Tag Archives: Paul is Dead

Paul Is Dead ► Monday Musical Appreciation

Forty-six years ago today occurred one of the craziest events in the annals of Rock and Roll Music History, in which I played a minor role. Here’s how it all came about

According to The Music History Calendar:

1969 : Russ Gibb, a DJ at WKNR in Detroit, takes a call from a listener who tells him that if you play The Beatles song “Revolution 9” backwards, a voice says, “Turn me on, dead man.” Gibb plays the record in reverse on the air, and the phone lines light up with astonished listeners offering more clues as to why Paul McCartney might be dead. For about a week, Gibb entertains a stream of rumors on the show, as ratings explode and the story goes national. Other clues include a voice at the end of “Strawberry Fields Forever” that says “I Buried Paul” (actually John Lennon saying “Cranberry Sauce”) and the cover of the Sgt. Pepper album, where Paul is wearing an armband that says “OPD” – “Officially Pronounced Dead.”

This Day In Music erroneously writes about this event:

1969, A DJ on Detroit’s WKNR radio station received a phone call telling him that if you play The Beatles ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ backwards, you hear John Lennon say the words “I buried Paul.” This started a worldwide rumour that Paul McCartney was dead.

What does this have to do with your humble correspondent? According to Paul is dead?!?, “introduced and explicated by saki” on the old USENET group rec.music.beatles:

Another
source for clues invention was a popular radio show hosted by
disc-jockey Russell Gibb of WKNR-FM in Detroit was a vital element in
the spread of the hoax. A regular r.m.b. reader, Headly Westerfield, who
was not only a friend of Gibb but was present in-studio that afternoon
(12 October 1969), recalls reading an “underground newspaper” (it may
have been one of the the college papers then carrying the “clues”,
similar to the ones Dartanyan Brown remembers seeing) with a list of
“Paul Is Dead” clues.

Gibb and cohorts were sufficiently inspired
to read them on the air and to improvise new ones on the spot.
Listeners to the show even recall someone calling up Gibb to report that
if you played “Revolution No. 9” backward, you’d hear a secret message.
(Note: radio-show collectors used to offer an aircheck of this show or a
followup show for trade! Anyone have a copy?)

Within days, Gibb
& Co. were astonished when newspapers and reporters took their
on-air joke seriously and spread the tale more widely. Some clues which
have become part of established folklore, Westerfield reports, were
invented that obscure day at WKNR-FM, but have since been accepted as
part of the original hoax. Gibb and friends were not the source of the
hoax, he emphasizes, but played a part in its initial wider
dissemination. 

TommyGarcia2’s YouTubery has a 2 part exposé on the Paul Is Dead rumour:


When this rumour broke wide I was shocked and ashamed. From just goofing around in a radio studio, to it becoming a worldwide sensation, freaked me out. I was just 17 years old and unsophisticated in the ways of the world. I was worried that somehow this would all blow back on me in a horrible way. Therefore, I didn’t mention my involvement to anyone for about 20 years. Then I allowed myself to be interview by saki, who got word of my involvement from a mutual friend.

When I saw what was finally printed, I went underground for another 20 years. Recently I told the whole, deeper story to my nephew Adam, one of the subjects of my blog post My Days With John Sinclair. He suggested I just live with it, in essence echoing the advice at the end of the wonderful 1962 John Wayne/James Stewart/Lee Marvin Western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance:

Ransom Stoddard: You’re not going to use the story, Mr. Scott?
Maxwell Scott: No, sir. This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

I’ll let Sir Paul, with a little help from his friends, have the last word:

Terry Knight and the Pack ► A Musical Appreciation

First LP
Second LP

When I was a teenager one of my absolute favourite bands was Terry Knight and the Pack. I was an unsophisticated 14-year old when they released their only 2 LPs and they really spoke to my teenage angst. It didn’t hurt that Terry Knight and the Pack were a local band. (Who knew from Flint, Michigan?) I didn’t know (at the time) of Terry Knight’s history as a Detroit DJ, first on WJBK, then moving to The Big 8, CKLW in Windsor. All I knew is the music really embedded itself deeply into my psyche.

At the time I didn’t have the language, or understanding of why they appealed to me so greatly. However, in hindsight based on my collected knowledge of musical genres, I can see how Terry Knight wove in bits of Psychedelia, Vaudeville, Country, Blues, Folk, and Jazz and then infused it all with a Rock and Roll sensibility that at once made it sound familiar, yet different. All I knew at the time is that I would listen to these two LPs — from start to finish — and then do it all over again and again and again.

Terry Knight and the Pack were short-lived, recording just two LPs in its 2-year history. Again, as unsophisticated as I was at the time about music, I knew nothing about the individual members of the band. Terry Knight’s name was known because he led the band, but the rest of the players could have really been called The Pack, for all I cared.

When Terry Knight and the Pack broke up, Knight became a producer for Cameo-Parkway, the company that released TK&TP’s LPs. When the Beatles formed Apple he went to London to try and become a producer and/or recording artists. Knight was apparently present at the recording session for the ‘White Album’ at which Ringo Starr quit the band (before being cajoled back).

Knight bounced back to ‘Merka and became a staff producer for Capitol Records, getting into some trouble with his song “Saint Paul,” which included snatches of Beatles’ songs near the end. The Beatles’ publisher filed a cease and desist order and the single was pulled. Eventually it came back on the market in a truncated form, but with a credit to Maclen Music. Later, when the Paul is Dead rumour swept the world, parts of this song were used as clues in the hoax.

It wasn’t until Terry Knight’s next project came on the scene did I learned that at least 2 members of The Pack were named Mark Farner and Don Brewer. Knight put them together with Mel Schacher from another local Detroit group, and label-mates, ? and the Mysterians to form Grand Funk Railroad. Terry Knight became their producer and manager. Grand Funk Railroad went on to fill stadiums, firing Terry Knight with just three months left on his contract. Lawsuits flew.

Soon after that Knight was fired from Capitol and he started up his own indie label called Brown Bag Records, which released music by by Mom’s Apple Pie, John Hambrick, Wild Cherry and Faith. Nothing really hit and Knight retired from the music biz in 1973, becoming addicted to cocaine. He cleaned himself up in the ’80s and settled in Yuma, Arizona, putting his hard-driving Rock and Roll past behind him.

On November 1, 2004 Terry Knight was murdered by his daughter’s boyfriend when he stepped in to defend her during a fight. He was stabbed 17 times. A year later Donald A. Fair, who claimed he was hopped up on methamphetamine at the time, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Terry Knight, born Richard Terrance Knapp 61 years earlier, was buried in a family plot in Lapeer, Michigan.

The first two Terry Knight and the Pack LPs were released on CD as a two-fer. Thanks to Spotify, you can listen to it here:

Long live Terry Knight and the Pack!!!