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 KOOPERBob 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.
More Al Kooper Quotes
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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 -
I believe Irving Berlin was there, and uh, and everything just centered around there.
AL KOOPER -
I liked being challenged by music. It’s good for me.
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 -
Producing Bob Dylan was pretty much a spectator sport.
AL KOOPER -
Finally a breath of fresh words founded in hardcore, intelligent research.
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 -
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 -
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 -
You couldn’t help being influenced by Dylan.
AL KOOPER -
Every now and then we could steal somebody else’s stuff.
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 -
Tom Wilson had produced jazz records and was a Harvard educated.
AL KOOPER -
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 -
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