Buzz Knight and Harold Bronson: A Walk Through Rock Music History,the Legacy of Rhino Records and Mogan David and his Winos

Summary

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Takin' A Walk – Music History with Buzz Knight

Episode: Buzz Knight and Harold Bronson: A Walk Through Rock Music History, the Legacy of Rhino Records, and Mogan David and his Winos

Date: February 27, 2026
Guest: Harold Bronson (Co-founder, Rhino Records)

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the early Los Angeles rock scene through the eyes of Harold Bronson, a rock and roll singer and songwriter best known for co-founding Rhino Records. Host Buzz Knight explores Bronson’s journey from his band days with Mogan David and his Winos, whose overlooked 1970s recordings are finally being released after five decades, to building Rhino Records into a beloved powerhouse that preserved and reissued essential, often forgotten music. The interview uncovers the spirit, humor, and genuine love for music that defined both Bronson’s artistic and business life, and explores how the reissue and novelty movement changed American music history.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Setting the Scene: The Genesis of Mogan David and his Winos

[04:22]

• Harold Bronson recounts his earliest musical experiences:

  • Started playing in a high school group for fun, never performing publicly.
  • While at UCLA, Bronson wrote for the Daily Bruin and connected with fellow musically-inclined student writers.

• Formation of the Band:

  • The first recording session happened in a friend’s living room over winter break, inspired by “Nose Job,” a satirical Mad Magazine song.
  • Describes the doo-wop style and deadpan delivery he used, with humorous, outrageous lyrics.
  • “I was thinking Mick Jagger—not that I wanted to sound like him, but I was singing these ridiculous lyrics, just deadpan. She never had a boy to walk her home...until she had her schnoz repaired...” (Harold Bronson, [05:40])

• Technical struggles and persistence:

  • A tape recorder malfunction delayed the initial project, but persistence led to completion with help from neighbor George Carlin (who lent Harold his own equipment).
  • The DIY spirit was fundamental: “So that was the first record. And then I did a subsequent single with a slightly different group of musicians, also from the Daily Bruin.” (Harold Bronson, [09:11])

• Creative packaging and humor:

  • The band’s lone album imitated The Who’s “Live at Leeds” by inserting faux-historical materials and tongue-in-cheek elements (e.g., a band member’s failed music test), underscoring Bronson’s love for parody and satire.

Forgotten Music Resurfaces: “Savage Young Winos”

[09:23]

• Fifty years later, the band’s recordings are receiving their first proper release as Savage Young Winos, due to interest from global collectors and Liberation Hall Records.
• Reflecting on revisiting the material, Bronson shares a mix of pride and nostalgia:
  • “A little mixture of it all...this anticipated the DIY trend a few years later...and gave me the wherewithal as it related to forming the Rhino label.” (Harold Bronson, [12:34])
  • He highlights the authenticity: “All the live stuff is all straight... a little bit rough again, kind of anticipating what happened later on in the decade... they’re not polished, but it’s real.” ([14:25])

The Birth and Ethos of Rhino Records

[15:36]

• Label Origins:
  • Rhino evolved from the backroom of a record store, grounded in the passion for music preservation and quirky, fun releases.
  • Early releases included novelty and local band records, and eventually, major reissues as funds grew.
  • “For us, it was this music was important...let's make it sound really good...track down rare photos, have insightful liner notes...we were really the first ones to approach this on a consistent basis with quality in mind...” (Harold Bronson, [17:13])

Impact and Cultural Shifts in Rock and Roll

[23:46]

• Restoring Fun and Humor:

  • Bronson laments the loss of playfulness as music got more serious and the industry grew, recalling how Rhino aimed to bring back the “fun, spirited, and sometimes silly” aspects of 50s and 60s rock.
  • “We just felt that the fun was missing from rock and roll.” (Harold Bronson, [24:03])

• Comedy and Innovation at Rhino:

  • Comedy and novelty had a central role; Rhino reissued Alan Sherman’s and Rodney Dangerfield’s work, and innovated with albums like Salam & Pfeffer (a parody German group) with creative packaging and in-jokes.
  • “We would be creative. We would do this stuff. Most of the time, we didn’t get really the attention or the appreciation, like, wow, look at how great this is.” (Harold Bronson, [26:29])

Legacy Projects & Career Reflections

[27:21]

