Entertainment For Lively Minds
Al Kooper in the Word Backstage podcast
Posted by David Hepworth on 9 June 2009 - 6:47am.
Al Kooper, the man who played organ on "Like A Rolling Stone", discovered Lynyrd Skynyrd and has worked with nearly everyone worth knowing in rock and roll, is featured in the new issue.
This interview, in which he talks about being a teenage songwriter, his time with Dylan, putting together Blood, Sweat and Tears, discovering Lynyrd Skynyrd, the difficulty of holding a marriage together in the music business and the even greater problem of getting paid, is available as one of our Backstage Podcasts.
A new version of his memoirs, "Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards", is out now.
You can subscribe, for free, via the XML feed or at iTunes or stream the Kooper podcast below.
Good one
I always liked Kooper's assertion that Dylan was booed at Newport because of the brevity of his set. Makes sense. I probably would have booed in those circumstances.
Check out The Other Side of the Mirror DVD
Rumours of booing seem to be greatly exaggerated...!
Oh, believe me
I've heard and seen enough recordings of that concert already!
Fascinating Podcast
As a raconteur, he's no Peter Ustinov is he? And yet, despite his leaden delivery & apparent absence of anything resembling a sense of humour, listening to him was strangely compelling. I bet he's a riot at dinner parties.
Good work, Mr.H....
... enjoyed listening to, the not quite financially savvy, Mr. Kooper.
Big Al
great interview, I found it really interesting, agree not much of a sense of humour but didn't occur to me listening. Now feel like reading the book not to mention checking out his music again
"Tell me again about the time those nasty men stole...
all your money, Grandaddy!"
"Well sure, son... a long time ago when I was working on 'Freebird'..."
Sound of snoozing child goes unnoticed by Kooper as diatribe continues for several minutes...
Al kooper is Mitch
Couldn't find a clip of him speaking but it was un canny and very funny. I'm afraid at the 3rd "and then they took all my money" I actually burts out laughing on the train.
Even though Kooper..
..has finally debunked the myths about Newport, and Pete Seeger's Axe, I'm sure that they'll both be trotted out the next time Mojo covers it.
although Anthony Beevor
on the radio the other day was saying he always weighs veterans memories recounted 40/70 years after the event against contemporary written accounts prefering the later. Not saying AL made it up any less then the tellers of the other stories did but the story he's tellng today will have evolved.
also all this business about being ripped off
when he produced Free Bird he was 30 not some wet behind the ears 16 fresh from the sticks, by his own estimation he'd been in the music industry for 16 years.
I'm sure he struck some bad deals but come on as Camus said "Alas, after a certain age every man is responsible for his face. "
I do apologize, I feel awful
but I did actually nod off listening to this - a Podcast first for me. Considering his wonderful experiences he made it all seem so incredibly dull. Also, considering his claims that he was never into music for the money he does seem awfully bitter that he never made any!
I know how you feel
In fact I am listening as I write and the silences coming from David H in between questions make me wonder if he is also miles away... I was disappointed that DH didn't ask him if there was a story around the "turn it up" at the beginning of Sweet Home Alabama.
Surely
if he were staff producer then, toughity-tough, he was paid regardless of outcome or "royalty". For every Skynyrd he probably produced a few klunkers that never saw the light of day. You can't have it both ways....
Aw, come on - the guy's a legend.
He's getting on, he's nearly blind, time and events may have dimmed him, he may feel a little bitter about being involved in some of rock's seminal moments and not winding up rich...
But which one of us would deny that he is an essential, quintessential, part of some of the greatest music ever made
Thin wild mercury is what I say
On 4th marriage
Isn't that why he's not rich?
Fascinating stuff.
Must admit, he'd completely passed me by, but I found it fascinating.
Not dull in any way. This ain't supposed to be the Jonathan Ross show.
No..
..otherwise David would have boasted how he shagged Al's daughter.,
or just snogged him like
woss did for no reason to Take That recently.