If the rumors are true, Queen’s catalog is about to sell for about $1.1 BILLION!!! It would be the largest single artist sale yet, FAR eclipsing the deal made for Bruce Springsteen (about $500 million). Stay tuned! (kk)
From Tom Cuddy …
25 Best One Hit Wonders From The
Beloved Age of The 1960s | Wealth of Geeks
https://wealthofgeeks.com/best-one-hit-wonders-of-1960s/
Some great titles on this list … although my ranking order would come out far differently!
For even more One Hit Wonder titles, be sure to check out the list that Rich Appel put together a few years ago for Forgotten Hits, which ran on his weekly THIS WEEK WITH RICH APPEL radio program …
http://forgottenhits.com/top_100_one-hit_wonders
And it looks like I messed up here ...
When I ran Tom Cuddy's story (on Thursday) I TOTALLY missed the fact that he had sent me in a picture of himself and Tina ... so I'm running it now.
(Please scroll back to last Thursday's post if you missed it ... as Tom recalls a couple of personal encounters with the great Tina Turner!!!) kk
Here’s a cool Tina Turner memory from author Roger Steffens from an interview I did with him in 1975 …
Harvey Kubernik
On the night before I left for Nam, November 2, 1967, my Army buddies and I drove across the Bay from the Oakland Army Base to the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco. There was a much-talked-about new British band going to make its debut that night, but the real attraction for us was the opening act, Janis Joplin. Her set was jaw-droppingly emotional, like a raw nerve with a voice. I can only compare her to someone like Jackie Wilson.
She was followed by the hypnotic acoustic music of Richie Havens, who sat in the middle of the dance floor encircled by a couple of thousand kids who were mesmerized by him. Following this, promoter Bill Graham came on stage, all apologies. "I know you paid three dollars to see three acts tonight, but Pink Floyd can't get out of customs in time to be here." As groans began to grow, he held up his hands and announced, "So I went to the Hungry I and got the band playing there to sit in for them. Ladies and gentlemen - please welcome Ike and Tina Turner." As Tina virtually flew onto the stage, Janis came racing out of her dressing room with a full bottle of Southern Comfort in her fist, coming to a halt immediately beneath Tina, center stage. That night, Tina was a frenzy, hitting notes that could have shattered glass, whirling and leaping and sexy as hell. I never thought I would see Janis's like, but there she was, and I could see so much of Janis in Tina, and vice versa.
Following Tina's set, Janis, having drained her bottle, decided to do an unannounced second set, and that pairing was the greatest night of music in my life - Bob Marley, my hero, notwithstanding. At least Tina got to live a long and fruitful life, and we are all richer for her generous, over-the-top performances, withholding nothing from her enraptured audiences.
One Heart,
Roger Steffens
Kent,
Enjoyed reading everything you have posted about Tina Turner. I always did like her earlier records from the early 60's with her husband at the time, Ike, that they recorded with Sue Records.
I don't know how long it's been showing on television but I just saw a commercial about PRIME with the background song ALWAYS SOMETHING THERE TO REMIND ME. I think it was R. B. Greaves, his follow-up to TAKE A LETTER MARIA.
Larry
It’s not R.B.’s version … his is much more uptempo and produced … in fact, I always preferred his recording to Dionne Warwick’s version (although I will say that a great song is a great song … I really haven’t heard a bad version of this song … and that includes the 1980’s remake by Naked Eyes, which is probably the most popular version today.
I believe the version being used in the Amazon Prime commercial is the ORIGINAL recording of the song, done by Lou Johnson in 1964. (kk)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYAMigvWNC0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izvMbQpGDi0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVrELhxOFnM
And then …
Kent,
I did not know this about Ed Ames. Just the other evening I got out his MY CUP RUNNETH OVER and played it. I swear in the last week his passing was not in our local paper and I did not hear it on any of the news shows.
Within the past 45 minutes, I saw two commercials I've never seen before. One of them sponsored JIM BEAM with the people in the background singing SWEET CAROLINE and the other was for DOS EQUUS, with the singer in the background doing the old Dinah Washington tune WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES, ah, just 24 little hours.
Larry
Hi Kent,
It was great to hear Forgotten Hits friend Paul Evans' VOICE singing the hit he wrote for Ray Coniff, Happiness Is, on the Etsy commercial during The Voice finale. If you missed it, it is on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ0nKqaEW8A
Paul still sounds the same as he did on his hits!
Ed Salamon
Nashville, TN
Some reflective thoughts from Chuck Buell …
While I agree it’s Fun to look back at all the Very Special Things and Memories of our younger years at such a different time than today now and again, I’d like to offer this view of where we are now ~~~
“It seems like just yesterday we were young and embarking on our new lives. Yet in a way, it also seems like eons ago, and we sometimes wonder where all the years went. We have memories of how it was back then and of all our hopes and dreams. But here it is ... the Winter of our lives. How did we get here so fast? Where did the years go?
