← Takin' A Walk - Music History with Buzz Knight
Takin' A Walk - Music History with Buzz Knight
Steve Earle-Behind the Music with one of our Greatest Storytellers
00:35:06
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- [00:00]
Buzz Knight
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:04]
Chase Sapphire Reserve
This episode of Taking a Walk is brought to you by Chase Sapphire Reserve. Whether I'm booking my next vacation or going to a concert, Chase Sapphire Reserve is my gateway to the world's most captivating destinations. When I use my Chase Sapphire card, I get three times points on travel and dining and even access to one of a kind experiences like music festivals and sports events. And that's not even mentioning how the card gets me into the Sapphire Lounge by the club at select airports nationwide. No matter where I'm walking, travel is more rewarding with Chase Sapphire Reserve. Discover more with Chase sapphire reserve@chase.com Sapphire Reserve cards issued by JP Morgan Chase Bank NA member FDIC subject to credit approval terms apply.
- [00:53]
Holly Fry
Explore the winding halls of historical true crime with Holly Fry and Maria Tremarky, hosts of Criminalia, as they uncover curious cases from the past. The legend of the Highwayman suggests men dominated the field, but tell that to Lady Catherine Ferrers. Known as the wicked lady who terrorized England in the mid-1600s, her legend persists nearly 400 years after her death. Highwaymen are in the hot seat this season. Find more crime and cocktails on Criminalia Listen to criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:27]
Jake Hanrahan
I'm Jake Hanrahan, journalist and documentary filmmaker. Away Days is my new project reporting on countercultures on the fringes of society all across the world. Live from the underground, you'll discover no rules fighting, Japanese street racing, Brazilian favela life and much more. All real, completely uncensored. Listen to the Away Days podcast reporting from the underbelly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:58]
Buzz Knight
Taking a walk Bowen had hired for his division which was which was autonomous. He ran that separately from the rest of MCA Records. He basically he hired Emory Gordy, Tony Brown and David Hungate as A and R people and told them, you know, okay, you're hired, now go out and sign whoever you want to. And Tony and Emory said, we want to sign Steve Earl. And he said, anybody but Steve Earl.
- [02:20]
Steve Earle
Welcome to the Taking a Walk Podcast podcast where Buzz Knight talks with legendary artists, storytellers and icons to hear their stor behind their music. Today, Buzz is with the true American original Steve Earle, Grammy winning singer, songwriter, fearless storyteller and musical outlaw. Steve's career has spanned decades, genres and generations. From the back roads of Texas to the streets of Nashville and New York City. Steve shares his stories behind the music and his most Beloved songs, the lessons he's learned from his heroes, and how the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other keeps him grounded and creative. Steve Earle's hitting the road with 50 years of songs and Stories Summer tour this summer, coming to a city near you. And he joins Buzz Knight on the Taking a Walk podcast right now.
- [03:13]
Hello, Steve. Earl, thank you for being on Taking a Walk.
- [03:17]
Buzz Knight
It is good to be here.
- [03:19]
Steve Earle
If you could take a walk with somebody, living or dead, who might that person be? And you know where you might take that walk with them?
- [03:29]
Buzz Knight
Ram Dass. Because I knew him a little to the end of his life and he couldn't walk by the time I met him because he'd had a pretty catastrophic stroke, but he was still Ram Dass. And, and it was a kind of a big deal for me because I, I, I just kind of, I read Be Here now when it came out. And so for my 60th, you know, it was always a big deal to me, but I'd never managed to sort of put any sort of daily spiritual practice together, even though I tried. I'm an old hippie. And then as a person in recovery, it's something else that you're supposed to do. And I just didn't manage to do that until for my 60th birthday, my manager, who had known Ram Dass for a while, took me to Maui to a small retreat at RD's house and, and I met him finally and, and I started going to Maui every year for the last few years of his life and, and then got there just a few days after he died in 2020, and so missed that one. And, and there was another time that we couldn't see him because I didn't get to see him or Willie, you know, Willie Nelson and Chris Christopherson lived in Maui as well, and I'd visit them. But when you're, when you, when you show up with a snotty nose, kid, you don't go visit the octogenarians who all my friends in Maui were. So it was, but it was, it was a, something that really important to me and it did get me going on a daily yoga practice that's continued to now. And it's, and walk in probably in Maui. I haven't been back to Maui since, since Ram Dass passed away. And I'd never been before I went to that conference, I'd never been Hawaii. And somebody asked me one time, like, why do you go to Maui? Why don't you go to the Big island? Maui? That's so 70s. Well, I'm pretty 70s and plus RAM Dass, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, that was my reasons for a pilgrimage to Maui. And Ram Dass used to go swimming once a week at Kihei, and I used to stay over by there. And so I always wish that I could have gotten there for that. And it just never quite lined up because it was right in front of the hotel where I normally stay. But I was just never there when it worked out on the day when they were taking around us swimming and. And so probably take a walk and then down to the beach to go swimming is what the walk would be.
