Al Kooper: Mr. Music

By Harvey Kubernik

Sony BMG Legacy Records has just released Al Kooper 50/50, 50 songs selected for digital download which underscore the musician's influential half-century career as musician, songwriter, sideman, producer, performer, talent scout, music supervisor, and author.    

In addition to his assignments as "house hippie" producer at Columbia Records in the late 1960s and very early'70s, and roles as a prolific songwriter and in-demand session musician, Kooper also carved out a catalog of six unique solo LP's under his own name: I Stand Alone, You Never Know Who Your Friends Are, Easy Does It, New York City (You're A Woman), A Possible Projection Of The Future/Childhood's End, and Naked Songs.

Those six albums provide the lion's share of Al Kooper-50/50, songs commemorating his years (or so) as a working musician -- every title personally chosen by him, of course. In February 2009, the fifty songs were made available at digital retail only.    

Along with the songs from those six original core albums, 50/50 displays tracks from Kooper Session, (on which he introduced 15-year old Shuggie Otis to the pop audience); Championship Wrestling, (his one studio LP return to Columbia in 1982); and one track that was originally unreleased when it first appeared on the 2001 double-CD anthology, Rare & Well Done.

Visitors are encouraged to visit the always illuminating website www.alkooper.com, -- every word of which is written in the first-person by Kooper

There, Kooper discusses all his solo albums in revealing detail. He refers to You Never Know Who Your Friends Are, his second solo LP, as "one of my favorite albums and arrangement-wise, it's probably song-for-song, my best batch." 50/50 integrates five of the album's 12 tunes, including three original Kooper compositions "Magic In My Socks" ("a narrative of a man talking to his penis," Al writes, "pretty much inspired by reading too much Henry Miller"); "Lucille" ("a tribute to Brian Wilson and the Four Seasons. The verses are like the Beach Boys and the choruses are like the Seasons"); and "I'm Never Gonna Let You Down" (which he wrote for Dusty Springfield, "she didn't record it however--that would've been nice, pity...").

The 50/50 disc also features two cover versions that were recorded for "You Never Know Who Your Friends Are," specifically Harry Nilsson's "Mourning Glory Story," and Stevie Wonder's Motown classic, "I Don't Know Why I Love You."

Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1944, and raised in Queens, Al Kooper's musical and recording career is now over 50 years. Starting from playing with the Royal Teens of "Short Shorts" fame in 1958 to 2009's offering of Al Kooper-50/50.

During Kooper's career his songs were covered by Pat Boone, Bobby Vee, Keely Smith, Roger McGuinn, Rufus, Gene Pitney, Tommy Sands, Freddie Canon, the Modern Folk Quartet, Eddie Hodges, Donny Hathaway, Betty Wright, The Staple Singers, Ten Years After, Carmen MacRae and crafting such memorable tunes as "I Must be Seeing Things" for Gene Pitney. Al is one of the co-writers of Gary Lewis and the Playboys' "This Diamond Ring."

From "This Diamond Ring" to his role in the Blues Project, founding (and losing) Blood, Sweat & Tears, working as a Columbia A&R staff producer, dreaming up the Super Session and Live Adventures concepts, Al Kooper has informed a plethora of albums and tracks by everyone from Judy Collins and Joan Baez, to Phil Ochs and Peter, Paul & Mary, Tom Rush and Eric Andersen, Simon & Garfunkel's "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme," "The Who Sell Out," the Jimi Hendrix Experience's "Electric Ladyland," the Rolling Stones' "Let It Bleed," Taj Mahal's "Natch'l Blues," B.B. King's "Live And Well," and many more.

1968's Super Session, starring Al Kooper and guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills, was purely Al's brainchild, a solid commercial Gold Record success that was followed in early 1969 by the jarring double-LP The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield & Al Kooper, recorded at the Fillmore West. A few years ago the Columbia/Legacy label re-released these two albums of inspired collaboration. 