We remember well seeing older people through the years and thinking that those older people were years away from us and that Winter was so far off that we could not fathom it or imagine fully what it would be like. But here it is.
Our friends are retired and getting grey. Some have passed. The ones that are still around move slower and we see them as older people now. Some are in better shape and some are in worse shape than we are and we see their great changes. Like us, their age is beginning to show and we’re now those older folks that we used to see and never thought we'd be.
Now we’re in this new season of our life unprepared for all the aches and pains and less strength and ability to go and do things that we wish we had done but never did!
Yes, we have regrets. There are things we wish we hadn't done ... things we wish we should have done but, there are many things we should be happy we have done.
There may be things we used to care to do that we no longer care to do, but we do care that we don't care to do them anymore like --
That going out is good but coming home is better!
That it’s OK you forget names because other people forget your name, too!
That maybe you sleep better on a lounge chair with the TV on than in bed. It's called "pre-sleep!"
That it seems that everybody whispers.
And that you have a new favorite four letter word for that. It’s “WHAT?”
Life continues to go by quickly. So, live for today! Do what you still can do. Say all the things that you want your loved ones to remember and hope that they appreciate and love you for all the things that you have done for them in all the years past.
Remember, “Old” can be good. Old Songs, Old movies, Old You and best of all, OLD FRIENDS!!
So, enjoy today, my old friend!
Do something fun! Be happy!
Most of all, have a great day!"
- Author Unknown -
CB
We went to see the new live action version of Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” over the Memorial Day Weekend and were blown away … absolutely magnificent … beautifully done … and I wasn’t so sure I even wanted to see it as I couldn’t imagine reworking the original. (When the animated version came out in 1989, I took my then four year old daughter Nicki to see it and she was completely mesmerized by its beauty. It left a lifelong impression on her (she refuses to see the remake!) and I remember having to stop at the record store on the way home from the film to buy the soundtrack so we could listen to it again in the car on the drive home! (kk)
Coincidentally (or not), Billboard ran a list of their favorite 100 Disney songs this past week. While once again I don’t even come close to agreeing with the order in which these are listed, there are any number of titles on this list that are permanently etched to our memory banks, growing up Disney!
You can check it all out here …
After almost 25 years of interviewing Al Kooper, it seems logical to display some of our interviews ... so please feel free to display what you want. Al has always been a Forgotten Hits supporter.
--Harvey Kubernik
Al Kooper has always been very supportive of what we do here in Forgotten Hits.
Below, Harvey talks to Al about this, that and the other!!! (kk)
Al Kooper Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame Inductee
By Harvey Kubernik Copyright ©2023
Al Kooper has been selected for a “musical
excellence award” at the 2023 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony on
November 3rd at the Barclays Center in his birthplace of Brooklyn, New York.
In 2001, 2004, 2013 and 2018 I interviewed Al Kooper about his 1965-1970 recording endeavors with Bob Dylan. We also discussed The Band, Jackie Wilson, recording with the Rolling Stones and his landmark Super Session album.
On working with Bob Dylan on Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde
Q: Tell me about the room where Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited was done.
A: When I recorded with Dylan on Highway 61, it used to be on 799 7th Avenue. And that was Columbia Records and they had the studio in the same place as the offices. So when moved to Black Rock, they then moved the studio further east. So it was on 49 E. 52nd. They duplicated the studio on 7th Avenue. There were three studios there. 2nd, 3rd and 4th floor, so they could do a lot more sessions. And they had the same monitors and the same gear at every place. In those days, they had rotary pots instead of faders that slid up and down. It was very archaic. It was also a union shop. With required breaks every three hours. If you were signed to Columbia, you couldn’t record at any outside studio.
Q. I wanted to ask you about record producer Tom Wilson
A. Wonderful guy.
Q. And I know you used to cop Dylan acetates out of his office.
A. I did. I was a bad boy.
Q. I think he gets overlooked in history.
A. Yep. So does John Simon, by the way. Tom earlier worked for Savoy Records. He was a very bright guy. He was a very high class guy. He was like ‘What’s happening, man?’ That kind of guy. But you knew he was bright and he talked about very erudite things, and he really saved my life that day on that Dylan ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ session. Because, he could have … I went to him and said, ‘Man, let me play the organ.’ They had just moved Paul Griffin from the organ to the piano. And I went over to Tom Wilson, and I was invited just to watch, you know. And I said, ‘Man, why don’t you let me play the organ? I got a great part for this.’ Which was bullshit. I had nothing. And he said, ‘Man … You’re not an organ player … ’ And then they came to him and said, ‘Phone call for you Tom.’ And he just went and got the phone. And I went into the studio and sat down at the organ. He didn’t say no. He just said I wasn’t an organ player. OK. That was the moment he could have just thrown me out and rightfully so. And you know what? He didn’t. And that was it. That was the beginning of my career. Right then and there. That studio dialog is documented. Wilson is the guy who invited me to the session first of all, which is really nice. You didn’t get invited to Bob Dylan sessions, you know, especially if you were a nobody like I was. And there it was. There was the chance he had to toss me, and it would have reflected back on him because he had invited me to the session.