• Most Proud of:

  • Bronson cites his extensive work with The Monkees (“quarterbacking” album, video, and documentary campaigns) as a standout, motivated by lifelong fandom.
  • “Every, like, six to eight months, let's put something in the marketplace to remind people of The Monkees…” ([28:13])

• Warner Acquisition

  • Explains transition from independent operation to Warner Music ownership, and how business priorities shifted—but music remained central to his drive: “The driving thing to us was never really the money. It was always the music.” ([30:27])

The Reissue Movement and Music Fans' Benefit

[31:54]

• Changing Industry Attitudes:
  • Discusses how 60s/70s labels cared little about back catalogues, but Rhino’s success convinced majors to reconsider and improve their own reissue offerings.
  • Streaming offers “great access,” but the deeper experience—liner notes, stories, photos—can be diminished.
  • “We were trying to enhance the music experience... let's deepen your understanding of what you're hearing.” (Harold Bronson, [33:45])
  • Example: “You don’t need to know... but it’s nice to know, it enhances that, it gives it a deeper experience.” ([34:18])

Personal Reflections and the Final Question

[35:12]

• On the Podcast’s Theme: “If you could take a walk with anyone…”
  • Bronson would choose Peter Noone, frontman of Herman’s Hermits, a longtime friend:
  • “I would like to have a walk with Peter Noone. I'd come to Santa Barbara because we've never done that together.” (Harold Bronson, [36:32])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Recording Nose Job (band origins):

  “I was thinking Mick Jagger—not that I wanted to sound like him, but I was singing these ridiculous lyrics, just deadpan.”
  — Harold Bronson, [05:40]

• On Working with George Carlin:

  “Directly across the hall, comedian George Carlin with his family...We hit it off because I was the hip music guy, he was into rock and roll...I borrowed his tape recorder and I finished off the record.”
  — Harold Bronson, [07:45]

• On Rhino’s guiding principle:

  “This music was important to us growing up...let's make it sound really good...we were really the first ones to approach this on a consistent basis with quality in mind.”
  — Harold Bronson, [17:13]

• On restoring fun to music:

  “We just felt that the fun was missing from rock and roll.”
  — Harold Bronson, [24:03]

• On streaming and the modern listening experience:

  “We were trying to enhance the music experience...let's deepen your understanding of what you're hearing...it gives it a deeper experience. So anyway, long and short of it is, I think that's declined in a sense because of streaming.”
  — Harold Bronson, [34:18]

• Hypothetical walk companion:

  “I would like to have a walk with Peter Noone. I'd come to Santa Barbara because we've never done that together.”
  — Harold Bronson, [36:32]

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Important Timestamps

• [04:22] – Early LA band scene and origins of Mogan David and his Winos
• [09:23] – The saga of DIY recordings and the rediscovery and reissue of Savage Young Winos
• [12:34] – Reflection on relistening to old recordings and how the DIY spirit anticipated future trends
• [15:36] – Founding principles and early days of Rhino Records
• [23:46] – The value of humor and fun in rock & roll and radio
• [25:01] – Comedy, novelty, satire, and unique Rhino releases
• [27:21] – The Monkees legacy project and key career moments
• [29:14] – Warner Music acquisition and industry transformation
• [31:54] – How Rhino helped change the industry’s approach to catalogue history and music experience
• [35:35] – Who Harold would walk with and why

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Episode Tone & Character

The tone is personal, warm, nostalgic, and infectiously enthusiastic about music and its history. Both host and guest share a mutual respect for authenticity, humor, and the overlooked stories that make rock history rich. Harold Bronson exudes an undiminished passion for music’s offbeat corners and for connecting past and present through both song and storytelling.

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Transcript

[Harold Bronson]

Taking a Walk.

