← Takin' A Walk - Music History with Buzz Knight
Takin' A Walk - Music History with Buzz Knight
This week in Music History for the week of 8-4
00:25:57
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- [00:00]
Host of America's Crime Lab
This is an iHeart podcast. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime on the new podcast America's Crime Lab. Every case has a story to tell, and the DNA holds the truth.
- [00:18]
John Lithgow
He never thought he was going to get caught. And I just looked at my computer screen, I was just like, ah, gotcha.
- [00:24]
Heather
This technology's already solving so many cases.
- [00:28]
Host of America's Crime Lab
Listen to America's Crime Lab on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:35]
John Lithgow
Hello, I'm John Lithgow.
- [00:37]
Buzz Knight
We choose to go to the moon.
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John Lithgow
I want to tell you about my new fiction podcast.
- [00:41]
Heather
That's One Small step for man about.
- [00:43]
John Lithgow
Buzz Aldrin, one of the true pioneers of space. You're a great pilot, Buzz. That's the story you think you know. This is the story you don't. Buzz, starring me, John Lithgow, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Heather
And here's Heather with the weather.
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Host of America's Crime Lab
Well, it's beautiful out there. Sunny and 75, almost a little chilly in the shade. Now let's get a read on the inside of your car. It is hot. You've only been parked a short time and it's already 99 degrees in there. Let's not leave children in the backseat while running errands. It only takes a few minutes for their body temperatures to rise, and that could be fatal.
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Heather
Cars get hot fast and can be deadly.
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John Lithgow
Never leave a child in a car.
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Heather
A message from NHTSA and the AD Council.
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Buzz Knight
I'm Buzz Knight, the host of the Taking a Walk podcast. And welcome to another edition of this Week in Music History. And this is the week of August 4th through August 10th. I'm just going to guess. Harry Jacobs over at the music history desk. Hello.
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Heather
First of all, hello to you, boss.
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Buzz Knight
I'm gonna guess there might be some beetles in this one, because there generally always is.
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Heather
You are consistently consistent with your. With your. With your guessing the guessing game. There's no surprises in it. And then you are correct. This is no exception. The next month, I think, is the month of August, is filled with beetle stuff. I can tell you that.
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Buzz Knight
All right, but we won't get ahead of ourselves. So what is going on as the gates open for the week of August.
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Heather
4Th to August 10th, 1967, Pink Floyd released an album called the Piper at the Gates of Dawn. And I'm going to quote you on this, I don't know, from the Piper at the Gates of Dawn.
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Buzz Knight
That's a good, a good imitation of me. But I do have some new insight into this one because I'm not sure when this one will exactly air, but I did record a top 10 countdown of the best progressive albums of all time from the viewpoint of media consultant, innovator and major progressive rock fan Lee Abrams. And oh, on Lee's list is the Piper at the Gates of Dawn. I wanted you to know.
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Heather
Of course, it is something, something no one knows about. I, you know, we, I bet if we hold 25 pink Floyd fans and we asked them about that album, maybe two out of 25. All right.
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Buzz Knight
But Lee knew and Lee put it on the list. So.
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Heather
But do you know, do you know, do you know any songs that were on it? Does it ring a bell with you?
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Buzz Knight
No, I think on a For Headphones Only show which we talk about on the episode. Do you remember that feature which was on rock stations For Headphones Only? That was a Lee Abrams innovation. So I'm sure in programming some of the music for an a episode of For Headphones Only, I've heard some Piper at the Gates of Dawn, but consider me more of the mainstream Pink Floyd fan.
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Heather
Gotcha. Same. Same here. 1984, Prince released When Doves Cry. And this was a, a song that just topped charts, was on the Billboard Hot 100 five weeks in a row at this point in 1984. And, and that is a, it's an interesting thing. It's a real rockin song. Right. Think about the guitar solo that starts that song out and you know how rhythmic it gets. Prince was just so such an innovator. It's such a great. One of my favorite Prince songs. You. Are you a Prince fan?