His Columbia Records tenure was during the label's "Golden Age" -- he was surrounded by (and learned from) John Hammond, Tom Wilson, Wally Gold, Charlie Calello, Roy Halee, John Simon, David Rubinson, Gamble & Huff, and other top producers, arrangers and engineers.

As a producer Kooper was behind the boards on albums from Don Ellis, his discovery, Lynyrd Skynyrd, B.B. King, and Rick Nelson. His production credits throughout the '70s and early '80s includealbums by the Tubes, Nils Lofgren, Marshall Chapman, Joe Ely, Lenny White, Eddie & the Hot Rods, Johnny Van Zant (his first two albums), and David Essex.

As an A&R man and label owner in the 1970s he discovered and signed Lynyrd Skynyrd to his Sounds of the South label and produced their first three albums: In 1983 he was the West Coast Head of A&R for Polygram Records.   

Other impressive credits find him as the musical director for Ray Charles' 50th anniversary cable television special, Michael Mann's TV series Crime Story showcased his soundtrack work, and he did the film score to Hal Ashby's debut film, The Landlord.

In 1989 Kooper consciously decided to quit the music business and moved to Nashville, Tennessee. In 1991 he played on Trisha Yearwood's debut album.

In the late 1990's Kooper took his massive record collection (and himself) to Boston, MA. realizing another longtime dream by joining the teaching staff at the acclaimed Berklee College of Music. For four years Al taught courses at the school in the areas of vocal recording, songwriting and the history of record production. In 1999 he started the Berklee Charity "It Can Happen" Fund for Handicapped Students. In 2003 Kooper did some touring, including a trek in Japan that was extremely well-received.  

In 2005, Al Kooper released his first true solo album in 30 years, Black Coffee on guitarist Steve Vai's Favored Nations Entertainment record label. The liner notes to Black Coffee were penned by sound and print pioneer Andrew Loog Oldham, former manager/producer/publicist/publisher of the Rolling Stones, and author of his autobiographies Stoned and 2Stoned.

In 2008, Back Beat/Hal Leonard Books re-published Kooper's terrific own autobiography, Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards in a revised paperback edition.

I talked to Al Kooper  in a couple of interviews about Blood, Sweat & Tears, Michael Bloomfield, Bob Dylan's Highway 61, Blonde On Blonde and New Morning recording sessions, producer Tom Wilson, keyboardist Paul Griffin, bandleader Maynard Ferguson's role in the BS&T birth, his book, Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards, song sampling, a monumental Brooklyn Paramount late ‘50's rock and roll show he witnessed, director Hal Ashby, and the Who. 


Q: On the album Rare & Well Done: The Greatest And Rarest Of Al Kooper and on some of your recording catalogue (and now documented on "Al Kooper-50/50") the influence of bandleader/trumpeter Maynard Ferguson is obvious. As a teenager you saw his band many, many times. Even then did you get the idea or concept of putting brass instruments to rock and roll that gave us Blood, Sweat & Tears? We've just passed the 40th anniversary of the debut LP.

A: Yeah. That was an immediate transference. I just said, ‘man, would I love to have a band that could, and I remember the exact words, put dents in your shirt from 15 yards.' They just blew...It was just the most amazing thing I ever saw. It wasn't like Count Basie or Duke Ellington. It was like modern...almost rock ‘n' roll. It was fantastic. It was an incredible experience. I was sort of like a groupie. I knew some of the guys in the band and they treated me nicely. I was only about 15 and it was just fantastic. I turned 20 when it was over and Maynard left the country. So I spent from 1959 to 1964 really every time they were in the area of New York I went to the gig. I hung out. I was friends with the drummer. People were nice to me. In New York in those years Birdland was a big deal, and one of the great things about Birdland was the best seats in the place were for underage people. They were just to the left side of the stage. And they were the best seats in the house. So, you had to be 18 to drink, but somehow, probably because the mob owned it, you could go in anytime. They let underage people in which was fantastic anyway, just in principal. But not only could you come in but you had the best seats in the place. So, that was not wasted on me.