Q: Talk to me about guitarist Michael Bloomfield.
A: Well, Michael and I met on the ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ session. I had read about him in Sing Out Magazine, and saw a picture of him where he looked a little more rotund than he was when I met him. His brother says he was a fat kid growing up. So we met on the ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ session and really hit it off. So we played together on that. I was supposed to play guitar on that record. I packed up my guitar when I heard him warming up. It never occurred to me that somebody my age, and my religion could play the guitar like that. That was only reserved for other people. It never even occurred to me that that was an option for someone my age and my color. I had never seen that or heard that up to that day.
Q. And you brought bassist Harvey Brooks into that session as well.
A. That’s right. So, that pretty much ended my guitar playing by and large. I said, ‘Well, OK, he’s as old as me and he can play like that. I’m never gonna be able to play like that. Thank you, goodbye.’ And, you know, I ended up playing organ on that record, and then I became a keyboard player really that day. So, it was a damn good thing because, you know, that was competition I couldn’t deal with.
Q: I think the star, or the secret sauce of the Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde sessions was Paul Griffin. I know he was on some records by Garnet Mimms and on Chuck Jackson’s “Any Day Now.”
A: Oh, man … A big influence on me as well! Paul Griffin came from the Baptist church. On Highway 61 we did the tracks to ‘Tombstone Blues’ and ‘Queen Jane Approximately’ in one day. The best thing I can say about Paul Griffin is take five minutes out of your busy day and get a time where you have nothing to bother you at all. Find a real nice stereo system and sit back and put on ‘One Of Us Must Know’ from Blonde On Blonde. And just listen to the piano … and tell me if you can find on a rock ‘n’ roll record anybody playing better than that. And I would really like to hear what your decision is. To me, it is the greatest piano achievement in the history of rock ‘n’ roll. I don’t hear anything other than him playing the piano when I hear that record. And I’m thrilled that I’m playing organ, but I’m embarrassed. And I think that Dylan should be embarrassed, too. ‘Cause Paul just steals that fuckin’ record. It’s the most incredible piano playing I’ve heard in my life. If you’re a piano player try playing that note for note. It’s just incredible. I played the organ on ‘Like A Rolling Stone.’ Paul Griffin on piano was so brilliant. He plays amazing things. And the thing that is really eye-opening about it, are the drums. Bobby Gregg, who had a hit record with ‘The Jam.’ Besides Michael’s playing, you can really hear the drums of Bobby.
Q: What is so unique about Bob Dylan’s piano playing?
A: No one talks about his piano playing because they don’t know. Bob had a very unusual way of playing in that he didn’t use his pinkies. So both his pinkies were up in the air when he played the piano. And very interesting to me. It was very interesting looking to watch that. I used to really kick a kick of that.
Q: Why does the Blonde on Blonde album hold up so well? Why am I still asking you questions about it?
A: There’s a few reasons. The main reason is the chemistry of the participants. That’s the main reason. And the other reason would be the songwriting. I think the combination of those two things could make if they were as wonderful as those two were on that record it could make any record last a long time. The credit has to go to (producer) Bob Johnston. It was his idea. He had tried to get Dylan to record in Nashville in late 1965. He knew about the chemistry. And I also think he felt more comfortable there because he lived there. And he knew all the musicians intimately.
Q: Let’s talk about Blonde On Blonde. Had your own organ work changed, or improved from the time of Highway 61 Revisited to Blonde On Blonde? You were hired this time.
A: I had the benefit of whatever time differences there was between those records of being a better player. So that was helpful. I knew how to operate the machine a little better, the Hammond organ. Then I ran in to a methodology thing. Because in New York, where I was raised, all the sessions I played on and everything, it was three songs in three hours. I had never seen what they did in Nashville. They just hired the musicians and they were booked until we were done that day, or night, or whenever it was. They didn’t have any other distractions. There was no breaks, just whatever it was and I had never worked like that in the studio, but it was a big eye opener for me. During the day, Bob had a piano in his room and I would go up to his room and he would teach me the song and because there were no cassette machines in those days. I would play the song over and over for him and he would write the lyrics. Yes. I was blown away by the whole thing ... just the concept of ‘Hey, we can spend more than one hour on a song.’ This is great. This is gonna sound so much better than Highway 61 Revisited.