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Buzz Knight
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that is one of my favorites as well. And I can't help but think, have you followed the story of the Prince documentary that was being worked on, I think by Netflix and that ultimately the, the family estate has, has stopped that and I think curtailed that project. Have you followed this?
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Heather
No, I'm not aware of that at all.
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Buzz Knight
Yeah, well, you're not gonna be, it seems like, because they don't want the entire story to be told. So it's just a shame because I feel like that's somebody that we'd like to dig deep into.
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Heather
Sure.
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Buzz Knight
Talent wise, certainly darkness wise, but what an amazing talent.
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Heather
I think that's what happens. You know, you, you, you get to these folks that, you know, whether it be Michael Jackson or, or Prince or others who have struggled with their demons and the family comes around and they say, we, we don't want this. We don't want any part of it. You know, listen, Billy Joel didn't want any part of he, you know, five hours of that documentary. And you, you actually are the one that told me that Billy wasn't really delighted about it after it was over. And it was magnificent. Right. So people just don't. Don't want their stuff exposed. I get that.
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Buzz Knight
Especially as they're thinking about their family. Maybe they have younger kids and they want their legacy to be preserved in a certain way.
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Heather
Yeah. Prince, you know, an amazing guitar player. Right. That Rock and Roll hall of Fame or that George Harrison birthday whatever it was, where he, he did that solo at the end of While My Guitar Gently Weeps in front of Clapton, in front of Petty, in front of George Harrison. And the. And the boys in the band were just standing back watching him wail on that Telecaster of his. And then at the end of it, if you remember, he throws that guitar up in the air and someone magically catches it in the front row.
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Buzz Knight
Is incredible. And just watching Danny Harrison too, on that one.
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Heather
Yeah, that's right, son.
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Buzz Knight
Yeah.
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Heather
By the way, he didn't just throw that guitar up in the air. His body, man, who's about 6, 9 and 400 pounds, was in the right spot. There's no way that telly was going to the ground. 1966, the Beatles released Yellow Submarine and Eleanor Rigby. This was interesting. This was a double A side versus an A side and a B side, which is how the 45s were released when, you know, back when we were kids. There are no A and B sides.
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Buzz Knight
But I dare say another example of the Beatles doing whatever the Beatles wanted to do.
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Heather
Yeah, I think it's great. Two. Two great and. And very unique sounding songs on their own.
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Buzz Knight
Yep.
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Heather
Think about the strings and how classical Eleanor sounds and then how campy yellow submarine is. 1987, on August 4th, Def Leppard released Hysteria. I went, went on a dive this morning before we did this on Hysteria. And I thought, man, there's a bunch of great songs on that. And I went through the list to think, you know, how many, how many tracks are on it. It was 12. And how many songs do I love that are there? And there are six of them, in my opinion. Woman Animal, Love Bites, Pour Some Sugar On Me, Armageddon it, and Hysteria, all songs I could take a long ride with.
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Buzz Knight
Oh, yeah. And you know that 87, 88. Yeah, they dominated the airwaves certainly during that period with that release of hysteria.
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Heather
Great. August 5th, 1966, another Beatles story. They released Revolver in the UK. Another great album. Think about this track list, right? Eleanor. Tax man on there. I'm Only Sleeping Here, there and everywhere, of course. Yellow Submarine. Good Day Sunshine. I love Good Day Sunshine. Right.
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Buzz Knight
I look. I love every song on Revolver.
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Heather
Yeah, that's. That's what. That's on a lot of people's lists, right, of the greatest albums of all time.
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Buzz Knight
Yep.
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Heather
2002, another great album released. Were both Bruce nuts. For anyone that are. That's listening, this is not a surprise that we get to this, but the Rising, this. This came out less than a year after 9 11. The album was written as not an answer to 9 11, but a. A solution to maybe pull us together. Of course, the. The Rising was about us rising up together as a people against, you know, evil, about being able to stick together about, you know, so many things. A lot of dark, sad songs on.
