As 2013 comes to an end, we are taking a look back at some of our favorite posts of the year by our guest editors.
Few bands survive the reboot Alice In Chains launched in 2008, six years after the death of its troubled powerhouse singer, Layne Staley. Guitarist Jerry Cantrell admits the idea of reemerging from stasis with a new vocalist, William DuVall, felt like a gamble. The result was Black Gives Way To Blue, a work worthy of standing alongside the band’s masterpiece, 1992’s Dirt. Though few would have predicted such a return to form, the album was certified gold, topped scads of best-of lists and launched two full tours. The new The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here stays true to the Alice In Chains sound, a dense shroud of gloom occasionally lifted by soaring harmonies and delicate riffs. For every dirge stomp like “Pretty Done” and the menacing creep of “Lab Monkey,” there are echoes of Jar Of Flies’ haunted acoustic beauty (“Voices,” “Choke”) or the filthy groove of “Stone,” the album’s second single. DuVall will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Alice In Chains feature.
DuVall: Every single one of the late-night talk show hosts in America today, from Letterman and Leno to Conan and Kimmel, wants to be Johnny Carson. The quick and easy wit, the smoothness of manner, the inherent likeability and trustworthiness—all of those qualities are hallmarks of the Carson persona. As host of The Tonight Show for 30 years (1962-1992), Johnny set the bar. Despite the two decades since his retirement and the nearly 10 years since his death, it’s still Johnny’s world. The rest of those guys just live in it. And every one of them would admit as much without hesitation. But the guy Johnny wanted to be was Jack Paar.
Jack Paar was the host of The Tonight Show from 1957 to 1962, when he abruptly walked off the show after the NBC brass censored one of his jokes. By then, Paar was so powerful that, rather than lose him to another network, NBC offered him an hour-long prime-time slot on Friday night, giving him complete control over format and content, as well as ownership of the copyright. Paar presented that show, The Jack Paar Program, from 1962-1965, continuing to set a standard for talk-show hosting that many would argue has not been equaled to this day. His witty repartee and effortless empathy served him well with guests like Richard Burton, Jonathan Winters, Judy Garland, Bill Cosby (in his network TV debut), John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy (in his first interview after his brother’s assassination). To quote the title of an excellent documentary on Paar, his show came to symbolize “smart television.”
Dick Cavett got his start as one of Jack Paar’s writers. One of the more famous lines he wrote for Paar was, “Here they are, Jayne Mansfield” to introduce the buxom actress who, for a brief moment in time, was Marilyn Monroe’s biggest rival. Cavett went on to host his own program, The Dick Cavett Show, on ABC from 1969 to 1974. The show had the unenviable position of airing opposite Carson’s Tonight Show and was therefore consistently beaten in the ratings. Nevertheless, the sheer quality of The Dick Cavett Show earned it a loyal following and its star the distinction as “the thinking man’s talk-show host.” Some of Cavett’s more memorable interviews include Marlon Brando, Katharine Hepburn, Groucho Marx and Bette Davis, in what was probably the most candid discussion of her extraordinary life and career that she ever gave. Cavett also did great interviews with Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, Janis Joplin, John Lennon, George Harrison and an extremely coked out David Bowie.
Cavett was a masterful interviewer because he was as good at listening as he was at talking. He wasn’t afraid of the natural silences that occur in real conversation. He let his guests finish their thoughts. He was relaxed, therefore his guests felt secure enough to relax as well. On the rare occasion where things got contentious, Cavett was more than ready to deploy his razor-sharp wit, the effect being all the more devastating because of his ever-present good humor and unflappable calm. Watch below as he lets feuding authors Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer eviscerate each other in front of Janet Flanner before finally stepping in. You will never see an exchange like this on network television today. Thankfully, collections of both The Dick Cavett Show and The Jack Paar Program are now available for purchase on DVD.
Videos after the jump.