Q: You met bass player Jim Fielder at the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival, who was playing with Buffalo Springfield at that event and invited him to be in Blood, Sweat & Tears.

A: He had played with The Mothers Of Invention. I had seen him with The Mothers Of Invention, and also with Tim Buckley.  He had done other things besides Buffalo Springfield. He'd been around. I had seen him in those capacities and that's where I zeroed in on him, not really the Springfield.

Q: What did you learn from John Simon as a producer who did the debut BS&T LP? 

A: In answer to that question, I would honestly have to say everything. I learned how to be a record producer. I mean, if I go in to produce a record it's really based on what I learned on those sessions from him.

Q: But I know you were active in the music world from 1958-1968 before John Simon, who produced Bookends for Simon & Garfunkel.

A: I know, but he just had it all together. He was perfect. He just couldn't have been better.

Q: Don't break my bubble. Did you pick the Randy Newman tune ("Just One Smile"), and ("Without Her") by Harry Nilsson?

A: I picked all the songs.

Q: Isn't that part of producing?

A: It's not really part of producing. Here's the definition of producing that works for me. It's to the artist in any area where he's deficient in getting his thing across to the public in the studio. That's the definition for me. So, somebody comes in, and gives you a collection of songs that are really terrific, as far as you're concerned, and you have to pick from a bunch of songs and so you pick the ones that they're gonna use. But if they are a nice bunch of songs, it's good. And then, maybe they need some help with the arrangements. Or, here's another scenario. They come in with a great batch of songs, just enough for the album, the arrangements are incredible, the singing is fantastic, you have to know to shut up and make it a spectator sport. So, it goes both ways. John Simon contributed whatever was necessary to make that work. And I was by no means ready to make that album by myself.

Q: Did you ever sing that well before that album?

A: I'm really not happy with the vocals. The singing at that point in my career was my weakest card and it hurts me to hear my singing until about maybe five years ago. It's tough for me. I'm very self-critical. I have found now that there is so much time, it takes me 10 to 15 years to listen to an album again after I'm done with the initial work and all that. So that's another thing.

Q: I got to hear Donny Hathaway covering your "I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know," and your original is contained in "Rare and Well Done." Talk to me about the genesis of the tune from the writing, to the demo, and how that specific song came together?

A: I pretty much wrote it about my second wife who I was married to at the time. I wrote it in my apartment on Waverly Place on a piano. It was musically influenced by the song  "It's Man's World" by James Brown. And lyrically  it was inspired by the song "I Love You More Than Words Can Say" by Otis Redding. So it's kind of an amalgam of those two songs, neither of which I had the nerve to sing, so I had to write my own.     

Q: How did the Donny Hathaway cover happen?

A: I'll tell you. It's a great story. Jerry Wexler called me out of the blue, "Al I just wanted to tell you I'm recording your song with Donny Hathaway. That Blood, Sweat & Tears song." "Which one?" He said, "'Somethin' Goin' On.'" I said, "Gee Jerry, that's great Jerry, I'm a huge fan of Donny's. That's fantastic."  But I said, "I think you picked the wrong song." He said, "what do you mean? Donny loves it." I said "you need to go back to that record and listen to ‘I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know.'" "I don't know Al..." "Just go ahead and do it." He called me back about two weeks later. "Al you were right. We're gonna do that." I said, "you wouldn't do both would ya?" He said, "Shut up, Al." (laughs). The story is not over. "I'll send you a cassette when it's done." "Thank you Jerry, and thanks for listening to me."

So, about two months later a cassette comes. Now, when I wrote that song there was one line in it that I never sang until the recording session, for a number of reasons. One of which is I just prayed someday a black person would sing it and that the line would mean so much more, which was "I could be President of General Motors." It didn't really make as much sense for a white person to sing that because a white person could be President of General Motors. So I get the thing, and I've waited all this time, like six years or something, for a black person to sing this song so I could hear this line sung by a black person. And I'm listening to the record, and he's killing it, he's just doing a fantastic job, and changed a lot of things in it. He changed the melody, he changed the chords, but it's killing me. I'm  liking it.  And then it comes to that line and they change the fuckin' words, to like a really lame line, too. "I could be king of everything." So, I stop the tape and I call Jerry Wexler and I'm fuckin' furious.

