An Al Kooper story
Last edited Mon Oct 23, 2017, 06:32 PM - Edit history (1)
(The following is mostly from Wikipedia)
Al Kooper, (born Alan Peter Kuperschmidt, February 5, 1944), in Brooklyn, is an American songwriter, record producer, and musician, known for organizing "Blood, Sweat & Tears" and later working with Bob Dylan when he went electric in 1965.
Kooper brought together Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills to record the "Super Session" album.
He grew up in a Jewish family in Hollis Hills, Queens, New York.
His first musical success was as a 14-year-old guitarist in the "Royal Teens," best known for their 1958 ABC Records novelty 12-bar blues riff, "Short Shorts."
In 1960, he joined the songwriting team of Bob Brass and Irwin Levine and with them wrote
"This Diamond Ring" which became a hit for Gary Lewis and the Playboys.
When he was 21, Kooper moved to Greenwich Village.
He joined the "Blues Project" in 1965 and left the band shortly before their gig at the
Monterey Pop Festival in 1967.
He recorded "Super Session" with Bloomfield and Stills in 1968.
In 1975, Kooper produced the debut album by "The Tubes."
Kooper has played on hundreds of records, including ones by The Rolling Stones, B.B. King,
The Who, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Alice Cooper and Cream.
In 1977, Kooper published a memoir, "Backstage Passes: Rock 'n' Roll Life in the Sixties"
which was revised and published in 1988 as
"Backstage Passes & Backstabbing Bastards: Memoirs of a Rock 'n' Roll Survivor"
Kooper's status as a published author enabled him to join the "Rock Bottom Remainders"
a band made up of writers, including Dave Barry, Stephen King, Amy Tan, and Matt Groening.
My favorite Al Kooper story is how he came to be on Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone"
Kooper had been invited to the sessions as an observer and hoped to be allowed to sit in on guitar, his primary instrument.
He uncased his guitar and began tuning it.
After hearing Mike Bloomfield, who was the hired session guitarist, warming up, Kooper concluded that Bloomfield was a much better guitarist, so he put his guitar aside and retreated into the control room.
As the recording sessions progressed, keyboardist Paul Griffin was moved from the Hammond organ to piano.
Kooper quickly suggested to producer Tom Wilson that he had a "great organ part" for the song (he later confessed that this was "pure bullshit"
, and Wilson responded, "Al, you're not an organ player, you're a guitar player"..but Kooper stood his ground.
Before Wilson could explicitly say "No" to his suggestion, Wilson was interrupted by a phone call in the control room.
Kooper immediately went into the studio and sat down at the organ, though he had rarely played organ before the session.
When Wilson returned and saw Kooper at the organ, he said "Hey, what are you doing there?"
Kooper just sat there and laughed, and Wilson let the session continue.
Kooper, not knowing the music to Dylan's new song, ("Like a Rolling Stone" played an eighth note behind the other members of the band, to make sure he was playing the proper chords.
During a playback of tracks in the control room, Dylan said to Wilson, "Turn up the organ."
Wilson replied, "Man, that guy's not an organ player, he's a guitar player."
Dylan said, "I don't care what he is, turn the organ up!"
I consider "Like a Rolling Stone" to be one of Bob Dylan's best songs, and I especially love Al Kooper's "eighth note behind" organ playing on that song.
That day, Al Kooper became an organist, and after that session, many bands invited him to play organ for them in recording sessions.
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I thoroughly enjoy information like that.
BS&T was seen by myself in Philadelphia at the convention center in 1968 or 1969. Things from back then are a bit fuzzy.