[Buzz Knight]

I'm Buzz Knight, and welcome to the Taking a Walk podcast. Now, you know, one of the things that I love most about doing the show is discovering that the people who shaped the music business were often, first and foremost, music lovers themselves. Fans who just couldn't stay on the sidelines. My guest today is Harold Bronson. Now, you may know the name from Rhino Records, the label he co founded with Richard foose back in 1973. Start with a single retail store in Los Angeles. Now, over the next three decades, Harold and Richard built Rhino into something truly special. A label that didn't just release music, it rescued it, preserved it, celebrated it. Box sets, rarities, compilations. I absolutely love Rhino. Rhino became the place where the records you thought were gone forever suddenly came back to life. But here's the part of Harold's story that stopped me cold when I read about this pitch. Before all of that, before the label, before the legacy, Harold Bronson was a rock and roll singer. He was the lead vocalist and main songwriter of an early 70s Los Angeles band called Mogan David and His Winos. And here's the thing, nobody ever heard that music until now. Fifty plus years later, those recordings are finally getting their first proper release. And it's called Savage Young Winos. So today, we're going to do something I always love. We're going to go back to the beginning. We're going to talk about what it felt like to be a young musician in Los Angeles in the early 70s, what the band meant to Harold and why this music is worth hearing right now. And then we're going to get into Rhino, one of the great label stories in American music history. Harold Bronson is next on Taking A Walk.

[Jill Winterstein]

This is an iHeart podcast, Guaranteed Human.

[Amanda Knox]

I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, the Case of Lucy Letby, we unpack the story of an unimaginable tragedy that gripped the UK in 2023. But what if we didn't get the whole story?

[Jill Winterstein]

Evidence has been made to fit.

[Harold Bronson]

The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapsed.

[Amanda Knox]

What if the truth was disguised by a story we chose to believe?

[Jill Winterstein]

Oh, my God. I think she might be innocent.

[Amanda Knox]

Listen to Doubt the Case of Lucy letby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple PODC, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jill Winterstein]

Hi, it's Jill Winterstein, host of the Spirit Daughter podcast, where we talk about astrology, natal charts and how to step into your most vibrant life. And today I'm talking with my dear friend Krista Williams. It can change you in the best way possible.

[Harold Bronson]

Dance with the change, Dance with the breakdowns.

[Jill Winterstein]

The embodiment of Pisces intuition with Capricorn power moves.

[Harold Bronson]

Just so. I'm like, delusionally proud of my chart.

[Jill Winterstein]

Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to your podcast.

[Harold Bronson]

This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. In 2018, the FBI took down a ring of spies working for China's Ministry of State Security, one of the most mysterious intelligence agencies in the world.

[Buzz Knight]

The Sixth Bureau podcast is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets.

[Harold Bronson]

Listen to the 6th Bureau on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton Eckerd. In 2022, I was the lead of ABC's the Bachelor.

[Stephanie Young]

But here's the thing. Bachelor fans hated him.

[Harold Bronson]

If I could press a button and rewind it all, I would.

[Stephanie Young]

That's when his life took a disturbing turn. A one night stand would end in a courtroom.

[Jill Winterstein]

The media is here.

[Harold Bronson]

This case has gone viral. The Dating Contract.

[Jill Winterstein]

Agree to date me, but I'm also suing you.

[Harold Bronson]

This is unlike anything I've ever seen before.

[Stephanie Young]

I'm Stephanie Young. Listen to Love trapped on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Harold Bronson]

Taking a walk.

[Buzz Knight]

Harold Bronson. Welcome to the Taking a Walk podcast.

[Harold Bronson]

Hi. Happy to be here.

[Buzz Knight]

So, for people who've never heard of Mogan David and his Winos, I love the name, I must say, I consumed at one point, set the scene. What was the band? When did it come together? And what was the sound that you were going for?

[Harold Bronson]