And I say "Jerry Wexler please." "Who is calling?" "Al Kooper." "Hey Al. Did you get that cassette I sent you?" "I said yeah. Why did you change the words to the song?" "What are you talking about?" I said, "I could be President of General Motors." He said, "Al, a black person could never be President of General Motors." I said, "you're such a fuckin' asshole." And I hung up and I didn't talk to him for 25 years.

Q: "I Can't Quit Her." Initially, I saw your name on the credits and connected it with the "This Diamond Ring" guy. A couple of questions: Did you always have such a hard percussive piano style, and maybe traced to the fact that you played guitar too?

A: No. I was just really a heavy-handed piano player. That's what it was.

Q: Where did you write the tune? 

A: I wrote it in Hollywood at the 9000 Building on Sunset Blvd. in a songwriting office. And I remember I stopped in the middle when I was writing the bridge because I came up with the thing "proselytized," and I didn't know what it meant so I had to go find a dictionary in the building and looked it up and it meant exactly what I wanted it to mean. It was serendipitous.

Q: And one of your co-writers on "This Diamond Ring," Irwin Levine, you also co-wrote "I Can't Quit Her" with. 

A: That started as a girl group song, "I Can't Quit Him." "I Can't Quit Him. No No No..." And then it went in to something else that had nothing to do with that. So I wrote a new song that really just had the melody of the title, "I Can't Quit Her," which is from "I Can't Quit Him," and so I gave him 25 per cent of the song for that. Although he was not there when I wrote it. So that was a moral generosity on my part. I could have just done that and  I don't think there would have been any repercussions. I could have like taken it 100 percent but I felt guilty. So I didn't do that.  

Q: "My Days Are Numbered" is another favorite song on the first BS&T LP. Lovely tune.

A: Well you know, there's a really good cover of it on my solo album "Soul Of A Man." Actually, I even like it better than the original. It's a live version from The Bottom Line in New York.

Q: Did you originally bring it in as a demo and do it with BS&T?

A: These songs were all, with the exception of "The Modern Adventures of Plato, Diogenes, and Freud" which I wrote during the session, all these songs were written and they were the reason why I formed the band because I had this group of songs that needed horns.           

Q: And the inclusion of other songs by Randy Newman, Harry Nilsson and Tim Buckley.

A: Well, first of all, Randy Newman and I wrote for the same publisher, January Music, and I played on a version of "Just One Smile" (Gene Pitney), and so I knew the song very well. And I knew all of Randy's songs by the demos I'd get up at the publisher. I knew Randy Newman way before you did, or anybody did. And I never met him but the demos were so wacky, it was just compelling, because his voice was so strange, and the whole conception was so strange. I just was really floored by it. So, I always wanted to do that song. So that was my chance.

Q: "Without Her" from Harry Nilsson?

A: At the time that we did the album that was my obsessive song, "Without Her." His version. I played it all the time. I could not get sick of it. It was incredible. And I wanted to record it and so I had to write another arrangement because, you know, ‘cause his was fantastic. So I made it into a bossa nova.

Q: And what about "Morning Glory" from Tim Buckley?

A: That was just a question of finding a song for (guitarist) Steve (Katz) to sing, so I suggested that to Steve and he bought it.

Q: Super Session is one of my favorite albums, and on Rare and Well Done you include "Albert's Shuffle" and "Season Of The Witch" from it. It's a chance to show your musical relationship with Michael Bloomfield, and you also include a 1984 song, "They Don't Make ‘Em Like That Anymore" about your friendship with Bloomfield. Super Session reached number 11 in Billboard, and I know a lot of musicians learned plenty from that album.