- [05:55]
Steve Earle
That'd be pretty. Pretty awesome. As somebody who lives in New York, a great walking city as well. Do you have any favorite spots to walk in New York?
- [06:07]
Buzz Knight
Well, I walk a lot of different routes. I dropped my son off at school every day. He has autism. And he goes to a school called the Koswell School, which is in. It's in the lower. It's in the Lower east side. It's like kind of, you know, right where Stanton ends there, you know. And so I live in Battery Park City, so that's about three miles. I can make it four miles if I take a long route. I lived in Greenwich Village for 18 years. I still buy my coffee there at Puerto Rico and coffee there. And so I'll reroute to the Village to Bleecker street, get coffee sometimes and then walk straight out to the west side and down down the Hudson river, you know, and. Which is beautiful when it's. I do this rain or shine, no matter how cold it is. So I don't suggest that walk in January or February. I usually go straight to Chinatown that way, which is always Chinatown at 8:30, 9:00 in the morning, is fascinating. It always has been. Chinatown's funny because Little Italy shrank to a block. Chinatown did not. And in fact, they got some of what used to be Little Italy. That community's holding together, and it's still vibrant and it's still. You'd think you'd gone off into another country every time you cross one of those blocks into Chinatown to this day.
- [07:22]
Steve Earle
The amazing part about New York is you just lose track of time when you're walking the streets and just looking at people and kind of clearing your head.
- [07:32]
Buzz Knight
It used to be that way for me. I used to come here to chill out after. After tours. Before I lived here. Yeah. Now I live here. So it's a little bit different. You know, I'm watch the clock a little Bit more, you know, because I'm, you know, I, I, I live here and work here and get my kid to school and I come back and I just hammer trying to get something done before he gets out of school in the afternoon like every other single parent in the world.
- [07:52]
Steve Earle
So we're going to talk about you going out on your, your, your long run of a tour. We'll, we'll touch on that. But I wanted to mention something. Charlie Reed from the Proclaimers, he says that your album Guitar Town was at this time. When he said it, he said it was the best record of the 1980s, in his opinion.
- [08:17]
Buzz Knight
Well, they ended up recording, you know, My Friend the Blues, which was from that record. And, and then that ended. My luck was on the record of theirs. It sort of found a new life after they had a hit from it. You know, that was on Sunshine and Leaf and It's Funny. And Craig's daughter like showed up at my songwriting camp one year when she 18 years old and, and she's like, you know, she's really, really, really good. And so I've known those guys a long time and, and, and I appreciate that. But I was a big fan of theirs from record one.
- [08:49]
Steve Earle
What was the Guitar Town session like? The whole creation of that? What can you tell us about it?
- [08:57]
Buzz Knight
It was weird because I was, I've been in Nashville for 13 years or 12 years, but when we started it, I'd had one record deal that I got just by default. I tried to get a record deal for years and I just missed, I was sort of a baby. And what they, you know, what people think of as the outlaw movement. And then, you know, the record deals kind of dried up pretty quickly on that, you know, they won't, they wanted control again. And so everybody, I just wasn't good enough. But, you know, there's some songs I still play that were written back then. That's part of the point of this, this tour. But, you know, by the time I'd been through a couple of publishers, I'd been on Epic Records for a minute. I had a three piece rockabilly bed and that finally got me a record deal of all things. And I didn't think that I would be doing that for the rest of my life, but it was sort of fun. And first time I ever played electric guitar was in my late 20s when I had that band. And then those, those singles we released at Epic didn't work, so they dropped me. And then I signed to a publishing company that belonged to the Oak Ridge Boys called Silver Line, Gold Line and a gentleman named Noel Fox, who had been the bass singer of the Oaks back when they were really. When they were a gospel group before they went secular. And Noah was a song guy. And he just told me I'd been, you know, when. When Justin was born, I started panicking, trying to write songs I could get cut. And I had very marginal success with that. A few people covered my songs, but not very many. Not enough for it to really, you know, turn into a career. And. And none of us, my crowd of people went there to be staff writers for the rest of our lives. We were singer songwriters, we wanted record deals. And Noel believed in me. He told me to go write a record. I went out and saw Bruce Springsteen, the E Street Band, on the Born in the USA tour. He came out and opened with Born in the usa I went home and wrote