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Buzz Knight
That album, but it was a uniter album. It was meant to be. It was a perspective album. I think that it was trying to give us some perspective on what had gone on, because we had never been through in our generation anything like that. And it was great seeing it on tour as well, as I'm sure you did, right? They did. They did a ton of those songs when they were out on the road. I think they were playing, what, five, six tracks from it easily.
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Heather
And he. He opened with the Rising. Although what's interesting is, is that that was the last time he played Vegas in. In the fall of 2002, until he came here in 2024 on that tour. He hates Vegas. He hates to play the place. He hates the casinos. Right.
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Buzz Knight
So I didn't know that.
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Heather
Although he plays, you know, in Connecticut. He plays at Foxwoods or, you know, is that the. You know, the big one there? But he doesn't like to play Vegas because. For the same reason he doesn't want to play Atlantic City, because the casinos. Bruce hates the casinos. So I saw him do that. He didn't open with that because he always opens with the same song when he plays in Vegas, which is Viva Las Vegas. That's correct. And on. And. And when I saw him on the Rising tour, he opened and closed with Viva Las Vegas.
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Buzz Knight
That's interesting.
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Heather
Which was pretty neat.
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Buzz Knight
That's interesting.
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Heather
Pretty neat. But that. That song, that album came out in 2002 on August 5th. It was the first album also with the E Street band in. In 18 years. Buzz. Oh, right. So in 1994, Billy Idol, not one of his finest moments. He was fined after pleading guilty to assaulting a woman in Hollywood. The story goes he assaulted a woman in a Hollywood bar. But that's not the real story, Buzz. I, that's the information we had initially. I, I did a little research after I provided you with a little cue card on what I was doing. What happened was he was in a car with a woman named Amber Nivelle. And while he was in the back seat, he punched her once in the mouth and once in the forehead. And if you remember back in those days, Billy wore those big silver rings. She ended up with a concussion and a bunch of lacerations and just a, you know, a shitty moment for her and, and, and, and an awful moment for him. And he ended up with a couple years of probation, a small fine and had to do some anti drug PSAs or something. But.
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Buzz Knight
Ugh. Nasty.
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Heather
Yeah. Bad moment. August 6th, the Beatles released Help, their fifth studio album. And. And that's an interesting song musically because of the opening chord. The opening chord. There are a lot of people who have different opinions on what the actual chord because there's a chord strike at the beginning of that song, what that is. If you go on YouTube and say opening chord search, opening chord of Help, there are all these different people that'll say it's a mixture of five different chords played at once. It can never be. It's not a one guitar kind of thing. It's an odd. Musically, it's a. It's a very strange thing, but a. A wonderful song. And you know me, I, I deep dive on the guitar stuff. So, you know, you know, go down the rabbit hole if you want. I don't know. 1996, Oasis released champagne supernova in the U.S. they. Those boys just got together again recently and didn't end up beating the daylights out of each other, which was a wonderful surprise.
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Buzz Knight
I hope they've. How dare we say, or how we say, matured a bit. I hope they maybe have gotten some of that almost like the Davies brothers from the Kinks, that fisticuff attitude out of their system. Right.
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Heather
I hope you boys cut the shit. As they would say to. As they said when we were kids.
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Buzz Knight
Yeah. But that song still holds up. I love that song.
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Heather
Oh yeah. Champagne Supernova was great.
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Buzz Knight
Yep.
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Heather
1990, Stevie Ray Vaughan gave his final performance at Alpine Valley Music Theater. He died later in the month. It's going to come up. But this was his. His last one. You remember this. The helicopter ride. A really foggy. And he. He shouldn't. They shouldn't have been up. They shouldn't have been flying.
