was made electric in the moment.

The album served as Springsteen’s international breakthrough, and the cover was iconic. It was a touchstone of youth for those who followed Springsteen at the time, and it would be a gateway to his music for new fans over the years. While Meola, a Syracuse-raised photographer, would soon be renowned for a broader catalog of work, he remained close to Springsteen, Clemons and others in their circle. As for “Born to Run,” it was hard to imagine the meaning of the cover could grow larger.

Saturday — in a way that broke Meola’s heart — it did.

"The way I look at it, what's monumental to me, is the camaraderie and friendship," Meola said. "I was lucky to get that photograph, I'm just glad I was there and I'd give anything for Clarence still to be alive."



Clemons died in Florida, at 69, from complications following a stroke. Sunday, reached at his Suffolk County home, Meola's voice trembled as he spoke of the passing of his friend. "He was just an incredibly wonderful, open guy, and it just seems impossible to believe he won't be here anymore," said Meola, 65. He visited Clemons a few months ago in Florida, where the rock legend cooked them a spaghetti dinner.

Over the past few days, many journalists and rock critics — while eulogizing Clemons — have made reference to Meola's image. "For many fans, the bond between Mr. Springsteen and Mr. Clemons was symbolized by the photograph wrapped around the front and back covers of the 1975 album 'Born to Run,"' wrote Ben Sisario, in Sunday's New York Times. Springsteen himself has often said the cover foretold the meaning and power of the music it contained.

Meola said the photo mattered on several levels. In a basic way, it captured the love and fraternity between two musicians at the core of a seismic moment in rock and roll. Yet it also made a more profound statement, Meola said. He knows it was no accident that Springsteen chose Clemons, of all the members of the band, to be his companion on the cover of what they sensed would be an album of groundbreaking importance.

“Clarence was black and Bruce was white, and when they started playing together it was at a moment when that just didn’t happen that much,” Meola said. “Some of it is subliminal; the album was all black and white, and the cover was black and white, and they were dressed in black and white. Many people loved the way they played off each other onstage, and I think Clarence opened up a whole other way, a little like Jackie Robinson was with baseball: It just cleared the air out. And I don’t think that’s emphasized enough.”

The familiarity between photographer and subjects had been established over time. Even before Meola knew Springsteen, he’d met Clemons. Raised in Eastwood, Meola graduated from Syracuse University and moved to New York City. In 1974, when Springsteen was on the brink of exploding into more than a regional phenomenon, Meola would often travel to watch the E Street Band play at smaller clubs. He already knew that he wanted to photograph Springsteen’s meteoric rise, and Meola was doing his best to make himself familiar to principals in the band.

On Aug. 14, 1974 — a date Meola recalls specifically — he and a friend went to see the E Street band perform at the old Carlton Theater in Red Bank, N.J. They arrived hours before the show was to begin, and they watched as Springsteen — preoccupied — got busy with a soundcheck. Clemons walked onto stage and saw Meola and his friend, sitting alone. Curious, he began a conversation.

A few minutes later, Clemons accompanied them to a nearby tavern for some quarter beers.

“It just speaks to how open he was, and how outgoing,” Meola said.

When the opportunity arrived to do the photo shoot for “Born to Run,” Meola managed to capture everything the E Street Band embodied through an image rich in friendship, hope and jubilance. As the years went by, for those who love the band, the best chance of recapturing that feeling was to get a ticket whenever Springsteen and Clemons walked onto the same stage.

As of Saturday, Meola's cover becomes one last enduring way to see them together, live.

Sean Kirst is a columnist with The Post-Standard, who has written before about the bond between Eric Meola and Bruce Springsteen. Email Kirst here.