Guitar Town and started writing an album. And there's only one song that wasn't written in that few months before we actually recorded Guitar Town that I took from it been a couple years earlier. And I played it with the Rockabilly man. That was Fearless Heart because I thought it was just such a good song. I didn't want to leave it behind. And it wasn't that. But I didn't go back for any of the songs that I'd written over, you know, the 12 or 13 years before I got there. I did record some of those songs later on Train To Come and after I got out of jail, I recorded a few of those songs. And those are the ones that you're going to hear on the tour this year. Those are the older songs that I. That I still play. But it was. The sessions were, you know, they were pretty disciplined. We were doing different than Nashville was doing when I first got there. They catered and they did. Everybody just stayed in the studio and ate there and we didn't. We worked, you know, at least two sessions a day. You know, we worked from, you know, usually noon or so till pretty late. And once the tracks were done, we work even later. Sometimes it was just one of those things I. That's one thing I don't do anymore. I don't stand in recording studio so two or three o' clock in the morning anymore. But, you know, we discovered, I think when you're younger, you think it's, you know, you finally turn out later that you throw away most of the stuff that you do when you're too tired anyway. So it's one of those things. But the best stuff gets done in the first couple of takes, in the first couple hours.
- [12:03]
Steve Earle
Did you ever do any work in your time in Nashville at the infamous Quonset Hut Studios?
- [12:10]
Buzz Knight
No, I never recorded there. It's the Quonset hut. You can still see the shape of the Quonset hut itself. Quonset hut, for people that don't know is if you've ever seen Gomer pile those structures that they use for barracks in that marine camp. The Quonset hut was invented, as I guess by within the military to be a structure that could be thrown up quickly, but was. But was. Was really sound, stood up to wind, stood up to other things, you know, pretty well. And it was basically Owen Bradley got the idea. There's a sort of a theory in studios that you don't want parallel walls too close to each other because it's not what they call a standing wave. And a Quonset has one long curved wall to ceiling, you know, just like a tunnel. And. And so there are no parallel surfaces unless you put some in it. So that was the idea. He thought it would make a perfect recording studio, and so he bought one, put it on Music Row and built a recording studio in it. Then he sold that to Columbia Records and they built their building around it. And I can show people, you can drive past, past the Sony building now in the back, and you can still see the crack where two buildings are, you know, sort of together there, an annex. You can see the curve at the top of the Quonset Hud in between them. And I. Because it sort of. It's sort of what connects the two that long ago got turned into offices. It was still a recording studio when I got there. Billy Sheryl was ensconced there and was still recording there when I got there in 1975. But I never got to record there.
- [13:43]
Steve Earle
Myself as an obvious student of the greats of. Of Nashville. How does a song such as I Saw the Light by Hank Williams makes an influence on somebody like you?
- [13:57]
Buzz Knight
Oh, I don't know. I think there's gospel songs like that. First person I knew that wrote gospel songs was Townes Van Zandt, and which was seemed, you know, his reputation. It seemed incongruous. He wrote one called Two Hands, which is a very traditional tempo gospel song, and one called When He Offers His Hand. They're both on the same album. And, you know, he wrote them for his mother. That's, That's. That's why he. Why he did it. I've written a couple. I've written. I've written One Christmas song. It's not really a gospel song, but it is a Christmas story that does have to do with what Christmas is about. It's called Nothing But a Child. And I. I wrote. I've got a gospel song that I'm pretty proud of that's actually called Tender Mercies. That's in this musical of Tender Mercies that I'm. That I'm working on right now. It's just one of those things. Gospel music was always such a integral part of country music, yet there was always a gospel song in every country show. And so it got ingrained. And, you know, why me, Lord? That's still one of my. One of my favorite, you know, and that's. You would call that a sacred song or a spiritual song. Gospel is actually. I know way too much about gospel when it comes down to it, because the roots of rock and roll are also found there. And I. I wrote for a company that belonged to the Oak Ridge Boys. And I've learned the history of all that from them, at least from the white gospel side. And. And that's connected to the black gospel side. And. And, you know, I knew other people in Nashville that were involved in that kind of gospel music, and it always fascinated me.
