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 KOOPERI 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.
More Al Kooper Quotes
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Finally a breath of fresh words founded in hardcore, intelligent research.
AL KOOPER -
Tom Wilson had produced jazz records and was a Harvard educated.
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 -
And he was about my age, and he just, that finished off my guitar career, just like that, in one afternoon.
AL KOOPER -
The first generation from the ’50s that were in 1650 [Broadway] were pretty much all crooks,
AL KOOPER -
Mike Bloomfield sat down and started playing, and I went, whoa! Because I had never heard any white person play like that before.
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 -
I think it was Columbia politics, Columbia Records politics that, that, Tom Wilson left [Bob Dylan] after “Like A Rolling Stone”.
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 -
Musically Bob [Dylan] is a primitive. He’s not a Gershwin, or somebody that uses eloquent music terms.
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 -
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 -
You couldn’t help being influenced by Dylan.
AL KOOPER -
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.
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