Okay, well, first of all, I had a group in high school. We never played anywhere. It was just for our own amusement, mostly during the summer, kind of butchering the hits of the day. But when I was at ucla, this would have been my second year, I was writing for the UCLA Daily Bruin in the entertainment section, more specifically about music and other people who also wrote played instruments. I decided I got it into my head of making a record. So over the Christmas break, four of us got together in the piano players, his parents, or his family's living room. The other three of us were writers for the Daily Bruin. Jim Bickhart played bass. He was my editor. Jonathan Kellerman, who subsequently became a New York Times bestselling author. He played guitar. I played. And I always loved this song from Mad magazine. You Know, Mad magazine was really important to my and other generations as far as educating us in the way of humor and satire and parody. And I loved Nose Job. And at the time that came out, I guess it was probably 1962, 63. Plastic surgery was, you know, more of a subtle thing. People didn't necessarily wanted to know that they had no. So they, you know, so there was this like outrageous song. I just loved it. Theirs was done in a doo wop style. Ours we did, you know, straight ahead, I was thinking, I was thinking Mick Jagger. Not that I wanted to sound like him, but I was singing these ridiculous lyrics, but, you know, just deadpan. She never had a boy to walk her home. You know, she never had a boy who cared until she had her schnoz repaired, that type of thing. And then, and then we did a B side. And the problem was my tape recorder, my two track tape recorder, the syncing mechanism malfunctioned, meaning that when I played back the instrumental track, the vocal track couldn't sync. So I kind of like held onto the tape for many months, like, what do I do with this? And then the next fall or the end of the summer, the next school year, three of my friends from high school who were also ucla, we rented an apartment in the UCLA area directly across the hall, you know, our doors were open. Directly across the hall, comedian George Carlin with his family. Now, he wasn't that well known then because he was in transition from kind of the straight established short hair comedian. He played Vegas, he got fired from Vegas and to, you know, morphing into the long hair hippie comedian who transitioned to less enumeration playing clubs. But anyway, we hit it off because I was the hip music guy, he was in the rock and roll. I mean, I didn't know any of this, but getting to know him when he was a lot younger, he was a dj, he loved music, he loved doo wop. So for me it would be like, oh, what's new? Or have you heard this band? And from him I was more. We talked about Lenny Bruce because Lenny Bruce's recordings were not available then. So it was kind of a nice friendship. But he wasn't around much because he was on the road. And typically when he would be home, not only would he want to be with his family, but he would be writing. He liked writing. So I borrowed his long shorts, I borrowed his tape recorder and I finished off the record. And a few months later we pressed it. So that was the first record. And then I did a subsequent single with a Slightly different group of musicians, also from the Daily Bruin, so those were privately pressed. And then we recorded a third single, but the first, Nose Job sold well. The second one, Street Baby, which was a better record, but straight record sold like, less than half as much. So for the third single, I thought rather than put out a third single, maybe I could get more mileage, more attention by putting out an album. And the who's Live at Leeds had come out, and aside from the live recording of this concert, they had all these inserts from, like, History of the Band inserts. So I thought, oh, let's do, like, what they did. But in our case, in some, you know, we made fun of the band. So we had Paul Rapaport, the new guitar player. His failed music test at ucla, you know, a big F on it. So we did things like that. So we made an interesting package and we got a lot of attention. That came out in August 1973. This album was kind of like the 50 year and a plus three year reunion of this album. And I really. I didn't initiate doing this originally, prior to Liberation hall making the deal for this, I was contacted by this guy in Australia who had a small label, and he was saying, oh, yeah, I bought the Savage Young Winos by Mogan David as winos. I bought the album at a record meet and I always loved it. And at some point a roommate made off with it, and I've been thinking about it. So basically he got in touch because he wanted to reissue it on a small label. And we went back and forth for about a year. That didn't happen. And then a year later, Liberation hall contacted me and through the process, so I'm, you know, really happy with how it's turned out.

[Buzz Knight]

That is such a saga. My goodness. Now, I want to go back to your mention of Paul Rappaport, my dear friend who's been on this podcast before and worked me many a record when he was working with Columbia. Great guy.

[Harold Bronson]

He was.

[Buzz Knight]

Now, was he part of this band? Did you say that? Or was he part of another incarnation?

[Harold Bronson]

He was an important part of the band. So Kellerman, who was on the first record, he went off to grad school, so he didn't have time for us anymore. So I met Paul when he was the college rep for CBS Records at ucla and we became friends. And in fact, when he graduated, I then became the college rep after him. He got me that position. But yes, so an important part of the band, you know, a great guitar player. And he's on a more Majority of the tracks on the album, so. And I just think he's great and is a lot of fun working with him in general. But yeah, I mean, aside from, you know, just being a guitar player, a really creative guy. I mean, just. Yeah, so, and.

[Buzz Knight]

And one of the great guys and quite a magician and card player or card trickery guy as well, but just a wonderful, wonderful guy. Love his book. That's fantastic. So. So here we are, it's 50 plus years later, Liberation Hall. You did the deal. When you went back and forth and kind of listened to the recordings again, was it all pride? Was there a little bit of cringe? Was it nostalgia? Was it a little mixture of it all?