Q: What was really astounding about this scene-shifting gig?
A: (laughs). I was astounded by everything. (laughs). I was astounded by the musicians. I mean, astounded by the musicians. Do you know at one point in ‘Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine),’ Dylan refused to overdub things. He just wanted to play it live right there, and forget about the fact that you could overdub. OK. I said to Bob, ‘Horns would be really nice on this.’ (imitates marching horn line). And he said, ‘Well, there’s no horns here.’ So Charlie McCoy says, ‘I play trumpet.’ So Bob said, ‘I don’t want to overdub anything.’ So Charlie said ‘I can play the bass and the trumpet at the same time.’ And Bob and I looked at each other, and Bob was laughing, and Charlie said, ‘No, really, I can.’ He played the bass and the trumpet at the same time. Bob stopped singing, and I stopped playing, our jaws hit the floor. We were so floored by it. Bob was so floored by it, he let it go.
Q. At the time, did you know you were recording some potent songs with a long shelf life? Did you know his material would make an impact and go into another century?
A. I learned it after I did Highway 61 Revisited. So that one time during Blonde On Blonde I started thinking, ‘You know, wherever my hands moves next, it’s gonna be around for all time.’ I started thinking like that and I said to myself ‘Will you please shut up and just do what you do.’ It can completely freak you out if you thought like that. And I had that thought for one second, and then I said, ‘I really can’t think like this and do this job.’ So, yeah, but not on Highway 61 Revisited, but on Blonde On Blonde, I did have that thought. The other thing was, by then, we were friends. We had spent a lot of time together. Off hour time together. Just sitting around bars and shit like that. Going to the movies and all this kind of stuff, so it was a much more comfortable situation and Robbie Robertson came too. Robbie and I split a room together at Roger Miller’s King Of The Road Motel. So Bob brought Robbie and I for his comfort level, rather than just go in there cold. You know what I mean?”
Al Kooper to Harvey Kubernik on The Band
Q: John Simon produced the debut album by the Band and additional LP’s with them. When he was producing the album that would be named Music From Big Pink, he was also working with you or in the final stages of producing your debut Blood, Sweat & Tears album, Child Is The Father to the Man. You played with Robbie Robertson and members of the Hawks with Bob Dylan in 1965, including a Hollywood Bowl show. In 1966, you and Robbie played with Dylan on Blonde On Blonde, and you shared a hotel room with Robbie during those Nashville recording sessions. When the first Band LP was issued you were the writer who reviewed it for Rolling Stone.
A: Robbie was at the 1965 Dylan ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ recording session I played on. Then we did Blonde On Blonde. I was blown away by the whole thing. Just the concept of ‘Hey, we can spend more than one hour on a song.’ This is great. This is gonna sound so much better than Highway 61. The other thing was, by then, Bob and I were friends. We had spent a lot of time together. Off hour time together. Just sitting around bars and shit like that. Going to the movies and all this kind of stuff, so it was a much more comfortable situation and Robbie (Robertson) came to. Robbie and I split a room together. So Bob brought Robbie and I for his comfort level, rather than just go in there cold. You know what I mean? I was astounded by everything on Blonde On Blonde. (laughs). I was astounded by the musicians. I mean, astounded by the musicians. Do you know at one point in ‘You Go Your Way,’ Dylan refused to overdub things. He just wanted to play it live right there, and forget about the fact that you could overdub. OK. I said to Bob, ‘Horns would be really nice on this.’ (imitates marching horn line). And he said, ‘Well … there’s no horns here.’ So Charlie McCoy says, ‘I play trumpet.’ So Bob said, ‘I don’t want to overdub anything.’ So Charlie said. ‘I can play the bass and the trumpet at the same time.’ And Bob and I looked at each other, and Bob was laughing, and Charlie said, ‘No, really, I can.’ He played the bass and the trumpet at the same time. Bob stopped singing, and I stopped playing, our jaws hit the floor. We were so floored by it. Bob was so floored by it he let it go. I knew what was happening in 1968 with John Simon producing the debut Band album and should have had an early glimpse of what was going on. But at the time I was staying home and not going out. And John would call me over and over again and say, ‘You gotta come hear Robbie’s record.’ That’s what he called it. And I didn’t know what it was. And then I heard it when it was done at Albert Grossman’s office. I went, ‘Holy shit! This is ridiculous. I didn’t think it was gonna be like that.’ I had no idea what that was gonna be like. Up at Albert’s office they just played it. Side one and side two. And I kicked myself for not going to the sessions since I was invited to those sessions. John Simon went from doing the Blood, Sweat & Tears album to doing that record. One after the other. John did a lot of engineering at Columbia before he became a producer. I watched him like a hawk. I put him right up there with George Martin, Jerry Ragovoy and Phil Spector. I didn’t see him do much engineering. Fred Catero was the engineer on the BS&T album. And he was pretty fuckin’ amazing. I had never been in a situation like that where it was a project I was involved with. The engineer was great and the producer was great. And all the problems that I brought into the project he solved. I had alienated the rest of the band. I had known Robbie, worked with him on Blonde on Blonde, we got close together, but lost him for a while. At the Brill Building, where I was at a lot, Robbie was up there but in the shadow of Ronnie Hawkins. Aaron Schroeder was my music publisher. I worked for him. Robbie did some things with him. The Band’s Big Pink album was done in New York at Bell Sound. As a session guy I worked there. I would go there with Jerry Ragovoy. I was not entranced by the room it was usually who was in it that killed me. I thought Mira Sound was great. A great room. I did a lot of session work there.