- [15:29]
Steve Earle
So I was programming rock stations when Copperhead Road came out, right. And really was super cool how it stood in between a Rolling Stone song and a Jimi Hendrix song and really, really worked fabulously. We absolutely loved that when that came out and still love it. Can you take us back to that time with the creation of that certainly great project?
- [15:58]
Buzz Knight
I started out, you know, when I make Guitar Town. I wanted to make credible country records, and I never saw that much difference between country and rock and roll. Not the good stuff, anyway. So Guitar Town and Exit Zero, I was definitely trying to do that. By the time Exit Zero came along, Guitar Town was more successful. Almost a little too successful, according to Jimmy Bowen, who ran. Who ran MCA Nashville at the time. And Bowen, basically, Emory Gordy and Tony Brown decided they wanted to sign me. I'd worked with Emory when I was on Epic. He produced the stuff that I did there. Bowen had hired for his division, which was autonomous. He ran that separately from the rest of MCA Records. He hired Emory Gordy, Tony Brown and David Hungate as A R people. David Hungate was the original bass player in Toto and told them, okay, you're hired. Now go out and sign whoever you want to. And Tony and Emory said, we want to sign Steve Earl. And he said, anybody but Steve Earl, because he knew me because the rockabilly record I made, and he hated that because he kind of came from it. And I don't know what that's about, but I know he did come from that. Buddy Knox and he were partners and recorded together and partied all the A side. Well, it was shipped as a double A, but Party Doll became the hit. And the other side is the song that Jimmy Bowen sings. And so he went on to be a really successful producer in la and a part of that whole Oklahoma, you know, migration to the west coast that created a lot of great music. But he ended up in Nashville running mca and he just did not like me, did not like my voice and did not want me on his record label, Guitar Town. He let them go ahead and do it because he told them that they could sign anybody they wanted to. But I had to go. I had to go prove to him that I could sing. I had to go make a special demo and I did it. And then so he grudgingly let him sign me. We made the record. We put out one single that got into the 30s, which was hillbilly highway. And the Guitar Town just sort of exploded. And radio stations jumped all over it. And they even tried to pull the plug on it at one point, because they had to Reba McIntyre record. They were trying to get added. And now that works. Every label is going to get what they're going to get according to whatever their relationship with the programmer is. And they were told, no, we're getting phones on this. This is an active record here. And most of the stations wouldn't drop it. So that record went on, it became a number one country album. And then I made Exit Zero, the second record. And there's a lot of sophomore slump, but I don't think that was the case with that record. I'm pretty proud of that record. I think it holds up. There's still a lot of songs on it. I sing every night. But it. I've. And I've had people that were working there at the time tell me that they were told absolutely not to work my record. So Copperhead Road was. I knew that I was dead if I didn't, you know, I had a seven, you know, album contract. I knew I wasn't going to get dropped. And I was 32 by that time, and I just, you know, I just knew I needed to do something. So I. I was in London producing a record and MCA had started up an imprint that they'd had before called Uni, and Irving Azoff was running the whole record label at the time. And I walked up to Irving at a party and said, I want to be on uni. He goes, he got this slice. And he didn't like Bowen very much. They didn't get along. But Bowen's division made money, so he left him alone. And I think I presented a way for him to fuck with Bowen. It was part of it. I said. I said, I want to be moved to uni. And he got this look on his face. He said, uni's not for country. Uni's for rock and roll and hip hop. I said, I'll make a rock record. And so I went to Memphis to make it. I'm surprised I got to do it. I'm surprised they didn't just pull the plug right there. I think they could have. I don't. You know, I barely understood the contract that I'd signed anyway. So I know it was seven albums if they wanted it to be seven albums. And. And, you know, one if they only wanted it to be one, and they got. The second one got made. So, you know, I went to Memphis. There was a rule about the type of recording equipment that you had to use. Because Bowen, because he owned all those machines, the machines of that type in Nashville, that was part of it. But. But it was. It was supposed to be about sound quality. But they had the same equipment at Arden and Memphis. And I knew that because I was. I was dating and getting ready to marry an A and R person at the time. And she had made some records over there, and I'd been over there with her. So I decided I wanted to go to Arden and make copyright. It's a studio that ZZ Top records were made there. Parts of Led Zeppelin 3 were made there. It's still open. So a very, very famous recording studio in Memphis. So I went to Memphis, made Copperhead Road to be a rock record. And we got played at rock radio someplace. There were some places that just still thought it was too country, you know, I mean, up north and. And I already had a pretty good thing going at. And one of the reasons that I did what I did is even on Qatar Town, and especially on Exit 0, WXRT in Chicago were sort of unknowingly inventing a radio format at the time because it got so wide open and it became, you know, the AAA format, you know, and. And adult album, alternative, whatever. Well, whatever order you put those words in, it's those three words. I never can't remember what. What order it goes in. You know, it was xrt, you know convinced me that there was an audience out there and I knew I needed to stay on the road. Luckily, my publishing deal ran out right as Guitar Town was number one, so they had to resign me on the better deal. So I got a big enough publishing deal that I could live on it and I just put the money from the road into the bus and paying the band and stayed on the road and I had a career from that point on.
