Image from the documentary "Soul Train: The Hippest Trip in America" airing on VH-1 on Feb. 6.

   “I was one of the guys who could throw down,” Don Cornelius says in a new documentary about his era-defining run as host of the nation’s funkiest televised dance party, “Soul Train: The Hippest Trip in America” (8:30 p.m. CST Saturday on VH1).

NEW YORK--Conan O’Brien is a tall man. I’m about 6-foot-1, and I had to look up as I shook the talk show host’s hand Monday at the taping of “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.” I was making my first and quite likely last national TV talk-show appearance and all I could think was, “This guy has the longest legs in the world. He could’ve played shooting guard for Harvard,” where he went to college in the '80s. Then before I knew it, the tall man was sitting next to me and my co-host on the nationally syndicated radio show “Sound Opinions,” Jim DeRogatis, and egging us on to tell our nastiest rock-critic war stories.

Over seven minutes, we managed to talk a bit about my lengthy back-and-forth with Bono a few years ago. O’Brien, like Bono an Irish Catholic, even indulged my lame attempt at an Irish brogue. The conversation shifted to various bands DeRo and I have argued about over the years on the air: Dave Matthews, the Grateful Dead, Bruce Springsteen. We had a lot of laughs doing it, though DeRo’s Springsteen dig may have rankled Conan’s drummer a bit. That would be Max Weinberg, who happens to play with Springsteen’s E Street Band.

O’Brien seemed to enjoy the outspokenness, and even took a turn dissing the Doors, one of his least favorite bands. He also did a wicked imitation of Jim Morrison slurring his way through a song.

When we were done and the taping went to commercial break, the interview really picked up momentum. I’ve always wondered what talk-show hosts chat so animatedly about with their guests during these pauses in the show and now I know.

O’Brien leaned in and regaled us with stories about his Chicago experiences, raving about a few restaurants. He claims we have more receptive audiences for live comedy than New York does. He also informed us that the first guest booked on his show, by longtime talent buyer Jim Pitt, was Radiohead, back on the band’s first album. “You see bands on the way up, and you see them on the way down, but those guys have just done it better than anyone else for 15 years,” he said. Too bad we couldn’t have saved that conversation for the air.

Afterward, Weinberg stopped by our shoe box of a dressing room. “You guys were funny,” he said as he loosened his tie and shook our hands. He promised that Springsteen would return to tour Chicago this year. He also said he had to rush off to see a show: the Spice Girls, with his 18-year-old son. “He had their poster on his bedroom wall when he was 8,” the drummer said. To which we replied: “Better you than us, Max.”

greg@gregkot.com