[Harold Bronson]

Tell me, a little mixture at all. But first of all, you have the context of this and there's significance for two reasons. One is the two singles in the album that I originally put out in the early 70s, this anticipated the DIY trend a few years later. And then secondly, this gave me the wherewithal as it related to forming the Rhino label. So I said to Richard Foose, who owned the store, I said, look, I put out these two singles and I know how to do this. Let's start a label in the back room of the store. So we started really slowly and then when we ramped up, we went in partners and went to our own location. So that's the significance of this. But I think in the context it's really authentic, which is to say on the live tracks, it's really us. As you well know, a lot of live recordings, the musicians go in later, they fix this. Oh, the bass isn't very good. Let me replace it. So a lot of live recordings are finagled with in the studio. So this is all the live stuff is all straight. And the other thing is, it's a little bit rough again, kind of anticipating what happened later on in the decade. But I think it's really good because our orientation was we loved the music from the 60s, the rock band stuff from the 60s. We grew up with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, but of course the who and the Yardbirds, the Kinks. So that was fun for us. And when we were playing out, most of our set were from the, you know, from that era. And nobody in the Los Angeles area, nobody was doing it. So people really enjoyed us because they would hear, you know, you really Got Me by the Kinks or Just Like Me by Paul Revere and the Raiders. And nobody was doing that. And then, you know, we were, you know, we had a few originals. I Mean, you know, those would be part of the set as well. So what I'm saying is that in this period it was kind of like progressive and jamming bands who. It was big then Santana, the Allman Brothers. Yes. I mean, we weren't anything like that. So by myself and my co writer, Mark Levitin, kind of crafting the songs, like the two and a half and three minute singles we grew up with, they're really enjoyable because they're really well thought out. They're not kind of long, meandering things. So, yeah, and putting it together, really enjoying listening to it. I think the stuff is really good. But at the same time, because we were really low budget in and out of the studio really quickly. They're not polished, but it's real.

[Buzz Knight]

And that was ultimately, as you referenced, that was the core of what Rhino was all about. When you launched as a label in 75. The early releases, maybe. Talk about some of those early releases. They were very eclectic releases. And you. Yet you gave the freedom certainly to artists to be themselves and be real.

[Harold Bronson]

Okay, so we experimented with a few singles and we date the label from 1978 because that's when we made more of a serious commitment by putting out albums, more expensive manufacturing than mere singles. In the first year, the three things we were going for actually remained consistent, but in different levels. So we love the novelty records we grew up with Alan Sherman, Purple People, all that, and of course, Nose Job. So the first year, our most successful record, we did in an EP of the Temple City Kazoo Orchestra. So kazoo versions of rock and roll songs. It got airplay a little bit here and there. Much later we heard from Lawrence Juber, who was in Wings, Paul McCartney's group, that Paul McCartney was like, you know, looking all over London for a copy. So that was 1978. We also put out, we supported local bands, Los Angeles area bands, and a little bit into the reissues. To do most of the reissues, we had to pay advances to the major labels in advance against royalties earned. And it took a while for us to accumulate some extra money to do that. So that was kind of slow. Ultimately, that's worked out best for us because local radio didn't support the bands. They didn't play it. You don't get the airplay, as you well know. You don't sell records. Novelty radio tightened up. They stopped playing that sort. So the only thing that really worked for us were they reissues. But the difference for us is the major labels, if they had some of this out, they would try to squeeze out a little bit extra profit of these older masters. For us it was this music was important to us growing up. We've got to let's make it sound really good in some cases better than when we than the original records, track down rare photos, have insightful liner notes. So we were really the first ones to approach this on a consistent basis with quality in mind and that's really what built the business. There were a lot of people who felt like us and appreciated what we did and you know, it was a slow build, but it was a build nonetheless and that's really what built the business. I should, you know, plug the Rhino record story book where, you know, the whole story of the Rhino label is in there, including a lot of the wacky things we did.

[Buzz Knight]

We'll be right back with more of

[Harold Bronson]

the Taking a Walk podcast.

[Jill Winterstein]

Hi, this is Jill Winterstein, host of the Spirit Daughter Podcast where we talk about astrology, natal charts and how to step into your most vibrant life. And I just sat down with a mini driver, the Irish traveler said when I was 16.

[Harold Bronson]

You're going to have a terrible time with men.

