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Buzz Knight
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Podcast Narrator/Advertiser
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Harry Jacobs
I turned off news altogether.
Buzz Knight
I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything.
Harry Jacobs
It's the rage bait.
Buzz Knight
It feels like it's trying to divide people.
Harry Jacobs
We got clear facts. Maybe we could calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the Facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News reporting for America.
Buzz Knight
This is Buzz Knight. And welcome to the Taking a Walk podcast. And welcome to another edition of this Week in Music History for the week of November 3rd. And we go to the master of music Mayhem. That's still my favorite, Harry Jacobs, the master of music Mayhem. I think it fits. It has a good rhyme.
Harry Jacobs
I like being associated with mayhem. There's no question about that.
Buzz Knight
That's right.
Harry Jacobs
Mayhem. Yeah.
Buzz Knight
You've had, you've had your share of.
Harry Jacobs
Mayhem in my life. I indeed I have, Buzz. You're correct, sir.
Buzz Knight
We don't have to go down this path.
Harry Jacobs
No, we. That's a rabbit hole. We don't need to go down any rabbit holes.
Buzz Knight
Maybe ahead of the time.
Harry Jacobs
Yeah, I do. I, you know, I do have a rabbit hole for us to go down. And, and unfortunately, only one of us can really participate in this. You were given an assignment during our last podcast. A couple of assignments. Which, which assignment would you like to discuss? Would you like to discuss? The song remains the same movie, or would you like to discuss the one that's really, really super timely and that's the Bruce Springsteen movie, which opened on the 23rd? I don't.
Buzz Knight
Harry. I don't want to get my knuckles wrapped, even though I didn't go to Catholic school. And that wouldn't relate to you, Catholic school either, but. So I don't want to get my knuckles wrapped for not but two misfires. So lead us through the mayhem, and I'll miraculously follow along, pretend I'm wearing.
Harry Jacobs
What do they call that, a habit before they whack you with the rule of the habits on.
Buzz Knight
Oh, that sounds so. That sounds so wonderful.
Harry Jacobs
Yeah, the. The Springsteen movie. Let's. Let's talk about this. Let's. I wanna. You know, I want to know what you've been reading, what the critics are saying, because I haven't. I haven't looked at any of it. I've deliberately stayed away from it. I found the movie to be incredibly heavy. The subject matter is really, in a sense, dark. There's a mental health component to this, which we knew going into it. They teased it going into the movie, that. That there are going to be discussions about his mental health battles. There's stuff dealing with his relationship with his father that was very heavy. So I think, you know, for a lot of people, this is gonna hit you over the head like a 2x4, especially given how important the music is to all of us.
Buzz Knight
All right, this. This is the one that caught me. So I shouldn't be so drawn to this particular review. This comment from a review, and it's from the Wall Street Journal, and I do quote, you're already shaking your head. It's. It's a pretty funny quote, but, you.
Harry Jacobs
Know, go ahead and give it to me. But my initial response is, do I really want to hear what these D bags have to say? Go ahead.
Buzz Knight
It's like a Mariah Carey movie about a Bruce Springsteen album.
Harry Jacobs
What? Get out. Really like a Mariah. Care.
Podcast Narrator/Advertiser
I'm just.
Buzz Knight
I'm just reading you the quote. But anyway, I. I like your lead up. So you say it's a heavy movie. Did you see it once or twice? Because you were gonna possibly see it twice.
Harry Jacobs
I was gonna go see it twice. And I was. I'll tell you this. I was impacted by the movie emotionally.
Buzz Knight
Okay.
Harry Jacobs
Really heavy material. I'm gonna go back and see it.
Buzz Knight
Okay.
Harry Jacobs
But I. I needed a minute, and I literally. I left the theater. I sat in the theater. I watched the credits. I watched it until the theater was Dark. And got up and walked out and sat in my car and I literally opened up my itunes and realized that they had released the whole project to Apple Music while I was in the theater. That literally happened.
Podcast Narrator/Advertiser
Wow.
Harry Jacobs
During that time. So I went and I put on his recording, which he just did at the Count Basie Theater. And I sat in my car and I just listened to it and I sat there for a half an hour. I. I sent a message to a friend or two of mine that are Bruce people. And you know, they had seen it on the east coast and it was just. It was a heavy moment. I couldn't leave. I sat there for. For half an hour, probably just digesting what I had seen. There are some moments in this film that are really insightful. They're dark, they're. I'm not going to ruin it for anyone. There's a moment at the end of the movie with Bruce and his dad, which is, you know, an incredible thing. And it's just, it's so much. And, and you know, he's tortured. He's a tortured soul. You know, you can tell that he's, you know, really, in a way, screwed up a lot of relationships in his life by being the introvert that he is. By just avoiding. By not, you know, quote from the film, not dealing with his own shit. And I just found it heavy, but I found it really inspirational. On the other hand, but that creative process, I can't imagine what it must be like to work with him now. It's obviously different, but during that time, and you could also. One other thought, you also get a really good understanding of how important John Landau is to the process and to Bruce. You know, you hear people talk about gatekeepers a lot, but it's almost like a father son relationship in a way where things happen during the movie and you watch John just step in and break things up and say, stop, Everyone leave. Everyone go. And you see him handle Bruce and how he handles Bruce and there are some lovely moments between the two of them. There was just a whole bunch of stuff that I didn't expect and it dredged a whole bunch of stuff up for me.
