Concerts

Join Jake Clemons when he leads his own band into City Winery

The E Street Band member will spotlight his solo work when he hits Boston July 21.

Jake Clemons. Handout

2 minutes to read

Jake Clemons is probably best known for helping Bruce Springsteen solve what seemed like an almost insurmountable problem back in 2012.

You’ll recall that Clarence Clemons, the saxophone player from the earliest days of the E Street Band and Springsteen’s good friend, had passed away following complications from a stroke in 2011. And as the band prepared to hit the road again following the release of Springsteen’s 2012 album “Wrecking Ball,” the dilemma of how it might fill the Big Man-sized hole Clarence left behind was almost too much for many fans to bear.

Enter Jake, Clarence’s nephew and an accomplished musician in his own right. Despite a rough first audition, according to Springsteen’s memoir, the younger Clemons eventually proved exactly what the E Street Band needed to move on following the death of its biggest member, both literally and in the eyes of many of Springsteen’s devoted followers.

“I had to be two people. I had to carry the mantle that Clarence left me, and that I also had to be my own man,” Clemons told Riff magazine last year. “I’ve kept my own solo career going, and every time I’ve gone out with E Street, it’s been a tremendous learning experience.”

He’s slated to return to the road with the E Street Band for Springsteen’s world tour next year, but for now the songwriter and multi-instrumentalist continues fronting his own rock ’n’ roll band, touring on the strength of several well-received solo EPs and albums. Those include “Eyes on the Horizon,” Clemons’ 2019 release addressing the divisiveness plaguing the country and including an all-too-timely cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Democracy,” and the angry anthem “We The People.”

“I wrote ‘We The People’ because I am sick of all of the division and all of the hatred being spewed,” Clemons told Riff. “I wanted to remind people that the ideas that our country was founded on were ones of moral commitments, pushing towards a more perfect union.”

But don’t worry, Clemons’ City Winery stop in Boston won’t be all heavy subjects — after all, he’s also well known to include a cover of The Rascals’ “Good Lovin’” in his encore.