Bob Grant, one of the most controversial talk show hosts of the modern era, died yesterday at age 84. He paved the way for later conservative hosts who thrived by inflaming listening audiences.
He was a friendly and helpful host when I appeared on his show a handful of times in the 1980s and 1990s. After Feeling Your Pain: The Explosion & Abuse of Government Power in the Clinton-Gore Years came out in August 2000, I schlepped on Amtrak to be in studio with him at WOR in New York (and syndicated nationwide).
He was a grizzled vet proud of the Yankees baseball cap seemingly stapled to his head. During the commercial breaks, he tape recorded advertisements for various businesses for future broadcast. I was stunned to see how effortlessly and smoothly he sight read the ad copy. Sight-reading is something which I do as smoothly as juggling knives – and nobody ever accused me of being a juggler. But for Grant, he never missed a beat or a nuance.
For the final segment of the shot, he was perched like a sprinter at the blocks at the Olympics. He had all his things gathered, and the moment the show ended, he bolted out the door as if he were fleeing a torch-bearing mob of enraged listeners.
I don’t recall if I got a blurb line on Feeling Your Pain during that interview, but we had a good time flogging Clinton for at least a half dozen impeachable offenses. Grant did give a kind plug for Freedom in Chains when I was on his show the prior year: “This excellent book is going to cause a lot of people to do some serious thinking. Bovard should be paid attention to. He pulls no punches.”
I did not get audio tapes of those appearances, so if anyone has any suggestions on tracking down the digital files of those interviews, I’d be much obliged.
Good luck with that.
Of the 1,196 AM Drive shows I did on WABC (1980-1984), the Suits could only find 3 to pull outtakes for the WABC ReWound Shows 1998-2009 (http://www.musicradio77.com/WABC%20Rewound.html). Back then – before Bob came over from WOR – talk stations didn’t tend to keep airchecks beyond 24 hours even tho all shows were recorded in real time (for the lawyers as much as the FCC). Most sound available from those days was recorded and kept by the jocks themselves for their own amazement.
I could be wrong (rare, I know) but knowing Bob, I doubt he kept much. Every show had “new opportunities”. But obviously, talk topics are dated and, unlike music show airchecks, lost any programming viability except in the rarest of cases (e.g 9/11). Hence, the lack of incentive to keep them – not to mention the physical life span of reel-to-reel tape and cassettes vs more durable CDs, DVDs, thumb drives.
Still, keep an eye out for a Bob Grant “memorial” web site that, like WABC ReWound, would likely feature a collection of his shows, possibly loaned/donated from fans.
Thanks, Brian. It is shame that there is not easy access to the ‘best of’ your top-rated morning drive show – helping set new standards for humor in New York and far beyond.
Ah yes!! The allure of the Hard-To-Find!
Still…I prefer to remain a selectively well-known enigma…
Personally, I usually linger in the “bloody conundrum” neck of the woods.
“I did not get audio tapes of those appearances, so if anyone has any suggestions on tracking down the digital files of those interviews, I’d be much obliged.”
Try the NSA.
Funny! But it won’t work because my contact left the agency last year.
YouTube has some clips.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Bob+Grant&sm=12