Mike Bloomfield sat down and started playing, and I went, whoa! Because I had never heard any white person play like that before.
AL KOOPERAnd a little slate that came out of the wall that you could actually write on. And a door that locked from the outside.
More Al Kooper Quotes
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So I would come in on the upbeat of one. I would wait until the band played the chord, and then as quickly as I could come in play the chord.
AL KOOPER -
I started in the music business I was first introduced to 1650 Broadway, uh, which was in reality where everything happened in the ’60s.
AL KOOPER -
My influences were mostly gospel. So I was playing my twisted Jewish equivalent of gospel music over his twisted equivalent of rock and roll music. And it was a very excellent marriage.
AL KOOPER -
I don’t care, turn the organ up, and that’s really how I became an organ player.
AL KOOPER -
I believe Irving Berlin was there, and uh, and everything just centered around there.
AL KOOPER -
The first generation from the ’50s that were in 1650 [Broadway] were pretty much all crooks,
AL KOOPER -
Tom Wilson had produced jazz records and was a Harvard educated.
AL KOOPER -
Only through sheer ambition did I end up playing on [Bob Dylan sessions] and the fact that I could do that is a testament to how disorganized it really was.
AL KOOPER -
The very funny thing about “Like A Rolling Stone” is it was a six minute song, there was no music to read from. And there I was playing this unfamiliar instrument.
AL KOOPER -
In the, uh, ’30s and ’40s, the Brill Building was the hub of, uh, musical activity in Tin Pan Alley in New York City.
AL KOOPER -
I mean just out and out crooks. And the next generation had a little more finesse. But I mean those first wave of people, you know, definitely would take all your money, no doubt about it.
AL KOOPER -
I liked being challenged by music. It’s good for me.
AL KOOPER -
And he was about my age, and he just, that finished off my guitar career, just like that, in one afternoon.
AL KOOPER -
Still being ambitious to want to play on the record, I was a mediocre keyboard player. And uh, I seized the opportunity and played the organ.
AL KOOPER -
Finally a breath of fresh words founded in hardcore, intelligent research.
AL KOOPER