A: Well, Michael and I met on the "Like A Rolling Stone" session.  I had read about him in ‘Sing Out' Magazine, and saw a picture of him where he looked a little more rotound  than he was when I met him. His brother says he was a fat kid growing up. So we met on the "Like A Rolling Stone" session and really hit it off. So we played together on that.

Q: He blew your mind, didn't he?

A: Oh, absolutely! I was supposed to play guitar on that record. I packed up my guitar when I heard him warming up. It never occurred to me that somebody my age, and my religion could play the guitar like that. That was only reserved for other people. It never even occurred to me that that was an option for someone my age and my color. I had never seen that, or heard that up to that day.

Q: And you brought bass player Harvey Brooks in to that session as well.

A: That's right. So, that pretty much ended my guitar playing by and large.  I said, ‘well OK, he's as old as me and he can play like that. I'm never gonna be able to play like that. Thank you, goodbye.' And, you know, I ended up playing organ on that record, and then I became a keyboard player really that day. So, it was a damn good thing because, you know, that was competition I couldn't deal with.

But anyway, we played together on that session, and the rest of the (Highway 61) album. Then, I joined The Blues Project, he was in Paul Butterfield's band. Two blues bands. And we both left the blues bands to start horn bands, which we were both kicked out of again. The horn bands that we started.  Very amazing parallel in our careers. Starting from the day that we met. So it seemed to me, in hindsight, looking at that, when I started producing at CBS, that we should make a record together. We were like destined to do something together. Now this whole time we had been friends since we met. I'd go visit him when I was in his town.

Q: And you saw him play with Butterfield many times and was knocked out.

A: Yeah! He ended my guitar playing I'm tellin' ya. Both of us had just played on that "Grape Jam" album. So that sort of gave me the inspiration to say, "why don't we make a record." I wanted to make a record with Bloomfield, and I wanted to make a record that was a very simple, basic record, not a "weighty" record. So inspired by the "Grape Jam" thing, I said ‘let's make a rock ‘n' roll record based on the way jazz records are made. You pick a leader, or two leaders, and then you just go in, you pick some songs, you pick sidemen, and you just blow. No rehearsing or anything. You just go in and blow. So I said ‘I don't want to make a jazz record.' And I was very dissatisfied with the way he was recorded up to that point.

Q: This was one guy who was way better in person as opposed to a record. You didn't think he was recorded right?

A: When I say right, I mean that his live playing was like 300 times better than performance on a record to that point. In my opinion. So, what I wanted to do was put him in a situation where he was uncluttered by his career, and uncluttered by his situation in the recording studio, which must have inhibited him. So I made it as uncomplicated as possible for him. Because that was the goal of the sessions for me, was to get amazing playing out of him like I heard him do on stage. And I felt really vindicated that I had done that. And that's what I wanted. I did what I set out to do. And, the other thing was, we both had been kicked out of the bands, and then Stills, too. He was out of his band (Buffalo Springfield). So Stills fit in, in a really weird way.  Because none of us had anything at stake, and that was the whole point of that record. There was no career thing goin' on. We just did it because we played music. That's what's so wonderful about that. Super Session wasn't made to sell records. It was just made like those jazz records were made for Blue Note, except it wasn't "Blue Note" kind of music. It was more music that we were in to. "Albert's Shuffle" is sort of the hit of that side, as time has passed. Although, the song was used twice in the film "Sneakers," by Robert Redford. That floored me.

Q: Did Super Session creep on to FM radio or explode on the free form format in the 1969?

A: Well, see, I had no expectations for that record. I mean just none whatsoever. I just did it because I had a job as a producer and I had no one to produce, and I went in because I thought Michael and I should make a record together, because how our careers were parallel. And also because we were friends, and it would be fun to work together. Michael brought Eddie Hoh (drummer) in, and I brought Harvey in (bass). I said, "you pick the drummer, I'll pick the bass player." Again, sort of like a Blue Note concept.

Q: I dig the Live Adventures album you cut with Bloomfield and some other cats at The Fillmore West, now on CD that came out around 1969.  A loose jam scene and I was knocked out by "Mary Ann," a Ray Charles song, and Bloomfield is riveting on "Don't Throw Your Love On Me So Strong."

