Nights At The Roundtable - Sky with Doug Fieger - 1971
(Doug Fieger - 1952-2010)
When I heard the news this morning about the death of Doug Fieger, after a long, seemingly endless series of struggles with Cancer, it still came as a shock. As my colleague John Amato has said, Doug was a truly great human being who was of inestimable help to so many - by his word, his actions and his deeds. He was a serious musician who maybe got pigeonholed by his overwhelming success with The Knack, destined to be forever remembered as the guy who gave us "My Sharona". But sometimes we skip over all the essential parts of the person and focus on the glossy bits, the ones that perhaps aren't so important in the long run. Where Doug as a friend to many and a quiet inspiration to more than he'll ever know will stay a lot longer than the notes will.
But still Doug was an incredible talent, spending his life in the service of music. This track, as way of a tribute to Doug, comes from his earliest days, while still in high school, recording two albums for RCA as the band Sky. Don't Want Nobody comes from their second lp Sailor's Delight, written by Doug with production by Jimmy Miller. The Knack would be years off and galaxies away. This was Doug as I first heard him and that's how I remember him.
Thank you Doug for your quiet strength, your dignity and your incredible courage. You will be sorely missed.
and realised there were quite a few gems that came from The Knack, like Baby talks Dirty. This music reminded me and friends running around to clubs many nights during the week, getting in for free because we knew the bands playing, blablah blah. We had lots of fun, with this music playing, either during the breaks, or the bands covering it.
Wish I could still do it.
me-oww!
How sad! I liked many of his songs with The Knack (apart from Baby Talks Dirty and others that pushed the envelope on post-adolescent sexuality) but they were definitely rooted in their time. In fact, The Knack heralded a musical era of that sexuality but with an ironic sense of innocence.
Our band covered "My Sharona" the same year it came out and it was always a hit. It was an amazing piece of rock and roll. The combination of Doug's composition and rhythm along with Berton's jaw-dropping guitar playing was a force to be reckoned with.
Doug's musical directions and efforts were very diverse and compelling, but with The Knack, something clicked. What a sad loss.
funny, since the knack were the ones hailed as the new beatles...which they were far from
Was a good and gentle man. He helped a lot of people. That's what i'll remember most about him.
If all you've ever heard from The Knack is "My Sharona," I urge you to pick up the album and give the rest of the songs a listen. It's great over all. Lots of fine material. That said, I'm afraid I don't know much about Fieger's other work. Sad to see a talent go, though.
It's still a great song! Most bands would give their drummer for a great song that's also a hit like My Sharona!
Their post-Sharona shit was GREAT...but that one hit millstone was tuff to lose.
I've been playing my Get the Knack CD all day in tribute to the band. Drummer Bruce Gary also passed away in 2006. My favorite song from the album was That's What the Little Girls Do. The album had some other songs that obviously didn't get the same air play as My Sharona, but the local L.A. radio stations would play some of those tracks and (the tracks) turned out to be very popular. The album went platinum in only two months and was #1 on the Billboard 200 album chart.
So weird, saw a clip of my Sharona on instapundit, thought of growing up in Detroit and seeing his first band, Sky, at the local places. One night in Birmingham the power goes off in the club during the Sky set. The band comes out and does the Beatles "Yes It Is" a cappella. Still remember, must be 40 years ago, it was that fine. Then I google and see he died today.
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