Producing Bob Dylan was pretty much a spectator sport.
AL KOOPERMike Bloomfield sat down and started playing, and I went, whoa! Because I had never heard any white person play like that before.
More Al Kooper Quotes
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At the end of the playback of the take of “Like A Rolling Stone”, or actually during the thing.
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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 -
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.
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Tom Wilson had produced jazz records and was a Harvard educated.
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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 -
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.
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The first generation from the ’50s that were in 1650 [Broadway] were pretty much all crooks,
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Finally a breath of fresh words founded in hardcore, intelligent research.
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I liked being challenged by music. It’s good for me.
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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.
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You couldn’t help being influenced by Dylan.
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I don’t care, turn the organ up, and that’s really how I became an organ player.
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Unlike so many Dylan-writer-wannabes and phony ‘encyclopedia’ compilers, Sean Wilentz makes me feel he was in the room when he chronicles events that I participated in.
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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 KOOPER -
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






