The [Bob] Dylan sessions were very disorganized, to say the least. I mean, the “Like A Rolling Stone” session I was invited by the producer to watch.
AL KOOPERMy 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.
More Al Kooper Quotes
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And a little slate that came out of the wall that you could actually write on. And a door that locked from the outside.
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 -
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 -
The place that I worked I used to joke about it. There was a, every morning at 10:30 I’d come into work and I’d go into this cubicle that had a little upright piano and fake white cork bricks on the wall.
AL KOOPER -
Every day from 10 to 6, we’d go in there and pretend that we were 13 year old girls and write these songs. That was the gig.
AL KOOPER -
I believe Irving Berlin was there, and uh, and everything just centered around there.
AL KOOPER -
Finally a breath of fresh words founded in hardcore, intelligent research.
AL KOOPER -
I don’t care, turn the organ up, and that’s really how I became an organ player.
AL KOOPER -
Musically Bob [Dylan] is a primitive. He’s not a Gershwin, or somebody that uses eloquent music terms.
AL KOOPER -
Bob Dylan said to the producer, turn up the organ. And Tom Wilson said, oh man, that guy’s not an organ player. And Dylan said.
AL KOOPER -
The first generation from the ’50s that were in 1650 [Broadway] were pretty much all crooks,
AL KOOPER -
The “Highway 61” album [of Bob Dylan] was produced by Bob Johnston if I’m not incorrect. And Bob Johnston was an entirely different producer than Tom Wilson.
AL KOOPER -
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 -
Producing Bob Dylan was pretty much a spectator sport.
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