[Jill Winterstein]

Actor, storyteller and unapologetic Aquarian visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom loving and different perspectives and I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius like are Misunderstood A Sun and Venus in Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership.

[Harold Bronson]

He really has taught me to embrace

[Jill Winterstein]

people sleeping in different rooms on different houses, in different places, but just an embracing of the isness of it all. If you're navigating your own transformation or just want a chart side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity and real life, this episode is a must. Listen Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to your podcast.

[Amanda Knox]

In 2023, a story gripped the UK evoking horror and disbelief.

[Harold Bronson]

The nurse who should have been in charge of caring for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer in the modern British history.

[Amanda Knox]

Everyone thought they knew how it ended. A verdict. A villain. A nurse named Lucy Letby.

[Harold Bronson]

Lucy Letby has been found guilty.

[Amanda Knox]

But what if we didn't get the whole story?

[Harold Bronson]

The moment you look at the whole

[Buzz Knight]

picture, the case collapses.

[Amanda Knox]

I'm Amanda Knox and in the new podcast the Case of Lucy Letby, we follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived it to ask what really happened when the world decided who Lucy Letby was.

[Jill Winterstein]

No voicing of any skepticism or doubt.

[Harold Bronson]

It'll cause so much harm at every single level of the British establishment of this is wrong.

[Amanda Knox]

Listen to Doubt the case of Lucy Letby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Harold Bronson]

I'm Clayton ECKERD and in 2022 I was the lead of ABC's the Bachelor.

[Stephanie Young]

Unfortunately, it didn't go according to plan. He became the first Bachelor to ever have his final rose rejected. The Internet turned on him.

[Harold Bronson]

If I could press a button and rewind it all, I would.

[Stephanie Young]

But what happened to Clayton? After the show made even bigger headlines. It began as a one night stand and ended in a courtroom with Clayton at the center of a very strange paternity scandal.

[Jill Winterstein]

The media is here.

[Harold Bronson]

This case has gone viral. The dating contract Agree to date me,

[Jill Winterstein]

but I'm also suing you.

[Buzz Knight]

Please.

[Harold Bronson]

Search warrant this is unlike anything I've ever seen before.

[Stephanie Young]

I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped this season, an epic battle of he said, she said and the search for accountability in a sea of lies.

[Amanda Knox]

I have done nothing except get pregnant by the Bachelor.

[Stephanie Young]

Listen to Love trapped on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Mind Games Host]

What if mind control is real?

[Harold Bronson]

If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have?

[Mind Games Host]

Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car?

[Buzz Knight]

When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings.

[Mind Games Host]

Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you?

[Harold Bronson]

I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused.

[Mind Games Host]

Can you get someone to join your cope?

[Jill Winterstein]

NLP was used on me to access my subconscious.

[Mind Games Host]

Nlp, AKA Neuro Linguistic programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain.

[Harold Bronson]

It's about engineering consciousness.

[Mind Games Host]

Mind Games is the story of nlp, its crazy cast of disciples, and the fake doctor who invented it at a new age commune and sold it to guys. The in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all, NLP might actually work.

[Jill Winterstein]

This is wild.

[Mind Games Host]

Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Buzz Knight]

Welcome back to the Taking a Walk podcast Morning Show Radio, which I did back when when RINO was was first beginning. Morning show radio really benefited from so many of these novelty songs that just became, you know, the fabric of some of these morning shows. Some might say, you know, maybe it really bailed us out because we didn't have this tremendous talent as Morning shows. But you gave us a lot of great music to be able to play, to kind of have this backdrop for local radio. And it just puts a smile on my face thinking about so many of those songs, you know.

[Harold Bronson]

Well, you know, our orientation is, you know, growing up with music in the 50s and 60s, a lot of it was fun and spirited and of course, silly and, you know, well into the 70s, you know, the music business became much a bigger business. And it was like everybody was so serious. We felt, you know, it was really lacking. I mean, on a different level, you know, think of like somebody like Little Richard. If you weren't familiar with Little Richard and you heard his records, he almost sounds like a cartoon character. So, you know, that's what I'm saying. The spirit, the fun. Jerry Lee Lewis is another one. So it's not to say we were making records like that, but a lot of our orientation was we just felt that the fun was missing from rock and roll. But like I said, we didn't get enough airplay to sustain that.