Buzz Knight
So this is for you personally?
Harry Jacobs
Yeah, but that's a good.
Buzz Knight
That's a good thing to look, get out of music, to get out of the art. You know, a movie, a book, that's a. That's a terrific thing. It's part of what. Why we're drawn to artists and, and, you know, entertainment because it. How it reflects something about us and what we remember. And, and the things it brings back. So that, that, that to me, you know, besides your affinity and the respect I have for you on your music knowledge and love of it, the fact that it, it touched you personally, I think that's one of the biggest criteria.
Harry Jacobs
It's, it's, it's something I didn't expect. I thought I was just going to get some insight into the movie and a little bit, you know, into the music, rather into that process and what happened with Nebraska. And I was going to get some insight into maybe his mental health stuff and we get to see his dad. And I thought, well, it's just that that part of. It's just going to come and go for me. And, and much to my surprise, it stuck with me. And it stuck with me for, you know, for a full day at least after and, you know, four days, I know it will be a part of it and I'm going to have to go see it again. I'm. There's stuff I need to process with it.
Buzz Knight
So, I mean, in fact, if it didn't, I would be sitting here going, it didn't, you know, move you personally. I'd be asking you about that. So I think that, to me is, is the, the most, you know, riveting part of your characterization of it, which, which, you know, I think we all kind of, we may not want it going in necessarily, but then when it happens, you go, oh, my God, yes.
Harry Jacobs
You know, if the music means something to you, if you're, if you're listening to this as a fan and the music is, you know, we say that, you know, that the music has kind of been the soundtrack of our lives or the fabric of my life, in a way. And I suppose because of that, you see what happened and, and, and the process that your hero, in a sense, from that sense, the guy who scored your life, in a way, what he went through. And that just hit me on an emotional level, and I wasn't expecting it. I'm glad I got the whack across the forehead with it. And, and I thought the movie was brilliant. I thought it was just brilliant to watch the process, understand the process, see how important Landow is to Bruce, really understand how Bruce needed to be handled, in a sense, with kid gloves at times, with the record company watching the record company response. Jimmy Iovine plays himself. There's a phone call at one point about Nebraska, and I'm listening to it and I'm going to, oh, that's Jimmy's voice. That's Jimmy in the movie. And then I saw the credits and I thought, Jimmy Iovine as himself. Right. That's pretty cool.
Buzz Knight
That's.
Harry Jacobs
No one played themselves, so I just thought that part of it was great. I thought that the guitar aspects of it, what they taught him how to do for being someone that didn't play guitar ever was amazing. And you get to hear him sing a lot of songs. But what was most meaningful to me out of all of it was hearing him blast through a full band version of Born in the USA and that, like when that comes on in the theater, it's just. And it's just the band. It's just that, you know, seven guys or something, whatever it was in the recording studio. But it's note for note perfect, like the record. And it's Jeremy singing and man, it's good, you know. And even though I know it's not a song to be like a Pride in the USA kind of song, you can't not feel something when you hear that song. And the. The entire movie did that to me. That song in particular hit me.
Buzz Knight
All right, can we come back to it in.
Harry Jacobs
Yeah.
Buzz Knight
In. In upcoming episodes here after.
Harry Jacobs
After you complete your assignment and we could discuss more in detention when the session's over today.
Buzz Knight
Okay.
Harry Jacobs
You can talk to me about why you haven't gone.
Podcast Narrator/Advertiser
All right.
Buzz Knight
Knuckle wrapper.
Harry Jacobs
November 3rd through the 9th is the week that we're talking about 1973, Derek and the Dominoes that in concert set was released. This was the only recording of Derek and the Dominoes that was done. And they were. There were two nights that they played at the Fillmore east, the 23rd and 24th of October in, I think 1970 is when. When they did that. And Bobby Whitlock and Carl Rattle and Jim Gordon played drums on that. And it. It's an epic recording. And there were stuff from Clapton's solo period that were played at that time. And it was interesting and it was fitting because all three of those guys I just mentioned were on the original recordings of the songs they played that were Clapton's Let It Rain. It's like a 17 minute version of Let It Rain on that. Blues Power was on that. They were on that track. And then the other one was a Blind Faith track. It was a Presence of the Lord. I just had to look at that. Presence of the Lord was. Was on there. But that was a, you know, a great live album which I had totally forgotten about. I need to go find. I love Let It Rain. I love Blues Power. I'm a. I'm a Clapton fan and.
