Celebrity Radio Interviews with Dan Hurst
EDITOR’S NOTE: DAN HURST, of MVO: The Voice-Over Guys, not only has great skills as a voice talent but was also a very successful 20 years Kansas City morning radio host. Additionally, he served as the Public Address Announcer for the Kanas City Royals. Today, as a high sought after voice talent, his voice work is heard world wide.
He recently posted on Facebook about some of the famous people he interview while working in radio and, like all great radio stories, it’s a lot of fun to read.
Part 1 features the question Dan posed to his Facebook friends about which famous person was the worst interview. Part II tells the stories about interviewing all of them.
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PART I
I spent 20 years on a morning show in Kansas City. It was a great run with great ratings. Through that time I had the privilege of interviewing some of the big names in music (in the format we were playing on KUDL and KLSI). Here’s a list of some of the bigger names:
- Paul McCartney
- Andy Williams
- Smokey Robinson
- Michael Buble
- Bonnie Raitt
- Johnny Mathis
- Tony Bennett
- Linda Ronstadt
- Joe Cocker
- Kenny Loggins
- Harry Connick Jr.
- Dolly Parton
- Michael Bolton
Let me know which name you think was the worst interview. After some of your answers, I’ll give you my answer…and why.
PART II
It was such a privilege to interview so many well-known and unknown people through my years on radio. My interview strategies were simple: ask them unexpected questions that they will want to answer. That of course required some research, but it was well worth it.
Within the music industry, the stars get really bored with the same old questions over and over. But the labels and publicists made the stars available in order to sell music, and so they wanted the stars to speak to whatever they were pushing at the time. Fair enough. It’s part of the game. Ask the questions, and then move on to the fun stuff. And that’s what we always tried to do.
I don’t know that I had a favorite interview, but I sure had a lot of great ones. Paul McCartney certainly comes to mind. My partner, Glo Goodwin and I were given the one interview that he granted when he came to perform at Arrowhead stadium in 1993. Why he chose us, I don’t know. On the day of the concert we were escorted to a makeshift living room backstage, and told that we would have 10 minutes with him (they always say you get 10 minutes). When he walked into the room he was as kind and affable as you could want. Very pleasant, and he laughed easily. After we got the general and expected questions out of the way, I asked, “So what do you think of your son’s music?” He looked rather surprised and mumbled something about him being a good musician and working hard. I said, “No, I mean what about the music he listens to?” He just laughed and took off on a rant about sometimes having to go to the bottom of the stairs and yell up at his son to “turn that trash down!” It was magical. The musician who gave us the music that caused our parents to yell pretty much the same thing at us! We sat there with him for 45 minutes talking about family and trading stories, until someone stuck their head in the door and said, “Mr. McCartney, we need to get started.”
Kenny Loggins’ interview took a very strange turn. He was in the studio promoting his new album. After the pleasantries and necessary questions, I said, “Kenny, I have to ask you this. A few months ago you left your wife and children for another woman. What were you thinking?” He stopped and stammered a bit, and then opened up about his personal life in a way we never expected. The promised 10 minutes turned into an hour and a half of raw soul searching. There were tears, there was laughter, there was pain, there was…honesty.
Smokey Robinson was one of my favorites also. I’m not sure we ever got to the reasons we were given our 10 minutes with him. My first question was “How many songs have you published?” He had no idea! We spoke a bit about the early years, and Motown, and even racism. Then after a while I asked, “What’s your favorite golf course?” He got a quirky little smile and asked, “How did you know?” Smokey is an avid golfer, and tries to play everywhere he performs if time allows for it. The rumor was that sometimes he would choose where to perform by the golf course he wanted to play. Turns out the rumor was true! And we spent the next 30 minutes lying about our golf game.
We actually had Andy Williams on the air several times. He was living in Branson at the time, performing at his Moon River Theatre, and we would invite him on as Mr. Christmas when we would switch to Christmas music. But the conversations always turned to people whose path he had crossed, from the greats like Bing Crosby and Perry Como, to giving Donnie and Marie Osmond their start. But my favorite interview with him was one time when we had him on the phone. He was at his home and the dogs started barking during the interview. It obviously distracted him and he said, “Just a minute,” and put the phone down and started cussing out the dogs telling them to shut up! I laughed so hard that I hurt myself!
Michael Bublé was also one of my favorites. We interviewed him several times. One of the funniest things that happened was when he was talking about his new song, “Home” he told about forgetting the words while performing and having to make up words on the fly. Somehow “I’m fine baby, how about you?” came out as “I had a baby, how about you?”
Johnny Mathis was a fun interview because I found out that he liked to cook for guests. After the niceties, I asked, “The word is you like to cook and have little parties at your house, so let’s get the Johnny Mathis rules of party etiquette. What do you do with guests that show up too early?” He laughed and said, “Give ‘em a drink and get ‘em liquored up. They make better guests that way.” We spent most of the interview talking about party etiquette.
I loved talking to Tony Bennett. He was an easy interview because all I had to do was to get him talking about politics and he was off on a roll!
Joe Cocker was one of the funniest interviews I ever did because to this day, I have no idea what he said! But he said it eloquently.
Dolly Parton was one of the sweetest, most charming guests ever. Getting her to talk about the secrets to a good marriage was funny and insightful at the same time. She explained that marriage is like a pair of shoes – all bright and shiny at first, but a little uncomfortable. Then as you break them in, they become the best, but you still have to polish and repair them sometimes.
Harry Connick Jr. was so much fun to interview. We had him on 3 times. He’s all New Orleans!!! Both his parents were lawyers and involved in politics, and he has several relatives involved in New Orleans politics. So naturally he went into jazz. The second interview we had with him he brought me a signed picture of his wife, Jill Goodacre. He said, “Here, I know how much in love you are with my wife so I brought you a picture.”
Michael Bolton turned out to be a jerk. His first interview was quite pleasant. He was just breaking through and had his first hit. His second interview was boring. He didn’t really want to be there, I guess, and couldn’t wait to leave. We put on a celebrity softball game with local celebrities versus his team made up of his band and road crew, and a couple of ringers. After the game, when I went up to him with microphone in hand to thank him and have a few last words before he left town, his body guard just shoved me around and Bolton wouldn’t even talk to me.
But the worst interview I ever had would have to be a tie between Bonnie Raitt and Linda Rondstadt. The interviews were recorded and I don’t think I even aired them. I did take some clips from the interviews and dropped them in the shows once in awhile. Bonnie was as condescending as one could be. At one point she said, “I don’t want to answer that question. Don’t you have any better ones?” I said, “Not if you don’t have any better answers.” Linda Rondstadt was just mean. Her answers were curt and short. It was clear she didn’t want to be interviewed. She’s from Arizona but has family roots in Mexico, so I tried to get her talk a bit about her heritage, especially since she had recently released a Spanish album. But she said, “I don’t have time to talk about that. Do you want to talk about what we’re supposed to talk about or not?” I said, “Not. Thanks.” And that was the end of that.
But all in all, 99% of the interviews I had were really good. It was a blast talking not only to musical guests, but also TV, stage and screen actors, comedians, news makers, politicians, sports celebrities, etc. But my absolute favorite interviews – and I mean this sincerely – were the ones with our listeners! Discovering their lives and hearing their stories was purely and simply magic!