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Buzz Knight
It's a terrible story. I had the privilege a few years prior of seeing Stevie at the Grammy broadcast that my station in Columbus was. Was part of just a gentle soul. You could just really get this. This feeling. And another moment regarding Stevie that I'll never forget. So it's a weekend out in Columbus, Ohio. I'm programming QFM96 out in Columbus. My assistant program director and music director, Lisa Joe Robinson. The great Joe Robinson. Joe was on the air on. On Saturday midday, and we had heard the possibility of Stevie Ray passing by to promote the show that night. And I'm listening and I hear, not only does Stevie pass by, because I think we had a guitar around to see if he would pick up the guitar, but he actually picked up the guitar and, like, gave it a whirl on the air. It was one of those cool radio magical moments with a legendary figure.
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Heather
That's a pretty amazing story. What a wonderful guitar player he was. You ever see the video of him breaking a string? Playing, like the middle of Cold Shot, he breaks, you know, his high E string or something, and the guitar tech comes out and they change guitars while he's playing. Literally, he slides one guitar off of him, Stevie takes the other one. They plug it in, doesn't miss a beat. Crazy video.
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Buzz Knight
That's a move.
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John Lithgow
That's a.
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Heather
That's a huge move. Yeah, guys, a legend. On August 7th, the next day, Christine McVie officially joined Fleetwood Mac. She ended up passing away, unfortunately, just a few years ago, November of 2022. She was 79 years old, but she had. She made a huge difference in that band as a keyboard player and writer.
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Buzz Knight
Oh. Tremendously respected by her bandmates, former lovers, but also just in general in the whole, you know, industry.
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Heather
Yeah, she had a stroke, I think, as a result of her cancer. She had metastatic cancer of some sort. And, you know, she's responsible for Don't Stop for you, Make Love and Fun for Little Lies and many more of Max songs. A staple of. Of rock and adult contemporary radio and a staple of our lives, right? That's right.
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Buzz Knight
Oh, yeah.
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Heather
1997, Garth Brooks played to over 750,000 people in Central park in New York. I. I got the information, and then I went and googled the largest concert in Central park. And the Central park, you know, organization actually gave me information that told me what we found on the rock history sites was incorrect. There's actually 980,000 people, according to Central park, almost a million people. For Garth Brooks, that's the biggest concert in history there.
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Buzz Knight
And it's pretty remarkable thinking about that, because at that point, certainly 1997.
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Heather
Yeah.
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Buzz Knight
Country music in terms of where country music, you know, in popularity would ultimately go in many markets. It was not a New York thing. Country music, they were fans, certainly. And Garth was a bigger than life artist, no doubt. But just putting it in that perspective on the market, even though it was the biggest market in the U.S. still, it was not a big country market to this day. And yet Garth, being a massive entertainer, was able to make that happen.
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Heather
I didn't even think about it like that. And if you remember, you know, it was. This was at a time when they were calling it contemporary country, Right. There was a difference. There was, you know, your Hank Williams and your Merle Haggard, which was country and Johnny Cash country, and then you had contemporary country. That. That was at that time too, right?
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Buzz Knight
Oh, yeah.
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Heather
So for sure.
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Buzz Knight
And Garth has a cameo, apparently in the. The Spinal Tap reboot that will be coming out in the fall.
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Heather
He's been busy on film. He was in the Billy Joel doc documentary as well. He didn't look like himself, which was very interesting to me. It caught me off guard when I saw his name. I thought, boy, is that Garth Brooks? It doesn't look bad. It was just different.
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Buzz Knight
I saw him at a little bar five years ago, I believe in Nashville, about 300 program directors of country stations, and we could literally almost touch them. It was such a small venue. Amazing show, those shows where you get.
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Heather
To see people like that, you know, Garth, we talked about Aerosmith, you know, at. At a club in Cambridge. Chuck Nolan, our friend from wzlx, tells a great story about Bryan Adams at a record company party in Los Angeles for radio and records, where Brian Adams plays, you know, two song comes out, plays like two songs. And, you know, the crowd's just, you know, a bunch of snooty radio and record people and, and. And Bryan Adams says screw it, and he starts taking requests from the audience. And that got everyone into it and, you know, just a small room. But those, those small venues, seeing people in small venues. I saw Bruce in a bar in Pittsburgh with Joe Grishi. You know, I was 20ft from the stage. Those little, you know, intimate things are kind of great places to see these guys.