Q: After you heard the Music From Big Pink album, did you have any concerns that they couldn’t pull it off live?
A: I already knew what I was going to see. I had played live in 1965 with Robbie and Dylan ... The Hollywood Bowl and Forrest Hills in New York. The Hollywood Bowl show was the only place where Bob played where he wasn’t booed. How ‘bout that? I never knew anyone like Garth Hudson as a person. I never knew anybody like that as a musician. We didn’t really jell like the other guys. In 1966 I got the itinerary for the Dylan tour and I said to myself ‘I can’t do this.’ They were playing Dallas, Texas. Two years after JFK. I said to anybody who would listen, except Bob, of course, ‘You’re going to fuckin’ Dallas. I don’t want to be the John Connely of rock.’ That was my line (laughs). I thought I’d be sitting in the fuckin’ front seat and I’ll get killed. I saw the Band play live very early.
Q: In 1969 you did the musical score for director Hal Ashby’s first film, The Landlord. I love “Brand New Day,” sung in the movie by the Staple Singers. (Ashby directed other films with folk, rock and pop songs in them: “Bound for Glory,” “Harold & Maude,” “Shampoo,” “Coming Home,” and the Rolling Stones’ “Let’s Spend The Night Together” concert film.)
A: He was an interesting guy. The thing that I loved about Hal is that I never met anyone like him. He was one of a kind person. One night when we were doing the film The Landlord I got front row tickets for a Band concert at the Long Beach (Ca.) Arena. I couldn’t get there or didn’t know how to get there. So I said ‘Hal I have two tickets to see the Band tonight and if you drive, you’re the other ticket.’ And he said. ‘Oh yeah. I’m there. What time? Let’s go!’ So he had an Italian sports car, a Ferrari, convertible; top down, smoking joints, he smoked pot incessantly, and we got there. We saw the show, enjoyed the concert, and went backstage. Said hello to everybody. At the show, I met Mac Rebbenack (Doctor John) who sat next to me. And Hal parked the car illegally. ‘Are you OK with that?’ ‘Not a problem.’ So when we came out, I hoped the car would be there. He starts to smoke a joint as we are walking to the car. Cops are all over the place and we’re parked illegally. ‘Hal, there’s a lot of cops around us with the show breakin’ and everything.’ I pointed to one on the street in front of us. Do you think it’s smart to smoke a joint? This is back in 1969. And he said, with a lungful of smoke exhaling, ‘Well, what’s the worst that can happen? They’ll arrest us and beat the shit out of us.’ And he kept smoking a joint. We got home. I loved that attitude. Of course, I can’t be there. I’m the antithesis of that. I’m the opposite of that and somehow we got along. Yes. I was blown away by the whole thing. Just the concept of ‘hey, we can spend more than one hour on a song.’ This is great. This is gonna sound so much better than ‘Highway 61.’ The other thing was, by then, we were friends. We had spent a lot of time together. Off hour time together. Just sitting around bars and shit like that. Going to the movies and all this kind of stuff, so it was a much more confortable situation and Robbie (Robertson) came to. Robbie and I split a room together. So Bob brought Robbie and I for his comfort level, rather than just go in there cold. You know what I mean?