Buzz Knight
I love all those, you know, just imagining the Fillmore East. Oh, my God, you know, yeah. What a place.
Harry Jacobs
And we've been digging into Jim Gordon a little bit for other reasons. So getting to hear him on that, you know, was. Was nice and gives some new perspective. So that was November 3, 1973. On the 4th of November, the police released Outland Us Dmore. I'm not even saying that right. Outlandos d? Amor, but it was pretty close, I think. Yeah, it. It means outlaws of love, can't stand losing you, so lonely. And of course, Message Roxanne.
Buzz Knight
Oh, okay.
Harry Jacobs
Rock radio played the daylights out of it. 1978. In 66, the Monkees hit number one with their debut album. And, and that was an interesting band for a lot of reasons. The, the great Lance Norris, who has since passed away. The Boston folks will remember him, part of the Charles Lockwoodera show on WBCN and wzlx, was a huge Monkees fan. He, Lance was a guy, for better or worse, who was, you know, a. A critical, tortured artist in a lot of ways. Right. He was. It was easy for Lance to look down at most anything that was popular. Oh, yeah, Lance. Lance was a monkey's nut.
Buzz Knight
That is so funny. I didn't remember that or realize that. And yes, about Lance, in terms of Lance's view of the world, yeah, Lance was, you know, it's one bitter man. That was his character, but it really wasn't his character.
Harry Jacobs
Yeah, it was him.
Buzz Knight
Rest in peace, Lance. But listen, my take over the years shifted a bit on the Monkeys because I was, you know, one of those people that kind of went, I don't know, you know, it didn't really, like, hit my heart. The member of that band that is. Is still to this day most fascinating to me is Michael Nesmith and, and just his, you know, his solo genius and, you know, just the way I think his cinematic mind and creativity, he's. He's underappreciated in, in my view, so he kind of elevated my view of the Monkeys in general.
Harry Jacobs
Isn't there some sort of a connection between him and. And industry somehow? Is his family connected somehow to, to something I, I.
Buzz Knight
His mother. His mother was, I think, the inventor of. I'm sure no one is going to remember Whiteout when you had it.
Harry Jacobs
That's right.
Podcast Narrator/Advertiser
That's right.
Buzz Knight
Something you typed and. And you needed to correct it. It was essentially like paint that you put on when you were taping smelled like, but became obviously quite a product And I challenge anybody to this day. If you can get white out, you probably can somewhere.
Harry Jacobs
I got staples down the street. I wonder if they have it.
Buzz Knight
They probably do. But that was his mother or his family that founded that or created that or whatever.
Harry Jacobs
One of the things about the Monkeys that I found to be interesting, and I guess I didn't realize this at the time, it's almost like the Jackson 5 as well. When you think about music from that period of time, you don't necessarily think about how intricate the music was, the recordings of them, the instrumentation, all that stuff. But there was all this stuff going on, you know, with Brian Wilson and Phil Spector. And then there was this other group of guys, men and women actually, called the Wrecking Crew. And especially with the Monkeys, I have gone down the rabbit hole. There's a guy named Louis Shelton who played in the Wrecking Crew, whose guitar playing on a bunch of songs, including Last Train to Clarksville, which is a really intricate, neat guitar song. So I have this appreciation of the Monkeys. Musically, those guys played, but they were. They were shitty players. They went to the studio and they got Glenn Campbell and Louis Shelton and all the players in LA at that time, and. And their music was great. It was like, you know, like, as a guitar player, you. You try to play like I want you Back or ABC by the Jackson 5. They're very difficult songs to play. You would think they'd be simple because they're so simple, but they're not. And they're not because of guys like Louis Shelton and the Wrecking Crew. And what they did for the Monkees was amazing because they created some great music. Regardless of your position of the silly TV show, people can't get away from that. Musically, they were pretty good. I stand by that.
Buzz Knight
All right, I'm not. Listen, they. They made hits. That's all you can say. They made hits, too, you know, I.
Harry Jacobs
Stand by it and Lance Norris stood by it. November 6, 1975, Sex Pistols played their first gig ever. We've had this conversation. I was never a Sex Pistols fan. I never got into it. I was nine when they came out. I was a teenager listening to pop or rock music that the punk scene never connected with me.
Buzz Knight
It was too extreme for a city boy from Stanford, Connecticut, like me to embrace. But, you know, maybe if I toughened up a little bit, I would have never minded the bollocks.