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Buzz Knight
Oh, amen to that.
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Heather
August 8, 1969. Another Beatles story, but this is a good one. Beatles walked across that crossing, the zebra crossing for the Abbey Road album cover.
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Buzz Knight
Listen, they did it. And then 9 billion people since have done it as well. Me. Me including.
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Heather
Yeah, right. I think, you know, you look at the most legendary album covers of all time, you get Dark side and, you know, Abby Rhodes, you know, right up there with. With that in terms of recognizability.
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Buzz Knight
Yep.
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Heather
1975, August 8th. Hank Williams Jr. Fell 500ft down a mountain and suffered multiple injuries. He obviously lived through that and was, you know, ended up okay. But 500ft, a hell of a fall bus.
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Buzz Knight
Hell of a fall.
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Heather
Yeah. 1988, you two played the final show of the Joshua Tree tour in France. Just, you know, we talked about Joshua Tree, you know, in an episode not long ago, and just probably the. In my opinion, the best of the U2 albums too. Yeah, you said the same thing.
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Buzz Knight
Yeah.
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Heather
August 9th, 1995. I remember this. I remember exactly where I was for this. Jerry Garcia. The Grateful Dead died. He was 53 years old. Where were you when Jerry Garcia died?
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Buzz Knight
Well, I remember it was ZLX time. I don't remember exactly where. I think we. Maybe at work or something like that. It might have been one of our co workers. It could have been the late Paul Lemieux who possibly told us about Jerry's passing. It could have been. But that was, you know, Jerry. To this day, when you have someone who is viewed by only their first name. Jerry.
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Heather
Yeah.
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Buzz Knight
Just. You can't. What else can you say?
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Heather
Yeah, crazy story. I was in. I was responsible for some stations around New England at the time. And I was up in Burlington, Vermont, which is, you know, as close as you get to Jerry Garcia country at that time. Remember there was a vigil on Battery street in Burlington, Vermont for. For him. So big deal on 19. On August 9, 1963, Whitney Houston was born in Newark, New Jersey. Unbelievable career. You know that. Just the voice of an angel, that national anthem at the super bowl after around the Gulf War. Just unbelievable. And just a crazy and sad end to. To her life.
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Buzz Knight
I know. So sad. With so much talent. My God.
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Heather
Just. Just awful. You know, I think. I think back to the early days of reality TV and seeing that Bobby Brown Whitney Houston show. And it might have been around the same time as the Osbournes. And I remember thinking to myself, whoever would have thought two of these huge icons in music, Whitney on one side and Ozzy on the other. Whitney's with Bobby was just so painful. I couldn't turn away from it, though. Did you ever watch that show?
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Buzz Knight
I. I could not watch it. I just. I couldn't. I couldn't watch it.
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Heather
It was horrible. Yeah. 1974, Eric Clapton released I Shot the Sheriff would later go to number one great Eric Clapton song.
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Buzz Knight
461 Ocean Boulevard, right?
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Heather
That's correct. Another album with a, with a bunch of great tracks on it.
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Buzz Knight
Yep.
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Heather
Great album. August 10, 1976. Elton John began his ten night run at Madison Square Garden. And he would later be outdone obviously by Billy Joel, who did, you know, over a hundred nights at Madison Square Garden. The, we both watched the Billy Joel documentary and we're gonna, I think we're gonna end up talking about this. We should actually just do an episode, you know, on, on the Billy Joel thing because it's just so unbelievable.
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Buzz Knight
Yep.
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Heather
Your wife is the perfect example of someone because you, the two of you watched it together and she's not even a Billy Joel fan, you said. And you know, it probably turned her into one. Right.