Al Kooper on Jackie Wilson to Harvey Kubernik
I was in the touring version of the Royal Teens. [“Short, Shorts”] I was on bills with Jackie and saw him a few times. There might have been a week of Alan Freed stage shows at maybe the Brooklyn Paramount. And Jackie was on the bill. I was very excited. He was fuckin’ unbelievable. There was another show with Jimmy Rogers, who was also incredible. He was great. He sang so good and he just played acoustic guitar. And nobody went out and did that. Larry Williams was on the bill and might have headlined. He had Little Richard’s band. The first single I bought by Jackie Wilson was ‘Reet Petite.’ I heard it on the radio. My mother used to drive me into Manhattan to a certain doctor that I went to. And the doctor was on 57th street, right next to a great record store that had a lot of stuff in it. So I walked it. There it was. ‘Reet Petite.’ I heard it a week before on the radio. And I bought it. I loved it. And then I continued buying Jackie Wilson, ‘cause I liked everything he did on Brunswick. Jackie was unbelievable. He did stuff like pushing the microphone forward towards the audience and control it with his feet. The bottom of the mike stand. The round part. So he would like push it out and it would go like it was gonna go and fall all over the audience. And then it would snap back without him touching it. I never saw anybody else do that. And it was incredible. Jackie never took the microphone out of the holder. He worked the mike stand in every possible way that it could be worked. And it was just amazing. Because I never saw anybody do that. There were people, and it wasn’t just like Alan Freed, people like Jocko Henderson and The Magnificent Montague. Those were the three radio or stage shows I never missed. I would always go. Those shows were incredible. You can’t even put it into words. The sound system was great. Girls weren’t screaming. Screaming in this era of music really didn’t start until the Beatles. It wasn’t really screaming as I recall.
Al Kooper to Harvey Kubernik on recording with the Rolling Stones on “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” “Memo From Turner” and “Brown Sugar.”
I saw the New York debut of the Rolling Stones in June of 1964 at Carnegie Hall. It was hard to hear them because of the fuckin’ women going berserk. Different from the Beatles. And I caught them on The Ed Sullivan Show. I later knew Brian Jones from the June, 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival, where I was the assistant stage manager. After I completed The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper, I went to London and I was picked up at the airport by my good friend Denny Cordell. He then said, ‘The Stones’ office called me and asked if I felt like playing on a few recording sessions with them. They want you to play on some sessions.’ I said, ‘How did they know I was gonna be in England?’ And Denny replied, ‘I didn’t say a fuckin’ word. And I don’t even know how they figured out I was involved. But they called me for Tuesday and Wednesday night at Olympic Studios.’ The next day we left the hotel and went shopping on Kings Road and ran into Brian Jones in a shirt store who asked, ‘Are you gonna play the session, Al?’ I could never say no to these people. So I went. The main reason they wanted me was that Nicky Hopkins, their regular keyboardist was in the United States. I went to the studio. Bill and Charlie were there. I met them before with Bob Dylan. I sat at the organ and met Jimmy Miller, the producer. Mick and Keith bolted through the door. Mick wore a gorilla coat and Keith a hat with a long feather. Everyone sat around and they passed out acoustic guitars to anyone who could play acoustic guitar. Then Mick and Keith played acoustic guitar, ran down the tune for everybody with the chord changes and the rhythm accents. There was a conga player in the room who rolled hash joints. It was decided that I would play piano on the basic track and later do an organ overdub. I got a groove going which I heard on an Etta James cover version of ‘I Got You Babe’ that worked. It had nothing to do with Sonny & Cher. I could not believe the Etta version. I heard it on the radio and thought it was unbelievable. I wanted to own it and bought it. They played the song in the studio to learn, Keith picked up on it with a guitar part that meshed with my organ part. Jimmy Miller showed Charlie an accent and he just couldn’t get the part. Jimmy sat down at the drums and stayed there and played on the take. Charlie was unhappy, but he hid it completely. Very graceful. He didn’t throw a temper tantrum but said ‘Why don’t you just play the drums?’ He said it sincerely. He didn’t say it like I would have. (laughs). Bill played bass, I played piano. Mick and Keith played acoustic guitars. Keith then did a lead electric guitar part and I overdubbed the Hammond organ. We were out there together. Brian Jones was in the corner on the floor reading a magazine. The recording went on for about four hours. Then all sorts of food arrived later in the night: Racks of lamb, salads, wines. Not a cheeseburger break like back in the States. I told Mick that if he ever wanted to have horns on the record to call me. Over a half a year later an eight-track master tape showed up at my office at CBS Records. The note said ‘Dear Al, you once mentioned you could put some great horn parts on this. Well, go ahead and do it and send us the tape back. Love, Mick.’ They were working on an album, and the record had an intro on it that we didn’t do. That was a separate piece that they tacked on to the front. I wrote a horn chart and hired a horn section and left a spot in the intro for a French horn solo. I was coached by Ray Alonge. I sent the tape back to Mick. Around a year later it came out without all the horn parts except the French horn at the intro. I think they really liked what I did and gave me credit. But I failed at what I set out to do, which was putting horns on it like the Etta James record. I thought it was really great and I was able to play what I think is some of my best playing I ever did in retrospect. The next night, Mick and Keith picked me up at the hotel, they were in the lobby, and we cut a track for Performance, the film Jagger was working on. It’s not the version in the movie or soundtrack. I played guitar. A little later, 1971, when they were working on Sticky Fingers, there was a birthday party for Keith at Olympic and I was invited and went. They cleared the room and set up to record. George Harrison was there and he declined to play. Eric Clapton, myself and Bobby Keys joined. I thought the song was great. They might already have cut it on the ’69 U.S. tour. This was a completely different take. That was the night I met George. He was very nice. Over a period of time, I spent a lot of time with him. And then once when I was in a lull in my career and wasn’t making much money and I lived in this not a great place, this is not in my book, at 11:00 pm one night the doorbell rings and I wondered who the fuck this is? And I look at the curtain and it’s George. I never gave him my address. And I opened the door and said ‘There’s a Beatle at my door!