- [22:03]
Steve Earle
We'll be right back with more of the Taking a Walk podcast.
- [22:08]
Chase Sapphire Reserve
This episode of Taking a Walk is brought to you by Chase Sapphire Reserve. Whether I'm booking my next vacation or going to a concert, Chase Sapphire Reserve is my gateway to the world's most captivating destinations. Travel is one of the most precious things in my life and the memories of each of the experiences live on forever. Chase Sapphire Reserve allows me to travel with ease with a $300 travel credit and access to a curated collection of hotels through the edit. So no matter where I'm walking, travel is more rewarding with Chase Sapphire Reserve. Discover more with Chase sapphire reserve@chase.com Sapphire Reserve cards issued by JP Morgan Chase Bank NA member FDIC subject to credit approval terms apply.
- [23:03]
Holly Fry
Explore the winding halls of historical true crime with Holly Fry and Maria Tremarchi, hosts of Criminalia, as they uncover curious cases from the past. The legend of the Highwayman suggests men dominated the field, but tell that to Lady Catherine Ferrers, known as the wicked lady who terrorized England in the mid-1600s. Her legend persists nearly 400 years after her death. Hear the story of the gentleman Robber, the romantic darling of the ladies, and a tale about a wager over a sack of potatoes, but you'll have to tune in to learn who won that one. Some highwaymen were well mannered or faked it. People were concerned about the romanticism of robbers, but most were just thugs. Highwaymen are in the hot seat this season. Call them robbers or bandits, some are legendary figures. Listen to stories about historical crimes on Criminalia now, plus the cocktails and mocktails inspired by each. Listen to criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [24:05]
Jake Hanrahan
I'm Jake Hanrahan, journalist and documentary filmmaker. Away Days is my new project reporting on countercultures on the fringes of society and all across the world. Live from the underground, you'll discover no rules fighting, Japanese street racing, Brazilian favela life, and much more. All real, completely uncensored. This is unique access with straightforward on the ground reporting. We're taking you deep into the dirt. Without the usual airs and graces of legacy media away they showcases what the mainstream cannot access. Real underground reporting with real people. No excuses. For the past decade, I've been going to places I shouldn't be, meeting people I shouldn't know. Now you can come along too. Listen to the Away Days podcast, reporting from the underbelly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [25:08]
Steve Earle
Welcome back to the Taking a Walk podcast.
- [25:11]
Is there a genre you haven't touched yet that you would consider touching in the future?
- [25:17]
Buzz Knight
Jazz, I guess, because a friend of mine told me after I've made a bluegrass record, he's his, his mother started the station in, in Nashville. He's like, he's in some really good, I guess they would call alternative bands that were around, you know, and, and, and he, but his grandfather was Woody Herman and he told me that he grew up being a bad boy with his, with his dad. And he, he just, I mean, with his granddad and he just said, we have, you can make any kind of record you want to set. The jazz record. Don't ever try to make a jazz record. That kind. I took that as a double dog dare. And so I have thought about it a few times.
- [25:56]
Steve Earle
I love that. That's fantastic. Any jazz players in particular that, that you admire?
- [26:01]
Buzz Knight
Pretty old fashioned, you know, like hard bop and, and, and I love Woody Herman and I love Stan Kenton and that kind of big band jazz. It's, I mean it's really jazz and, and I love Birth of the Cools. Probably my favorite jazz album, which is Miles and that, you know, that, that well, relatively large band, you know. And that's, that's a really, really great record. But I like, I like. Piano players are kind of, you know, more than almost anything else. I mean, I love, I love Bird and I love, I love Felonious Monk, but I'm kind of, you know, just Bud Powell. That's, I listen to a lot of Bud Powell.
- [26:38]
Steve Earle
Have you checked out the Louis Armstrong Museum there in, in Corona, Queens?
