Producing Bob Dylan was pretty much a spectator sport.
AL KOOPERThe “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.
More Al Kooper Quotes
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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.
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I believe Irving Berlin was there, and uh, and everything just centered around there.
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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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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.
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Mike Bloomfield sat down and started playing, and I went, whoa! Because I had never heard any white person play like that before.
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Every now and then we could steal somebody else’s stuff.
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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 -
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.
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I liked being challenged by music. It’s good for me.
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You couldn’t help being influenced by Dylan.
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I started in the music business I was first introduced to 1650 Broadway, uh, which was in reality where everything happened in the ’60s.
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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.
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Finally a breath of fresh words founded in hardcore, intelligent research.
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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.
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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