Earlier this century in 2002, nearly four decades after its creation, Columbia/Legacy, a division of the Sony Music label re-released an expanded CD of May 1968’s original “Super Session,” featuring Al Kooper, Michael Bloomfield and Stephen Stills.
“Super Session” revealed the collective musical talents of Al Kooper, post Blood, Sweat & Tears, Michael Bloomfield, after his Electric Flag endeavor, and Stephen Stills, immediately after Buffalo Springfield played its final gig that same May. Adding to the seductive power of the disc was an all-star rhythm section of pianist Barry Goldberg, bassist Harvey Brooks and “Fast” Eddie Hoh on drums. “Super Session” marked the first time in rock ‘n’ roll that a self-acknowledged, let alone, self-imposed jam session devised by Kooper earned its wings as a fully-realized-and perennially best-selling-album project.
Before this reissue, the album had sold 450,000 copies from a $13,000.00 recording budget that then Columbia staff record producer Kooper spent for his cosmic and commercial audio collaboration. “Super Session” reached number 11 in “Billboard,” and I know a lot of musicians learned plenty from that album.
“Super Session” contains unique re-thought versions of Donovan’s “Season Of The Witch” and Bob Dylan’s “It Takes a Lot To Laugh, It Takes a Train To Cry.” Both tracks were staples of the 1968 FM progressive radio format. The disc incorporates a terrific all instrumental cover of Howard Tate’s “Stop,” a rendition of Gene Chandler’s “Man’s Temptation,” written by Curtis Mayfield, plus Willie Cobbs’ “You Don’t Love Me,” later re-done by the Allman Brothers, plus original songs credited to the team of Bloomfield, Kooper and Brooks. On the first release of the “Super Session” LP, Bloomfield is the guitarist on “Albert’s Shuffle” through “Really.” He then developed an incurable insomnia and Kooper recruited Stills, whose playing occupied the second half of the album … “It Take a Lot To Laugh, It Takes a Train To Cry” through “Harvey’s Tune.
Al Kooper and Harvey Kubernik Interview (2002 and 2011)
Q. “Super Session” is one of my favorite albums. It showcased your musical relationship with Michael Bloomfield. In 1984, you wrote a song called “They Don’t Make ‘Em Like That Anymore” about your friendship with Bloomfield.
A. Well, Michael and I met on the ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ session. I had read about him in ‘Sing Out’ Magazine, and saw a picture of him where he looked a little more rotound then he was when I met him. His brother says he was a fat kid growing up. So we met on the ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ session and really hit it off. So we played together on that.
Q. He blew your mind, didn’t he?
A. Oh, absolutely! I was supposed to play guitar on that record. I packed up my guitar when I heard him warming up. It never occurred to me that somebody my age, and my religion could play the guitar like that. That was only reserved for other people. It never even occurred to me that that was an option for someone my age and my color. I had never seen that or heard that up to that day.
Q. And you brought Harvey Brooks in to that session as well.
A. That’s right. So, that pretty much ended my guitar playing by and large. I said, ‘Well, OK, he’s as old as me and he can play like that. I’m never gonna be able to play like that. Thank you, goodbye.’ And, you know, I ended up playing organ on that record, and then I became a keyboard player really that day. So, it was a damn good thing because, you know, that was competition I couldn’t deal with.
Q. On that “Like A Rolling Stone” date, was there a reason why you “played behind the runner” on the track? The organ follows the Dylan vocal.