- [26:44]
Buzz Knight
I've never been out there and I need to go out there because I love all that stuff, you know, the, the early Louis Armstrong stuff. And I got, I got obsessed because of a great book that Michael Andache wrote, coming Through Slaughter with the whole legend of Buddy Bolden, because we never really heard him play in his prime because they weren't making records when he was younger. And then he, he basically had mental health issues. I mean, he lived into the 40s, but he, he Never was quite right when they. When. When there was really a market for jazz and he could have gotten a record deal. But, but. But according to Louis Armstrong and everybody else that was around, you are hearing Buddy Bolden. If you hear Louis Armstrong early on and a lot of. Almost anybody else in town, he was the Trump. He was a cornet player. He never owned a trumpet.
- [27:29]
Steve Earle
The museum is cool, but the house is incredible. It's got some great archival sound there and everything as you walk through.
- [27:38]
Buzz Knight
In New Orleans. I spent a lot of time in New Orleans. I was in a television show called Treme, and it was about New Orleans after the. Just characters in New Orleans after the storm. Mostly musicians. I played the street musician, but there's a guy there. I can't remember his name, but he collected a lot of jazz memorabilia. A. He's an academic. He teaches. He teaches that stuff, you know, that kind of New Orleans culture. But he owned Louis Armstrong's first cornet. Oh, wow. And it ended up. And that water was so toxic, was so caustic that flooded. His house got flooded and they opened the case and it just fell apart. It left only the steel parts, the valves, the hardened parts, but all the brass parts dissolved. That's how caustic that water was. It was in the streets. That's why all those trees along those boulevards going out, you know, back towards the R. You know, back towards the. You know, the levees in the back. That's why all those trees died. All those big magnolias, all that stuff died.
- [28:38]
Steve Earle
Oh, I didn't know that. My God. Bluegrass is important to you. And. Yeah, I think it's an interesting time with some of these newer creators that have come on the horizon. I wanted to get.
- [28:52]
Buzz Knight
It's great. It's the biggest it's ever been.
- [28:55]
Steve Earle
And the Sierra Halls and the. The, you know.
- [29:00]
Buzz Knight
Sells out multiple nights at Red Rocks and. And plays arenas and. And. Yeah, I don't, you know, and I've watched all that stuff and I just. I did actually. Molly Tuttle's band backed me up along with Molly at Harley Circularly Bluegrass last year, and it was a blast. I'm all for it. I'm. I'm gonna do. I've done a few bluegrass gigs. I played with Molly at Harley Strictly last year, the Outlaw Cruise. This last year, the Earls of Leicester backed me up for one show, which is. That's. That's, you know, it's. It's one of those things that. That. It's a. It's a flat and shrugs, you know, Tribute band that Jerry Dou was put together and Sean camps in it, who's one of the best musicians I know, pound for pound in that whole town, and. And a lot of great players in it. It was a blast. It was real live. Holding on for dear life. Adult bluegrass. It was fun.
- [29:47]
Steve Earle
Is there a thing you have to reconcile as far as the improvisation of bluegrass versus the, you know, other forms that don't. I don't know, embrace improvisation?
- [29:59]
Buzz Knight
Well, I'm. I'm. If you play it. According to Monroe, then the lead singer is a guitar player, and guitar players in Monroe's bands never soloed. So I get off light with that. Now they're guys like Billy Strings that, you know. But Bill's thing was no takeoff guitar. That was his deal. He just didn't do it. And I. Because he wanted guitar holding down the middle, and it allowed, you know, the mandolin to stop playing rhythm and allowed, you know, guitar had to stay. Had to hold that down no matter what. And bass. I heard him one time. I got to be around Monroe a little bit the last few decades of his life, and I got to go sit in on a session. Emory Gordy, who was produced by so My stuff at Epic and was a co producer on Guitar Town and Exit Zero, He. He was producing a Bill Monroe record, and I got to go. It was called Bill Monroe and Friends, and it was him with all these other bluegrass bands, he was finally kind of acknowledging he created a genre and playing with all these bands, some of them people that he didn't talk to for years because they'd left his band, but he finally had figured out by that time, long years before that, that that's because he invented something in an American art form, and. And that's how that works. But he. He. You know, they were signed in the. The. The time cards at the end of the session, everybody signing, and Jack Cook, who. Who is. Who was Ralph Stanley. It was his band, right? And Jack Cook was his bass player for years. And so he had seniority, so he made him the session leader because you get double scale. And he was signing the card, and. And Bill was watching Jack Cook sign that card, and he. And he elbows Emory, and he says, emory, we don't pay bass players, do you? You can't hear them. You know, so it's. It's one of those things. He was. He had this very, very dry, almost English sense of humor. It was pretty hilarious. He. Some people mistook it for something else, but he was really smart and really funny.
