Chris Jordan

Asbury Park (N.J.) Press

Matters involving the E Street Band tend to take time.

Consider their concerts, for instance. The guys will often play for more than three hours at a stretch. As for tours, they've been on the road constantly since 2012.

In the case of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it's taken 15 years — from the time Bruce Springsteen was inducted as a solo artist to Thursday, when the band will receive the Rock Hall's Award for Musical Excellence at a ceremony in Brooklyn.

There's no bitterness about the delay among band members — only joy.

"It's a little overwhelming," said former E Street Band keyboardist David Sancious of Belmar, N.J. "I can't get used to it. I'm amazed. I'm really honored."

Sancious and Garry Tallent (bass), Vini "Mad Dog" Lopez (drums), Max Weinberg (drums), Roy Bittan (piano), "Miami" Steve Van Zandt (guitar), Patti Scialfa (vocals), Nils Lofgren (guitar), and the late Danny Federici (organ) and Clarence Clemons (saxophone) will be honored for having "provided a unique and powerful sonic template for Springsteen's music, combining British-invasion guitar-driven rock, the joy of 1950s rock 'n' roll and the drama and dynamics of soul music. They are showmen of the first order, and have more stamina than any rock band in the history of the music," according to the Rock Hall's statement.

Also on Thursday, Peter Gabriel, Daryl Hall and John Oates, Kiss, Nirvana, Linda Ronstadt and Cat Stevens will be inducted. The late Brian Epstein and Andrew Loog Oldham will receive the Ahmet Ertegun Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Springsteen will induct the E Streeters, and the show will be televised on May 31 by HBO.

The E Street Band has indeed provided a "sonic template" but also a living embodiment of Springsteen's early Jersey Shore mythology. It's a world of crooked characters and sparkling blades, cut-ups and blunt power as demonstrated nightly on stage at E Street Band shows.

As Springsteen told his transformational tales, both in song and speech, the stories came to life behind him, thanks to the E Street Band. Two are not here to be a part of the Rock Hall induction experience: Federici passed away in 2008 and Clemons in 2011.

"We appreciate what the Hall (has) done, but it's a little too late," said Nick Clemons, son of Clarence Clemons. "They didn't honor my dad and Danny Federici when they could have seen it. They deserved it a long time ago — it's a joke."

Attempts to reach a Rock Hall member for comment were unsuccessful.

Back to the beginning

The origins of the E Street Band go back to the former Upstage Club in Asbury Park when Lopez and Federici discovered Springsteen there in 1969.

"Everybody would be there on the weekends and stay up all night and jam until 5 in the morning," said Albee Tellone, an Asbury Park musician and former Springsteen bandmate. "Some nights were terrible, and some nights were amazing."

The creative energy crackled as future members of the E Street Band, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes and fellow travelers came together.

"I wanted to sit in one night, but I didn't know that particular crowd of people," Sancious said. "Garry and Bruce were standing at the top of the stairs organizing a jam session for the second half of the evening, and Garry saw me, and he asked me if I'd like to sit in, and he introduced me to Bruce. We ended up having a really long jam session. It went on for a couple hours. That night was the first night we actually met and played music together."

The scene at the Upstage was unique for the city as it was a time the city's black and white musicians connected. Prior to that, it was largely a scene where the city's white musicians would play on the boardwalk clubs, and the black musicians would play in the Springwood Avenue clubs on the west side of town.

"People from different areas were getting together," Sancious said. "Musicians from different sides of the tracks.

"Clarence, (future E Street Band drummer Ernest 'Boom' Carter) and myself were the early people playing in places where you didn't normally see black musicians playing. I remember Garry Tallent was playing in clubs from the other side of the tracks as well. It was a reflection of what was happening socially."

The players of the scene would create the Sound of Asbury Park, a merging of the beat music from the boardwalk with the R&B and vocal harmonies of the west side.

Springsteen was in the middle of it.

"Anyone who was around could see his originality and that spark of something really special," said Sancious, who left the band in 1974 to dedicate himself full time to his own group, Tone. "He just knew that he was going to become everything that he became."

The E Street Band will perform Kitty's Back and The E Street Shuffle at the Rock Hall ceremony, said Sancious, currently the musical director for Sting.

It was on E Street in Belmar where Sancious lived.

"We did rehearse there a few times, but not as much as the myth that's built up around it," Sancious said. "Bruce liked the sound of it. I've always personally considered a real honor that he called it the E Street Band. I'm proud of the association."