Al Kooper

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Al Kooper
Born February 4, 1944 (1944-02-04) (age 64)
Brooklyn, New York, United States
Occupation(s) Musician, record producer, songwriter
Instrument(s) Guitar, organ, many others
Associated acts Blood, Sweat & Tears, Bob Dylan

Al Kooper (born Alan Peter Kuperschmidt, February 5, 1944, in Brooklyn, New York) is an American songwriter, record producer and musician, probably best known for organizing the group Blood, Sweat & Tears, though he did not stay with the group long enough to share its popularity. He provided important studio support for Bob Dylan when he went electric in 1965, and also brought together guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills of CSNY fame to record the Super Session album.

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[edit] Career

His first musical success was as a fourteen year old guitarist in The Royal Teens, best known for their novelty twelve-bar blues riff, "Short Shorts". In 1960, he joined the songwriting team of Bob Brass and Irwin Levine, who wrote the hit, "This Diamond Ring", for Gary Lewis and the Playboys. When he was twenty one, Kooper moved to Greenwich Village.

He performed with Bob Dylan in concert in 1965, and in the recording studio in 1965 and 1966, including playing Hammond organ with Dylan at the (in)famous Newport Folk Festival of 1965. It was a young Al Kooper who played the classy, yet improvised gospel music-influenced Hammond organ riffs (usually an eighth note behind) on Dylan's milestone rock recording Like a Rolling Stone. It was in those recording sessions that Kooper met and befriended Mike Bloomfield, whose guitar-playing he instantly admired. He worked extensively with Mike Bloomfield for a number of years after the two met as session musicians on Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited album. Kooper also played organ with Dylan during his 1981 world tour.

In 1965, he co-formed The Blues Project, although he left them shortly before their most famous gig at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. He formed Blood, Sweat & Tears in the same year, leaving after the group's first album, Child Is Father to the Man, in 1968.

Kooper played on hundreds of records, including The Rolling Stones, B. B. King, The Who and Cream. On occasion, he has even overdubbed on his own efforts, as on The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper, as Roosevelt Gook. He discovered the band Lynyrd Skynyrd, and produced their first three albums, including the single, "Sweet Home Alabama" and the iconic "Free Bird". Kooper also wrote the score for the TV series Crime Story and the film "The Landlord" and has also written music for several made-for-television movies. Kooper also produced a now rare album by a group called Appaloosa. He was also the musical force behind many of the children series "Banana Splits" pop tunes, including "You're the Lovin' End."

Kooper has published a memoir, Backstage Passes: Rock 'n' Roll Life In The Sixties (1977), now available in revised form as Backstage Passes & Backstabbing Bastards: Memoirs of a Rock 'N' Roll Survivor (1998). The latter includes indictments against manipulators within the music industry, including his one-time business manager, Stan Polley. His status as a published author enabled him to join (and act as musical director of) the Rock Bottom Remainders, a band made up of writers including Dave Barry, Stephen King, Amy Tan, Matt Groening and Scott Turow.

Kooper currently teaches songwriting and recording production at Berklee College of Music in Boston, and plays weekend concerts with his bands The ReKooperators and The Funky Faculty.

[edit] "Like a Rolling Stone" Session

As chronicled in the 2005 Martin Scorsese documentary film, No Direction Home: Bob Dylan for the PBS American Masters Series, Kooper's most notable playing with Dylan is the striking organ parts on Like a Rolling Stone.

Kooper had been invited to the session as an observer, and hoped to be allowed to sit in on guitar, his primary instrument. Kooper uncased his guitar and began tuning it. After hearing Mike Bloomfield, the hired guitarist for the sessions, warming up in the room, Kooper concluded that Bloomfield was a much better guitarist, so Kooper put his guitar aside, and retreated into the control room.

As the recording sessions for the single Like a Rolling Stone progressed, keyboardist Paul Griffin was moved from the Hammond organ to piano. The young Kooper (being Kooper) saw his opening. Kooper quickly suggested to producer Tom Wilson that he had a "great organ part" for the song (which he later confessed was just a ruse to play in the session), and Wilson responded "Al, you're not an organ player, you're a guitar player", but Kooper didn't retreat this time. Before Wilson could explicitly reject Kooper's 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. Wilson soon returned, and was shocked to find Kooper in the studio. By this time, Kooper had been playing along with Dylan and crew, his organ can be heard coming in an eighth-note just behind the other members of the band, as Kooper followed to make sure he was playing the right chords. During a playback of tracks in the control room, when asked about the organ track, Dylan was emphatic: "Turn the organ up!"[citation needed], and Kooper's classic rock organ riff became a part of rock recording history. While the combination of piano and organ was common in gospel church settings, Kooper's riff was relatively new to rock music and attracted considerable attention.[citation needed]

[edit] Discography

[edit] Solo

Music sample:

Al Kooper - "I Can't Quit Her" from the 2-Disc album Rare and Well-Done

Sample of "I Can't Quit Her". From the album Rare and Well-Done.
Problems listening to the file? See media help.

Al Kooper - "Flute Thing" from the 2-Disc album Rare + Well-Done

Sample of "Flute Thing". From the album Rare + Well-Done.
Problems listening to the file? See media help.

[edit] Collaborative

Music sample:

"Albert's Shuffle" from Super Session

Sample of "Albert's Shuffle". From the album Super Session.
Problems listening to the file? See media help.

[edit] Compilation

  • Al's Big Deal/Unclaimed Freight/An Al Kooper Anthology (1975)

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Kooper"
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