A: Well, you know, that was a weird record. We sort of did that because people gave us some shit about the confines of the studio, and it was slick, this kind of thing. So I said, "let's go down and dirty and play a gig and record it live. Nobody is gonna yell studio at us for that." So that's what we did. And it actually was a little too down and dirty (laughs).

Q: You wrote the segment on Bob Dylan for the Encyclopedia Britannica and an Al Kooper hologram appeared on the Bob Dylan CD-ROM, Highway 61 Interactive, which details how you two met and contains several takes of "Like A Rolling Stone."

I wanted to ask you about producer Tom Wilson. I'm a big fan of his work from Dylan to The Mothers Of Invention, The Animals. I know he was a mentor to you and a friend, and even before he invited you to that Dylan "Like A Rolling Stone" session, he had produced some covers of tunes you had written for people like The Mad Lads and Freda Payne. He's in Don't Look Back. 

A: Wonderful guy.

Q: I think he gets overlooked in history.

A: Yep, so does John Simon, by the way. Tom earlier worked for Savoy Records. He was a very bright guy. He was a very high class guy. Now he was definitely a black man, but he was a very well educated black man, but he didn't lose his black thing, like some black people do when they get well educated. He was still you know, a soulful and funny guy. And that's him laughing on Bob Dylan's "115th Dream," where it breaks down. That's his laugh. That fit of laughing. That's not Dylan. That's Tom Wilson laughing. He was like ‘what's happening man?' That kind of guy.

Q: On that "Like A Rolling Stone" date, was there a reason why you "played behind the runner" on the track? The organ follows the Dylan vocal.

A: No I did that because I was waiting to see what chord they were going to do. There was no music or lead sheet, or anything. I was just playing by ear and I didn't want to be the one making a mistake because I was doin' like a rebel run there.

But you knew Tom was bright and he talked about very erudite things, and he really saved my life that day on that Dylan "Like A Rolling Stone" session. Because, he could have...I went to him and said, "Man, let me play the organ." They had just moved Paul Griffin from the organ to the piano. And I went over to Tom Wilson, and I was invited just to watch, you know, and I said, "Man, why don't you let me play the organ, I got a great part for this." Which was bullshit. I had nothing. And he said, "Man...You're not an organ player..." And then they came to him and said, "phone call for you Tom." And he just went and got the phone. And I went in to the studio and sat down at the organ. He didn't say no. He just said I wasn't an organ player. OK. On the Highway 61 Interactive CD put out a few years ago, they have the multiple takes of "Like A Rolling Stone," and on there you can hear Tom Wilson, "OK. This is take 7. Hey! What are you doing in there?" Then you hear me laughing, and that was the moment he could have just thrown me out and rightfully so. And you know what? He didn't. And that was it. That was the beginning of my career. Right then and there. That studio dialog is documented. Wilson is the guy who invited me to the session first of all, which is really nice. You didn't get invited to Bob Dylan sessions, you know, especially if you were a nobody like I was. And there it was. There was the chance he had to toss me, and it would have reflected back on him because he had invited me to the session.

Q: I know you used to nick Dylan acetates out of his office.

A: I did. I was a bad boy. Tom was sort of a spectator sport producer. He didn't do all that much. He'd put you in the studio and got the job done. He didn't interfere in anything. At least when I worked with him.

Q: You played organ on Bob Dylan's Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde albums alongside the legendary pianist Paul Griffin, who is also on Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home LP. I know the producer Tom Wilson first brought Griffin into the Dylan recording sessions. Griffin was a real sound pioneer as well for his keyboard work on those great arrangements on the Garnet Mims' records. I know Griffin was once married to Valerie Simpson who sang on your Blood, Sweat & Tears' Child Is Father To The Man album. You later brought in Griffin for the studio band on your score to Hal Ashby's movie The Landlord. Griffin was also a big influence on Steely Dan's Donald Fagen. 

