Clemons with Springsteen July 2 in Germany (AP Photo)

E Street Band sax player Clarence Clemons has been part of the area’s landscape for so long, we think we know him.

But do we really?

The 67-year-old Singer Island resident, arguably one of the world’s most recognizable backup musicians, has never been forthcoming about his private life.

Until now.

Is it his age, now that he’s old enough for Social Security checks?

Does he want the spotlight instead of his usual place in Bruce Springsteen’s shadow?

Regardless, all you always wanted to know about the Big Man but were too chicken to ask will be in a book he just co-authored with TV producer Don Reo (Blossom).

The tome, Big Man, is expected to be on the shelves a few weeks after Clemons and Springsteen blow through South Florida for a BankAtlantic Center concert, Sept. 13.

Still, Page2Live found an advance copy.

If you want dirt about Clemons’ boss, The Boss, save your $26.99.

Clemons is famous thanks to Springsteen, and he isn’t about to bite the hand that’s fed him all these years.

But Clemons’ elephant memory of the E Street Band, the early days, makes the book. And his breezy conversational prose places the reader next to him at the counter of a local watering-hole, say the Tiki Bar in Riviera Beach.

For the book’s shockers, the juicy stuff, look below or click

There are a few surprises. Clemons, for example, uses the book to announce he was recently married. For the third time this decade. He kept it pretty quiet. He says of his new bride, Victoria, will be his last. And we end up knowing very little about her. Just that she’s “tall, elegant, 29 and Russian.”

“I swear she could charm a hungry dog off a meat wagon,” Clemons writes.

The two were hitched in Tiburon, Calif., August 8, 2008.

The Big Man also goes into recent changes in his life. An ailing back and bad legs and age have taken their collective toll. And then, he writes, he had a heart attack late last year. Good bye cigars and booze.

“They (doctors) said the damage was minimal, but this is a real warning, man,” he writes. “I’ve had my last cigar and my last tequila.”

The book, meanwhile, is heavy on anecdotes. Some may not be true, he admits. But Springsteen geeks will find the truer chapters first rate. Some go back to The Boss’ humble beginnings as the opening act for Cheech & Chong.

Clemons tells of a night in 1972 when Springsteen, now a part-time Wellington resident, named the band.

The way Clemons tells it, the band on its way to a show would always pick up keyboard player David Sancious last, at his mother’s home on E Street, in Belmar, N.J. Over the months, Springsteen and the boys waited in his driveway for so long that Springsteen quipped: “The band has spent so much time parked on this (bleeping) street that we should call it the E Street Band.”

The other choice, Clemons recalls, was Bruce Springsteen and the Bruce Springsteen Band.

Then there’s the time Clemons almost got the crew arrested as he hid a joint in his shirt pocket during a nasty traffic stop in New Jersey.

Or when Springsteen played a gig at Sing Sing, New York’s violent state prison. The equipment blew up as the band got on the chapel stage. So, with the audience of murderers and rapists and gang members getting restless, Clemons picked up his horn and started playing Buddy Miles’ Them Changes.

The band slowly picked up the groove, and the bad men piped down. One of theirs hopped on stage with his own alto sax, and the session turned into a classic.

Clemons remembers mentioning to Palm Beacher Jimmy Buffett his idea of writing a book. Buffett pooh-poohed it.

“Stick to what you know,” the singer of Margaritaville told Clemons. “Play the horn and keep your mouth shut. Don’t make waves.”

Clemons got the message. In Big Man, he isn’t making waves. He’s riding them.