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Buzz Knight
And we went into the rabbit hole listening to, you know, some of the stuff, you know, which one we kept coming back to, we've come back to that one previously. But that really in the, in the playlist just was given some plays over the weekend. This is the time.
- [24:36]
Heather
Oh yeah, yeah, I forgot. I gotta write that down. This is the time.
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Buzz Knight
What a song.
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Heather
The, the information that we learned about Billy and Elton playing together because there was this rivalry between the two of them at the beginning. Billy didn't want to be compared to Elton. There was this, you know, thing with that it was like Stallone and Schwarzenegger. Right. It was, you know, the, the two kings of, of, of the piano playing world. And you know, this thing between Elton and Billy which was interesting. And they ended up working together and then seeing Billy fall apart during those shows and, and Elton coming out saying, you got to get some help, my friend.
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Buzz Knight
Yeah, that part I didn't realize they had played so many dates. I remember that they were out, but I didn't realize for that length of time. Although I was talking to a friend last week about the Billy Joel documentary and the Elton relationship and he had been to a few of the shows, unfortunately he had been to a few of the shows where Billy had to leave because he was not feeling well.
- [25:50]
Heather
Code for maybe a little inebriated. Yeah, yeah, not great. But at any rate, this in 1976, this is a big deal. 10 nights, Madison Square Garden for Captain Fantastic. 1985. On August 10th, Michael Jackson bought the publishing rights to most of the Beatles catalog for 47 and a half million bucks. This was a big deal at the time. People weren't doing this.
- [26:14]
Buzz Knight
That's Right. And it would appear, even though adjusting for inflation, that he got a pretty good deal.
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Heather
I think he got a great deal. I think he got a great deal. Bob Dylan sold his stuff for 300 million. Springsteen for 500 million. Neil Young for 300 million. I mean, there's he. He got a. As we say, back where you are. We got a bargain on that.
- [26:39]
Buzz Knight
That's right.
- [26:40]
Heather
No question. 1987, Wilson Pickett in the Midnight Hour was arrested for driving a car into a bar while already intoxicated.
- [26:51]
Buzz Knight
Not exactly a great move.
- [26:53]
Heather
No. And that. That is the last item for the week ending August 10th. August 4th through the 10th. Music history.
- [27:03]
Buzz Knight
Well, thank you, Harry Jacobs. Another whirlwind of a week in music history. I do want to give a shout out to a dear friend, Kevin Robinson, who loves listening to this week in Music history. He's out in the. The great state of Indiana. So. Hello, Kevin. Thanks for checking us out. And thanks to all of you for checking out this week in Music history. We are part of the iHeart podcast network.
- [27:33]
Host of America's Crime Lab
Every case that is a cold case that has DNA right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime on the new podcast, America's Crime Lab. Every case has a story to tell, and the DNA holds the truth.
- [27:46]
John Lithgow
He never thought he was going to get caught. And I just looked at my computer screen, I was just like, ah, gotcha.
- [27:52]
Heather
This technology is already solving so many cases.
- [27:56]
Host of America's Crime Lab
Listen to America's Crime Lab on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [28:03]
John Lithgow
Hello, I'm John Lithgow.
- [28:04]
Buzz Knight
We choose to go to the moon.
- [28:06]
John Lithgow
I want to tell you about my new fiction podcast.
- [28:09]
Heather
It's one small step for man about.
- [28:12]
John Lithgow
Buzz Aldrin, one of the true pioneers of space. You're a great pilot, Buzz. That's the story you think you know. This is the story you don't. Buzz, starring me, John Lithgow, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [28:34]
Heather
Don't let biased algorithms or degree screens or exclusive professional networks or stereotypes. Don't let anything keep you from discovering the half of the workforce who are stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time to tear the paper ceiling and see the stars beyond it. Find out how you can make stars part of your talent strategy at tearthepaperceiling.org, brought to you by Opportunity at Work in the Ad Council.
- [29:03]
Host of America's Crime Lab
This is an iHeart podcast.