Harry Jacobs
Yeah, right, the bollocks. November 7, 1980. This is an interesting day. This was the day that Back in Black hit number four on the charts. On the Billboard album charts. This is interesting for a number of reasons. Bon Scott passed away. The timing on this is really auspicious. Bon Scott passes away in February of 1980. This album was released in July. Five months later, like literally five months and a couple days later, they went to work immediately to replace him. This is not only an unbelievable recovery from AC dc, this turned into one of the best selling albums of all time. Back in Black, right?
Buzz Knight
And to this day holds up. And the band still holds up. No one's holding the band up.
Harry Jacobs
No, absolutely not. And they recorded it two months after Bond died and they've sold 50 million copies. It was on the Billboard charts for, I think 500 weeks that hell's bells. It was an actual 2,000. This was before AI. A 2,000 pound bronze bell that was cast by John Taylor & Co. Was used. Shoot the thrill what do you do for money? Give the dog a bone Back in black Shook me all night long I'm just looking at the chart list here. Have a drink on me Shake a leg Rock and roll ain't noise pollution. It just a bunch of great tracks.
Buzz Knight
Literally almost every song is great on that album.
Harry Jacobs
9 Great Barn Burning songs.
Podcast Narrator/Advertiser
Yeah.
Buzz Knight
Yeah.
Harry Jacobs
And just an epic recovery from Bon Scott from losing him. They were good before Brian.
Buzz Knight
Yeah, man.
Harry Jacobs
Post, post Bon Scott, that was something else. What Brian did, vocally.
Buzz Knight
Pretty incredible story.
Harry Jacobs
Yeah. November 8, 1971, Led Zepp released Led Zeppelin 4. Not a bad record, you know. Yeah, we went down the Led Zeppelin rabbit hole last time. Just, you know, an amazing. An amazing record for so many reasons. November 9, 1967, the Stones premiered Their Satanic Majesty's Request. That material, that. That was a weird period for the Stones.
Buzz Knight
Yeah, it was their own take or response to the Beatles, wasn't it, really?
Harry Jacobs
Yeah, the psychedelic thing was.
Buzz Knight
Yeah, odd.
Harry Jacobs
So at any rate, that's the week November 3rd through the 9th, but.
Buzz Knight
All right, well, great job, Harry. Thank you very much for your coverage of Deliver Me From Nowhere. And we will touch on that certainly in the future. And thanks to all of you for listening to this Week in Music History for the week of November 3rd. And thanks for listening to the Taking a Walk podcast.
Podcast Narrator/Advertiser
Music history is full of hidden connections, just like everything else worth understanding. If you're someone who can't help but dig deeper, who sees problems as puzzles worth solving, Claude is for you. It's built for people that don't settle for surface, level answers. Claude works with you on whatever you're curious about, helping you explore ideas and connect dots in ways that might surprise you not by thinking for you, but with you. See why the world's best problem solvers choose Claude as their thinking partner and try Claude for free @Claude AI buzz 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 Reserve card, I get eight times points on all the purchases I make through Chase Travel 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@chase.com Sapphire Reserve cards issued by JP Morgan Chase Bank NA member FDIC subject to credit approval Terms apply.
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Buzz Knight
This is an iheart podcast.
Podcast: takin' a walk
Host: Buzz Knight
Guest: Harry Jacobs
Release Date: November 3, 2025
Episode Focus: A conversational look at the week in music history for November 3–9, featuring personal reflections, deep dives into iconic albums, and memorable moments in music.
In this episode, Buzz Knight and recurring guest Harry Jacobs—jokingly dubbed the "master of music mayhem"—walk listeners through notable events in music history for the week of November 3rd. They spotlight the emotional impact of the new Bruce Springsteen movie "Deliver Me From Nowhere" and discuss anniversary milestones for legendary artists and albums, with plenty of personal anecdotes and critical insights.
(02:40 – 12:27)
(12:44 – 22:35)
(12:44 – 14:45)
(14:46 – 15:36)
(15:36 – 19:03)
(19:09 – 19:51)
(19:51 – 21:50)
(21:50 – 22:22)
(22:22 – 22:35)
On the power of music and artistry:
"The music has kind of been the soundtrack of our lives or the fabric of my life, in a way. … To see what your hero went through hit me on an emotional level… I'm glad I got the whack across the forehead with it."
— Harry Jacobs, 10:00
On evaluating legendary albums:
"Literally almost every song is great on that album."
— Buzz Knight, 21:25
On musicians behind the scenes:
"Musically, they were pretty good. I stand by that."
— Harry Jacobs, 18:56
For Further Listening:
The hosts hint at a deeper discussion of Springsteen’s film in future episodes, alongside more music history rabbit holes.