- [31:50]
Steve Earle
Somebody sent me the Incredible performance there in Galway that was, you know, seemed like there was hundreds of thousands of people that were singing Galway Girl.
- [32:01]
Buzz Knight
It was. Yeah, it was Monday and Monday and Sharon Chan. And Monday actually had the biggest hit on the Galway Girl that finally pushed it into Irish culture once and for all. Several years after. My version of Sharon's version, my version. Insurance version of the same thing, except the accordion's loud on the mix on her record. But, yeah, and I wasn't around for that. But, yeah, it was. It was. You know, people trust me. I got that video forwarded to me a lot.
- [32:27]
Steve Earle
It must make you feel really great watching that. It's so joyous. I mean.
- [32:31]
Buzz Knight
Yeah, yeah. And it's also. I got one from. From a class, a friend of mine's, you know, class, and, you know, a school teacher friend of mine's class, and everybody's singing it. And, you know, it's one of the same music. There are musicians that hate me for it because it's become such a part of culture. You know, there's, you know, I also had, you know, a friend of mine, he runs the Galway Traditional Music School. He's Mick Cran. He's. He's a whistle player. He's a. He plays. He plays, you know, the low whistle and, you know, Pennywise or ten whistles, whichever you want to call them, and some flute. But mainly he's about whistles. And he's like. He's an old. He's an old socialist. He's like. He and I have a lot in common and got to be really, really good friends. But he. He's like. He teaches at that school, and he. And he had. He plays mandolin and guitar, too. And he. This. This kid came in, he was about 8 or 9. He had a mandolin, and he said, I want to play the. Learn to play the Galway Girl. This is Mick telling the story. So I have his word. I only have his word for it. This is how it went down, because he goes, I want to learn to play the Galway Girl. And he goes, well, first, let's show you. Here's a G chord. He goes, I just want to learn to play the Galway Girl. And that was it. That's all he was interested in. I think he learned to play it eventually.
- [33:48]
Steve Earle
I want to talk about some causes that are important to you. Obviously, the Caswell School is. Is one.
- [33:54]
Buzz Knight
Yeah, well, you know, I got a kid that goes to school there, so that anybody that's got a kid that goes to school is probably raising funds for it. And so one form or another nowadays.
- [34:02]
Steve Earle
So you will do another show coming up later in the fall?
- [34:05]
Buzz Knight
Yeah, we're going to do one. We're moving venues this year. We haven't announced it yet, but we'll be announcing pretty soon, as soon as we get a headliner locked in.
- [34:13]
Steve Earle
And I know better than Jail is Equal justice organization that you support as well.
- [34:20]
Buzz Knight
Yep, yep. And I, you know, I don't. I still am opposed to the death penalty. That was a core issue for me for a long time. I don't get directly involved with inmates anymore because that eventually led to me witnessing an execution. And I don't have it in me to go through that again.
- [34:37]
Steve Earle
Oh, my God.
- [34:38]
Buzz Knight
So I try not to get too close to inmates. I feel bad about it sometimes, but I, I was, I had about 11 guys that I corresponded with. They've all been executed now. And one of them, I witnessed that execution, and I just can't do that again. And, you know, I was blindsided. He asked me, how were you going to say no? It's a dying man's last request. And my guys weren't innocent. You know, innocent guys never wrote me all my guys were guilty. But I'm opposed to the death penalty. I opposed to if the government kills somebody, then in a democracy, which we're barely hanging onto, but we're all sensibly a democracy, then I'm killing someone. And I object to the damage that does to my spirit. I'm not, I'm trying to keep me from going to hell. I'm not trying to save anybody on death row necessarily.
- [35:23]
Steve Earle
Any other charities and causes you want to make mention of?
- [35:27]
Buzz Knight
Autism Speaks, obviously, which funds a lot of the research into the causes of autism. In every city, there are local autism charities, and those are pretty near and dear to my heart. American Civil Liberties Union, you know, I also, I do stuff for them all the time. I've done. I played their plenary every year. And it's like, it's, it's just, it's one of those things that I, I, it's more or less the same causes that have been my causes pretty much all my life.
- [35:58]
Steve Earle
So you're, you're heading out for a couple of months on the road here.
- [36:02]
Buzz Knight
With these three months.
- [36:03]
Steve Earle
Three months.
- [36:03]
Buzz Knight
Three months. 90 days. 69 shows in 90 days.