A: Oh...man...A big influence on me as well! Paul came from the Baptist church. On Highway 61 we did the tracks to "Tombstone Blues" and "Queen Jane Approximately" in one day. The best thing I can say about Paul Griffin is take five minutes out of your busy day and get a time where you have nothing to bother you at all. Find a real nice stereo system and sit back and put on "One Of Us Must Know" from Blonde on Blonde. And just listen to the piano. And tell me if you can find on a rock ‘n' roll record anybody playing better than that. And I would really like to hear what your decision is. To me it is the greatest piano achievement in the history of rock ‘n' roll.

I don't hear anything than him playing the piano when I hear that record. And I'm thrilled that I'm playing organ but I'm embarrassed. And I think that Dylan should be embarrassed too. ‘Cause Paul just steals that fuckin' record. It's the most incredible piano playing I've heard in my life. If you're a piano player try playing that note for note. It's just incredible. Griffin also played on those Chuck Jackson records like "Any Day Now."

Q: Why does the Blonde on Blonde album hold up so well?

A: There's a few reasons. The main reason is the chemistry of the participants. That's the main reason. And the other reason would be the songwriting. I think the combination of those two things could make if they were as wonderful as those two were on that record it could make any record last a long time. The credit has to go to (producer) Bob Johnston. It was his idea. He had tried to get Dylan to record in Nashville in late 1965. He knew about the chemistry. And I also think he felt more comfortable there because he lived there. And he knew all the musicians intimately.   

Q: I've always felt you played a major role in the development, let alone the arrangements on the album. Dylan would teach you the songs before the sessions and then you would play the songs over and over back to him while he write the lyrics. Then, you would go to the studio early and teach the material to the band on the date.

A: That's correct.

Q: You once described your role in the translation of Dylan's songs to you "like a cassette machine." Yet, in a way, you were the messenger or a filter of the songs brought to a bunch of strangers who would then play and perform the songs with your arrangements.

A: Actually, I think of myself as the music director of that album. ‘Cause that's what I did.

Q: Could you have asked or lobbied for some co-writes on any of those songs at the time?

A: No. I'm not like that. I wrote a piece about it once. Here's what it boils down to: If you take a song and distill it down to its basics, it's a melody and chord changes and lyrics. Those things. That's what the song is. And I think you can display the song with the chord changes, the melody and the lyric and that's it. If you take everything else out of it then everything else is not the song.. Now, if you hire somebody to arrange it, and they do an incredible job, what the fuck did you hire them for? Why did you hire them? Because they were the best arranger in your mind for the song that you wrote, or the guy that you are producing. And, why did you hire that bass player? The same thing. He's a studio bass player who will come in and give you the best that he can, or you're gonna write it out for him, or make it up. What the fuck is the difference? If you distill the song down to the chords, the melody and the lyric then everything else is extra. And they can't come in later and say ‘I deserve a piece of the song"  

Q: Let's talk about Blonde On Blonde. Had your own organ work changed, or improved from the time of Highway 61 to Blonde On Blonde? You were hired this time.

A: I had the benefit of whatever time differences there was between those records of being a better player. So that was helpful. I knew how to operate the machine a little better, the Hammond organ. And then I ran in to a methodology thing. Because in New York, I was raised, all the sessions I played on and everything, it was three songs in three hours. I had never seen what they did in Nashville. They just hired the musicians and they were booked until we were done that day, or night, or whenever it was. They didn't have any other distractions, there were no breaks, just whatever it was and I had never worked like that in the studio, but it was a big eye opener for me. During the day, Bob had a piano in his room and I would go up to his room and he would teach me the song and because there were no cassette machines in those days, I would play the song over and over for him and he would write the lyrics.    

Q: Were you astounded by the lyrical content of what you were hearing?