A. No, I did that because I was waiting to see what chord they were going to do. There was no music or lead sheet or anything. I was just playing by ear, and I didn’t want to be the one making a mistake because I was doin’ like a rebel run there. But anyway, we played together on that session, and the rest of the (“Highway 61”) album. Then, I joined The Blues Project, he was in Paul Butterfield’s band. Two blues bands. And we both left the blues bands to start horn bands, which we were both kicked out of again. The horn bands that we started. Very amazing parallel in our careers. Starting from the day that we met. So it seemed to me, in hindsight, looking at that, when I started producing at CBS, that we should make a record together. We were like destined to do something together. Now this whole time we had been friends since we met. I’d go visit him when I was in his town.
Q. And you saw him play with Butterfield many times and was knocked out.
A. Yeah! He ended my guitar playing I’m tellin’ ya. Both of us had just played on that ‘Grape Jam’ album. So that sort of gave me the inspiration to say, ‘Why don’t we make a record.’ I wanted to make a record with Bloomfield, and I wanted to make a record that was a very simple, basic record, not a ‘weighty’ record. So inspired by the ‘Grape Jam’ thing, I said ‘Let’s make a rock ‘n’ roll record based on the way jazz records are made. You pick a leader, or two leaders, and then you just go in, you pick some songs, you pick sidemen, and you just blow. No rehearsing or anything. You just go in and blow. So I said, ‘I don’t want to make a jazz record.’ And I was very dissatisfied with the way he was recorded up to that point.
Q. This was one guy who was way better in person as opposed to a record. You didn’t think he was recorded right?
A. When I say right, I mean that his live playing was like 300 times better than performance on a record to that point. In my opinion. So, what I wanted to do was put him in a situation where he was uncluttered by his career, and uncluttered by his situation in the recording studio, which must have inhibited him. So I made it as uncomplicated as possible for him. Because that was the goal of the sessions for me, was to get amazing playing out of him like I heard him do on stage. And I felt really vindicated that I had done that. And that’s what I wanted. I did what I set out to do. And, the other thing was, we both had been kicked out of the bands, and then Stills, too. He was out of his band (Buffalo Springfield.) So Stills fit in, in a really weird way. Because none of us had anything at stake, and that was the whole point of that record. There was no career thing goin’ on. We just did it because we played music. That’s what’s so wonderful about that. ‘Super Session’ wasn’t made to sell records. It was just made like those jazz records were made for Blue Note, except it wasn’t ‘Blue Note’ kind of music. It was more music that we were in to. ‘Albert’s Shuffle’ is sort of the hit of that side, as time has passed. Although, the song was used twice in the film ‘Sneakers,’ by Robert Redford. That floored me.
Q. Did “Super Session” creep on to FM radio or explode on the free form format in the late ‘60s?
A. Well, see, I had no expectations for that record. I mean just none whatsoever. I just did it because I had a job as a producer and I had no one to produce, and I went in because I thought Michael and I should make a record together, because of how our careers were parallel. And also because we were friends, and it would be fun to work together. Michael brought Eddie Hoh (drummer) in, and I brought Harvey in (bass). I said, ‘You pick the drummer, I’ll pick the bass player.’ Again, sort of like a Blue Note concept. The most important thing is the playing of the two principals, Bloomfield and Stills. It’s timeless. Bloomfield’s stuff is some of the greatest blues playing that there ever was. And it was a non-vocal Stephen Stills, owing to contractual limitations and restrictions, which was a very strong thing in that decision. I regretted that a lot that night. But I said ‘If he sings, we’ll never be able to put this out.’ I knew Stephen was a great guitar player and that was the key thing. But I had to take a lot of shit from David Crosby when that came out. ‘Why the fuck didn’t you let him sing?’ And I told him and he didn’t even listen to me. Because it was a great period of time and there were great minds working geographically located in the same place. There was a lot of freedom out on the west Coast, but frankly, ‘Super Session’ could have been recorded anywhere.
In 1997, “The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper” was released on CD, and reissued again earlier this century. It was a late ‘68 live date taped at the Fillmore West on the heels of their “Super Session” studio work. Joining organ and piano player Kooper and guitarist Bloomfield were drummer Skip Prokop and bassist John Kahn. Carlos Santana and Elvin Bishop also appear on the recording. Highlights include the riveting selections “Don’t Throw Your Love On Me So Strong” and “Mary Ann.”
“Well, you know, that was a weird record,” commented Kooper in 2004. “We sort of did that because people gave us some shit about the confines of the studio, and it was slick, this kind of thing. So I said, ‘Let’s go down and dirty and play a gig and record it live. Nobody is gonna yell studio at us for that.’ So that’s what we did. And it actually was a little too down and dirty.”
The front cover is a painting by legendary artist Norman Rockwell of Bloomfield and Kooper.
HK
>>>See ya next time! (kk)
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You bet, Pal! Have a Great Week! CB!
Ray Graffia, Jr. sent me that photo and I just HAD to use it! And now we have perfect symmetry! Lol Thanks, Chuck! (kk)
