"Scott-so here with ya." That sawdust-scraping voice, the world-weary lilt of experience, the "I partied with Grace Slick" insider riffs. For a skinny kid in the 1970s, Scott Muni's voice was the sound of rock and roll, all first-person, Les Paul Custom, and backstage pass. Muni died yesterday at age 74, a few months after suffering a stroke. Known for beginning every show with a Beatles song, a habit begun after John Lennon's murder in 1980, Muni interviewed all the greats. Here's a great story from his obit:
In one of his more memorable encounters, Muni was speaking with Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page when the musician suddenly collapsed to the floor in mid-sentence, wiped out by days of partying. The unflappable Muni simply put on a record, woke Page up, and conducted the rest of the interview with the guitarist lying on the studio floor.
Muni's glory days were in the pre-punk arena rock haze of the mid-70s in New York, when Clapton and Page were gods and the blow fueled private jets filled with groupies and bassists. Later, he was a hip nostalgia act, a DJ who was actually a decade older than Dylan, the Stones, and the Who. His interviews were inevitably punctuated with his standard question, delivered in a graveled, nasal growl: "when are you going to tour?" To Scott-so, the music - live in front of Marshall stacks before thousands of stoned kids - was the thing. Rock on.
