Producing Bob Dylan was pretty much a spectator sport.
AL KOOPERIn the, uh, ’30s and ’40s, the Brill Building was the hub of, uh, musical activity in Tin Pan Alley in New York City.
More Al Kooper Quotes
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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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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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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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I believe Irving Berlin was there, and uh, and everything just centered around there.
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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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I don’t care, turn the organ up, and that’s really how I became an organ player.
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Musically Bob [Dylan] is a primitive. He’s not a Gershwin, or somebody that uses eloquent music terms.
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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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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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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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You couldn’t help being influenced by Dylan.
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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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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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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