A: (laughs). I was astounded by everything. (laughs). I was astounded by the musicians. I mean, astounded by the musicians. Do you know at one point in "You Go Your Way," Dylan refused to overdub things. He just wanted to play it live right there, and forget about the fact that you could overdub. OK. I said to Bob, "horns would be really nice on this." (imitates marching horn line). And he said, "well...There's no horns here." So Charlie McCoy says, "I play trumpet." So Bob said, "I don't want to overdub anything." So Charlie said. "I can play the bass and the trumpet at the same time." And Bob and I looked at each other, and Bob was laughing, and Charlie said, "no really, I can." He played the bass and the trumpet at the same time. Bob stopped singing, and I stopped playing, our jaws hit the floor. We were so floored by it. Bob was so floored by it he let it go.

Q: And you subsequently used some of those players on your solo albums later.

A: Yes. I was blown away by the whole thing.  Just the concept of "hey, we can spend more than one hour on a song." This is great. This is gonna sound so much better than Highway 61. The other thing was, by then, we were friends. We had spent a lot of time together. Off hour time together. Just sitting around bars and shit like that. Going to the movies and all this kind of stuff, so it was a much more comfortable situation and Robbie (Robertson) came too. Robbie and I split a room together. So Bob brought Robbie and me for his comfort level, rather than just go in there cold. You know what I mean?       

Q: At the time, do you know you were recording some potent songs with a long shelf life? Did you know his material would make impact and go in to another century?

A: I learned it after I did Highway 61. So that one time during Blonde On Blonde I started thinking, "you know, where ever my hands moves next it's gonna be around for all time." I started thinking like that and I said to myself, "will you please shut up and just do what you do." It can completely freak you out if you thought like that. And I had that thought for one second, and then I said, "I really can't think like this and do this job." So, yeah, but not on Highway 61, but on Blonde On Blonde I did have that thought.

Q: On your 2001 retrospective collection Rare & Well Done CD set, you put in a cover of Dylan's "Went To See The Gypsy."  It's from the time where you were heavily involved in recording and producing his New Morning LP in 1970. And the backing track was actually recorded for New Morning.

A: Right. When we were doing New Morning he (Dylan) had this version with George Harrison that he brought in from some sessions that didn't get used for anything. So I listened to it and said, "I have a real good arrangement idea for this" I said to him. "Is it OK if I go in and cut a track, and see if we can cut your vocal over it." He said, "you wanna do that now?" I said, "No, no. I'll do it on my own time. I won't bother you with it." "OK, that's fine." So I went and cut that tracks with Stu Woods (bass) and Rick Marotta (drums), who were my live band at the time. And I fixed it all up, and put a reference vocal on it and I played it for Dylan, and then I kind of forced him in to going in there to sing it. He said, "well, I don't know." I said, "try it. Sing it and see what it sounds like." He went in there and did a vocal but wasn't really into it, you know. So he came back out and said, "it doesn't feel right to me." I said, "OK. But do you mind if I just keep this for myself? Put it on one of my albums or something?" He said, "fine, but let me just erase my vocal." I said "OK," and he did that. And there it was. And it's been there all this time just laying there.

Q: The New Morning album session. You're all over those sessions.

A: Well, they started out with Bob Johnston producing, and then one day he just stopped showing up. And I just sort of took over, ‘cause from Blonde On Blonde I was like music director. I would go in before he would come to the session and teach the stuff to the band with arrangement ideas I would have.  And, we were friends by the time of New Morning. So I just kind of stepped in to that role the same way that I stepped in to playing the organ on that thing. And that's how it was. The two of us dealing with that album.

Q: I know your book further details the album process, and it seems to me you got very stressed out after the New Morning sessions with Dylan. 

A: Oh, it was tough, because he changed him mind all the time. Finally I just walked away and said, "when you figure out what you want to do, go ahead and do it."

Q: Had Dylan changed drastically from the person you had first me in 1965?

A: Oh sure.

Q: What about in the studio.

A: Not that much. Not that much. The person himself had changed. I think the dividing line was the time he took off after the alleged motorcycle accident. That's where he changed. But it wasn't in the public eye. He didn't do it in the public eye, but in the privacy in his own home.