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 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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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.
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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.
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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.
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And he was about my age, and he just, that finished off my guitar career, just like that, in one afternoon.
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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.
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You couldn’t help being influenced by Dylan.
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Tom Wilson had produced jazz records and was a Harvard educated.
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Finally a breath of fresh words founded in hardcore, intelligent research.
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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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I think it was Columbia politics, Columbia Records politics that, that, Tom Wilson left [Bob Dylan] after “Like A Rolling Stone”.
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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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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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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 don’t care, turn the organ up, and that’s really how I became an organ player.
AL KOOPER