Today, [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Clarence Clemons[/lastfm] would have turned 70. In his honor we present five fun facts about the Big Man.

– Clemons spent most of the 1960s working as a counselor for emotionally-disturbed children in New Jersey.

– Clemons’ first band was called the Vibratones. He later played in a band called Little Melvin and the Invaders with future E Street bandmate [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Garry W. Tallent[/lastfm].

– Clemons had four sons from five marriages. His eldest son, Nick, is a working musician, although his father wanted him to be a lawyer.

– Clemons appeared in the video for [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Lady Gaga[/lastfm]‘s “The Edge of Glory,” which premiered just a couple of days before he died last June.

– Clemons appeared as a trumpet player in the 1977 film New York, New York, in a 1985 episode of Diff’rent Strokes, and as one of the Most Important People in the World in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure in 1989.

Party on, dude.