[Buzz Knight]

But it was an incredible sense of differentiation that Rhino really had compared to the rest of the landscape, which was certainly chasing hits and trying, you know, build them into the next generation of hits. But that sense of humor was so incredible. What were some of the comedy albums that Rhino also put out during that period?

[Harold Bronson]

You mean by comedians or.

[Buzz Knight]

Yes.

[Harold Bronson]

Okay, well, not. This isn't the same thing, but the first best of album we put out was by Alan Sherman. I was for Richard and myself and other people like Weird Al Yankovic, you know, really important, really important to us. And again, also as it relates to not only parody, but satire. So Alan Sherman, what he was singing about wasn't merely, oh, this is a funny song. It was commenting on, you know, what was happening in society as it was progressing. So it was, you know, there was a real good subtext. So, I mean, one of the first ones we put out there was a Rodney Dangerfield album that he recorded as Rodney Dangerfield before he became big, that was out of print. So he put that out. That did well, we had a long term relationship with the Turtles. We reissued their catalog. We put out some of the Flo and Eddie albums. Howard Kaelin and Mark Vollman, just love those guys. At one point they were into craft work, but their version of that was the little Casio mini kind of dinky toy that made music in it that's similar to the big computer things that Kraft were. So they composed this stuff and we did a record with them. It was an ep, like we made up this German group called Salz and Pfeffer. Salt and Pepper. Right. And we put out. The album was in German, German and English. We made it look like, you know, we called it the group Checkpoint Charlie. But anyway, I cut the record so that you put the needle not on the end where you normally would. You put it where the label was. And it played out. So it kind of played backwards physically. So what I'm saying is we would be creative. We would do this stuff. Most of the time, we didn't get really, the attention or the appreciation, like, wow, look at how great this is. But that's at least an example of some of the stuff that we, you know, that we did.

[Buzz Knight]

So you were co president from 73 all the way to 2001. Almost three decades. And is there one project in particular that sticks out that you're just so immensely proud of?

[Harold Bronson]

Well, you know, it's. There's so many things that we did. The main thing would be the monkeys. Originally, we were licensors. I made that licensing deal, and then in a certain point, we were able to buy the rights to the catalog and the name. So I kind, of, on a marketing level, I quarterbacked that. Obviously, there's other people involved, a lot of people who were, you know, who did it. But for me, it was a matter of, okay, every, like, six to eight months, let's put something in the marketplace to remind people of monkeys from, oh, here's this special album or this album package to we did a documentary with the Disney Channel. And then we did the video box set, which, before DVD was on vhs. We made it look like a TV box that sold really well, that was special. Or then I did a docudrama with VH1 that came out in 2000. So that's what I'm saying. It's a matter of. Because I was such a big fan, you know, the fandom. It just. It generated all these ideas because, like, what can we do to, you know, expose this great music and the TV show to people and how do we remind people of how, you know, how good it was?

[Buzz Knight]

So Warner Music Group acquired rhino in the 90s. What year was that, that that acquisition occurred?

[Harold Bronson]

Well, the initial thing was we did a joint venture with Atlant Atlantic Records, of course, part of the Warner Music Group. And then that was in 1992. And the main reason why we did that was we had access to their catalog to reissue on Rhino. So it wasn't like the Top Line stuff. It wasn't like Led Zeppelin and Crosby Still Zanesh and Emerson Palmer, but it was still good stuff. It was Aretha Franklin and the Rascals and Stacks. I mean a lot of things. And anyway, there was kind of a formula involved, but that triggered in 1998 is when they became 100% owners. And I think we had like contracts, like four years or four years remaining on our contract. So I left towards the end of 2001. Richard left a few months later. We were doing really well. So obviously, if you remember illegal downloading, sales within the industry were in decline and the record. The labels were having difficulty. Ours were still ascending, our sales were up, our profits were up. So I think Richard and I would have liked to at least extended by at least a year or so, but the new head of the Warner Music Group wanted his own person in there and just somebody who was beholden to him. Not necessarily somebody or two people who were successful aside from him. So anyway, but the driving thing to us was never really the money. It was always the music. It's like, oh, wow, we can put this out or let's try and do this, or here's an idea. The company was really well run. We treated our employees really well, as you could ask Emily. And so I think the benefit was the financial. It was never really the initial goal.