- [36:07]
Steve Earle
So people can go to steverl.com and check out all of the, the, yeah, we start in.
- [36:14]
Buzz Knight
And Decatur, Alabama, like, coming up in, it's next Sunday night, actually, the 20th. The 20th, as we're taping this, the 25th. And it goes through till the week, till Labor Day weekend. And it's at Rhythm and Roots Festival in Rhode island is the last show.
- [36:33]
Steve Earle
Any other venues that you played before that you'll be playing that are some of your favorites?
- [36:39]
Buzz Knight
Yeah, there's some clubs, some theaters. There's a. There's a really cool, like, Art center in Grass Valley, California. I haven't played in years and years. And Utah Phillips lived there the last few decades of his life. It's funny, Utah Phillips and Chuck Yeager ended up in the same place on the planet for the end of their lives, which I always thought was interesting. I'm playing, playing the Calgary Folk Festival. That's with Reckless Kelly. I'm playing the. The Vic in Chicago, which I haven't played in years, which used to be sort of my home base in Chicago, and. But like, especially the 90s, right after I got out of jail. But I haven't played there in quite a while, and I'm looking forward to that.
- [37:19]
Steve Earle
So, Steve, in closing, I know you're a big Yankee fan, and I wanted to ask you, were you ever a ball player?
- [37:24]
Buzz Knight
First of all, no, I. I was the worst athlete in the history of Texas. And my, My brother was. My brother played everything. My dad, you know, held a. Held a record in a high school record in the mile relay until he was, you know, until I was on the planet. And, and it was broken when I was about 10 years old. But I was just terrible at everything. The baseball thing got. I was a Dallas Cowboys football fan. I just kind of quit watching American football, I don't know, several decades back. I got. Jerry Jones just started to piss me off. And so it was one of those things. I got tired of watching guys get hurt. I follow English Premier League, soccer, you know, football, you know that. Football in general and the Premier League, because I produced a lot of records in England and I got kind of hooked and I've been an Arsenal guy. But the Yankees thing started with my, my. My grandfather, he's actually my mother's stepfather, who mustered out of the army in, In New York City, intended to stay here, but he was dragged back to Jacksonville, Texas, kicking and screaming because his stepfather died and he had to go home and run the family hardware store because that was his mother's livelihood. So. But he came back a Yankees fan, and, and you only got the Yankees or the Dodgers on tv. When I was growing up, that was it, the game of the week. So you were either in the middle of the country. If you had no baseball team, you were either a Dodgers or a Yankees fan. That's pretty. You know, the original America's team that wasn't coined for the Dallas Cowboys. It was, it was a coin for the Yankees and it was because of that, that period in history. So I was issued pinstripes when I was six years old. My first team was 61. Maris and Mantle and, and that record and, and that story. So. And as a big Yogi Bear guy, I like catchers. Thurman Munson, Yogi Berra. You know, those, those catchers are a big deal for me. For some reason they're the only player on the field that gets to see a whole baseball game. That's why so many of them become managers.
- [39:15]
Steve Earle
The tools of ignorance, right?
- [39:18]
Buzz Knight
Yeah. Yogi Bear was such a character too. He said, my favorite Yogi ism is, is when, when people die, you should go to their funerals. Otherwise they won't come to yours. That's my very favorite.
- [39:32]
Steve Earle
Steve, thank you so much for being on Taking a Walk. Good luck on the tour and I really appreciate you being on.
- [39:38]
Buzz Knight
Thanks. See you down the road.
- [39:41]
Steve Earle
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts.
- [40:00]
Chase Sapphire Reserve
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- [40:49]
Holly Fry
Explore the winding halls of historical true crime with Holly Fry and Maria Tremarchi, hosts of Criminalia, as they uncover curious cases from the past. The legend of the Highwayman suggests men dominated the field, but tell that to Lady Catherine Ferrers, known as the wicked lady who terrorized England in the mid-1600s, her legend persists nearly 400 years after her death. Highwaymen are in the hot seat this season. Find more crime and cocktails on Criminalia Listen to Criminalia on the Iheartradio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [41:23]
Jake Hanrahan
I'm Jake Hanrahan, journalist and documentary filmmaker. Away Days is my new project reporting on countercultures on the fringes of society all across the world. Live from the underground, you'll discover no rules fighting, Japanese street racing, Brazilian favela life, and much more. All real, completely uncensored. Listen to the Away Days podcast reporting from the underbelly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [41:53]
Buzz Knight
This is an iHeart podcast.