[Buzz Knight]

So you've had this really fascinating career. Your music writing aspect of your career and being a critic and then watching as a musician and watching the music industry transform dramatically from the whole vinyl to cassette to CD to digital to streaming from your perch. What is the industry gotten right and where has it gone wrong and how it treats its own history.

[Harold Bronson]

Well, so initially, you know, you have to think popular music going way back, but it was always of the immediate time. So you would try to get a hit. If you had a hit, great. And as it was going down the charts, you were thinking the next hit, trying to get the next hit. So the catalog and the history really wasn't valued that much until I think we at least changed some minds and put a different, like focused on. And so in a sense, I think we created this whole industry because other labels saw how well we were doing and they started their own little boutique reissue labels and focusing more on quality. So music fans everywhere benefited from something we started. But as it relates to today, on one hand, streaming is great because if you want to hear something, more likely than not you have access. You could find. I wonder what this sounds like. I heard this. Let me listen to it again. And you know, before determining whether you want to make a Purchase or not. But the difference for us is we were trying to enhance the music experience. So it wasn't only, you know, here's the album, here's the song. It was, you know, let's deepen your understanding of, you know, what you're hearing. And by the way, this relates to Savage Young Rhinos by Mogan David and his wino. So in the new album, not only do you have, well, here's the music. You have, like, a lot of photos and you have, if you. The equivalent of the inserts I mentioned. You have a couple crazy fan letters. You have odd things. But also I have lengthy. I did new liner notes that give you the background behind a lot of this stuff with funny little stories. Like on Nose Job with Kellerman's surf instrumental, I thought, oh, the Beach Boys have a new label, Brother Records. Maybe the Beach Boys would like the surf thing and don't want to put it, you know, like, oh, but Dennis Wilson didn't like it. You know, little things like that in there. So, yeah, I just really like. By the way, anybody can hear a song and they could enjoy it and they can take it on that level and it can go no, no further than that. And that's great. But if you kind of want to know, well, what's behind the song and, you know, why did the Beatles use these. These terms or like, okay, specifically the Beatles, but A Day in the life. What's that? Well, now we know the story. John Lennon was reading the newspaper and their friend Tara Brown, who wiped out in the car crash. And what I'm saying is that you don't need to know any of that in order to enjoy it, but it's nice to know it enhances that. It gives it sort of. It's a deeper experience. So anyway, long and short of it is, I think that's declined in a sense because of stream me.

[Buzz Knight]

So before we close it out, Harold, since we call this podcast Taking a Walk, I wanted you to suspend belief here and reach back and think, if you could take a walk with somebody, living or dead or a couple different people, who would you take a walk with? And where would you take that. That saunter with them?

[Harold Bronson]

Well, I did think about that. Okay. Because on the. On the website, I listened to some of the shows. So. So here the thing, pragmatically, good friend of mine for many years is Peter Noon from Herman's Hermits. And in fact, in the new album, there's a little. One of the songs I wrote for him, he didn't like but that's in the album and there's a little story about it. I'm not going to go into it now, but I don't see him very often. Sometimes we'll get together for lunch because I'm in Los Angeles. He lives in Santa Barbara. But on a couple occasions, you know, I've said, oh, let's walk together. Which we never have, but we have had sort of some chats when he's been walking and, you know, and I've been walking, but it's just kind of been haphazard. So even though I offered, like, oh, come out to Santa Barbara, let's go for a walk, we've sort of never done that. So I would like to have a walk with Peter Noone. I'd come to Santa Barbara because we've never done that together.

[Buzz Knight]

Fantastic. This has been so great, Harold. Congrats on Savage Young winos out for people to go find it by the time this podcast will be out via Liberation Hall. An amazing career still going strong. Harold Bronson, thanks for being on Taking a Walk.

[Harold Bronson]

Thank you, Buzz.

[Buzz Knight]

I'm Buzz Knight. And thanks for listening to the Taking a Walk podcast. Now please check out our companion podcasts produced by BuzzKnight Media Productions with your host, Lynn Hoffman. Music Saved Me. Showcasing the healing power of music and comedy saved Me. Shining a light on how laughter is the best medicine. All shows are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and are part of the I Heart Podcast Network.

[Jill Winterstein]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.