I was Al\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s drummer in the eighties – early nineties\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 He discovered Jimmy Vivino and me when we were newbies in Phoebe Snow\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s band. Coincidentally, I was living at Lookout Farm at the time (owned by John Simon). That band included just Jimmy Vivino, Harvey Brooks, myself and Al. That same Child is a Father music stripped down and naked. No horns.<\/p>\n
The effect was sublime.<\/p>\n
People would often say the best part of those Bottom Line shows Al’s storytelling – and it’s hard to argue that, but for me, the emotional high point of any Al Kooper show was the twelve hits out of the bridge of More Than You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll Ever Know – with Al pleading, for real, \u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I just gotta hear you say it, yeah yeah yeah.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
That there is the blues!<\/p>\n
Thanks for all your words.<\/p>\n
Love,<\/p>\n
Gary Gold<\/p>\n
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I would have been 14, in January of 1968,. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s when I found an acetate in an issue of a short lived music magazine called EYE, from Al Kooper\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s newest group, Blood Sweat and Tears.<\/p>\n
The mix was sublime \u00e2\u20ac\u201c whoever put that compilation of snippets together was a genius. As I recall, it began and ended with the start and ending of “I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know.” No one hearing that acetate would have been able to resist the lure. I had to have that album. And once I had that album, it rarely left my turntable. In the more than 50 years since, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve worn out several copies of the LP before switching to a CD format, and eventually, an online version.<\/p>\n
I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quit it. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got a hold on me, it won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t set me free \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quit that album. Every song, from the overture to the underture is a gem, bonding me irrevocably to Al Kooper, and exposing me to the wonderful writing of Harry Nillson, Randy Newman, and Tim Buckley. Every song is indelibly etched on my memory, as alive and as effervescent today as it was then. The CD was, quite simply, magic. And I never forgave the band for unceremoniously and surgically deleting the heart and soul from the band and replacing Kooper with Clayton-Thomas as their vocalist. DCT was and is great \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no Al Kooper.<\/p>\n
Roxanne Tellier<\/p>\n
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I brought The Child is Father to the Man to Middlebury second semester senior year, early 1968\u00e2\u20ac\u201calong with the Electric Flag\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first album and Paul Butterfield\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw. They were great records from the first great rock & roll horn bands. All genius. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got to remember that Al Kooper was a soul singer. When I interviewed him in 1970 for Zygote magazine, before my run at Crawdaddy, he told me, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I have a Black soul.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He had a soul singer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s attitude and passion, but an entirely different and personal set of chops. This is a soul song in the Otis Redding\/Wilson Pickett\/Sam & Dave\/Solomon Burke\/Chuck Jackson realm, except Al can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sing it like that. He emotes how he emotes\u00e2\u20ac\u201dpersonal, trebly, Jewish! Glad you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re giving this cut the attention it deserves; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been 55 years and it still gets to me.<\/p>\n
Peter Knobler<\/p>\n
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For some reason I received this post a day or two after receiving the post with everyones\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 reaction to it\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
I saw BS&T at the Mississippi Coliseum in October of 1971 when I was about 14 years old. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d heard all the hits on Top 40 radio but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d never heard a horn section live. Good lord it was amazing. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t remember anything else about the concert. I was simply astounded by the sound of those horns.<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been a fan of the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dchorn bands\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 (Chicago, Ballinjack, Tower of Power, Chase, Cold Blood, etc\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6) ever since.<\/p>\n
We used to play all of \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcem on on WZZQ-FM. I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a safe bet you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t find a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcclassic rock\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 station playing any of them now.<\/p>\n
carry on,
\nBill Fitzhugh<\/p>\n
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Composer, author, educator, musician, sideman, producer, musicologist, storyteller and honorary doctorate. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got it all. Al Kooper is a national treasure and we are fortunate to have him. Thanks for a nice way to enjoy a peaceful Sunday morning with a cup of coffee and a story about one of the greatest songs ever written.<\/p>\n
Bob Anderson<\/p>\n
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I was 14 when our cousin Peter (the actor Peter Riegert) came to visit his California relatives. He told me and my older brother he wanted to buy us a record. He knew Steve Katz from when he was in the Blues Project, and Peter bought us “Child is Father to the Man”. Cliff and I knew Kooper from the Blues Project, because our older sister knew Katz from when she stayed with Peter’s folks. We were a bit disappointed with the album choice, our hearts and ears full of Hendrix et al. Long story short: we adored the album, and it felt like it was our secret, because we \u00c2\u00a0seemed to be the only kids on the West Coast who knew anything about it, like we’d been with the Blues Project. And I still get a charge listening to it, for the nostalgia, yes, but for the excellence mostly. BTW you didn’t mention what I consider to be Kooper’s magnum opus: “The Modern Adventures of Plato, Diogenes, and Freud”. Terrific string arrangement by I assume John Simon.<\/p>\n
“The games that people play can only bore you
\nBut only those who know you don’t ignore you
\nAnd how many times have i come there\u00c2\u00a0to restore you
\nAnd found you lying on the couch
\nwith Father Time
\nAnd the clock on the wall’s a bore
\nWhile you wander past the door
\nAnd find him lying on the floor
\nWhile he begs you for some more
\nYou’ve frozen time” (?)<\/p>\n
Now that’s writing. Might have that last line wrong.<\/p>\n
All the best,<\/p>\n
Berton Averre<\/p>\n
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Folks rightfully remember Al Kooper for an unparalleled career in the music biz but let us not forget that fellow BS&T member (also Blues Project co-founder) Steve Katz literally saved Lou Reed\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s career after the dismal failure of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Berlin\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (only much later recognised as the masterpiece it is) by producing one of the greatest live albums of all time “Rock & Roll Animal.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Although Lou often dismissed his Steve Katz produced album “Sally Can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Dance\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (Lou’s highest US charted album ever) I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m here to tell you that Lou himself took me into the studio to listen to the final mixes of that unfairly derided album (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ennui” is still stunning in my humble opinion) and he was totally enamoured with the results and couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have been happier with the production. Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know why he changed his mind.<\/p>\n
From Paris,
\nElliott Murphy<\/p>\n
PS: Just to be totally transparent I should mention that Steve Katz also produced my third album “Night Lights\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (rated 4**** on All Music Guide) which featured the vastly underrated Velvet Underground member Doug Yule on guitar and vocals as well as Billy Joel on piano. Just saying …<\/p>\n
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As for Kooper’s masterpiece, I bought it new at Karl Graf’s in Lafayette Plaza where I worked in high school. I used to get classmates albums at my employee discount until Lia Vigorito called the store to see if her album came in that I special ordered for her. It was an oddball title that outed my racket and left me out of a job.<\/p>\n
Did you know Karl Graf played clarinet in a band that played for the Big Three in Yalta? Just a bit of Bridgeport musical trivia.<\/p>\n
I used to make regular bus trips downtown when his store was on the corner of Main and Fairfield (where the ‘new’ courthouse is) and Rudy Frank’s, the soul music shop in town, that was just across Main down Fairfield a half block. They had listening rooms! Artists would do in-stores there!<\/p>\n
Lots of musical history in that town.<\/p>\n
Be well,<\/p>\n
Ken Shain<\/p>\n
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For years and years after that album, I believed Melba and Valerie were just about the best of the best backup singers.\u00c2\u00a0 I still hold them in the highest regard.<\/p>\n
And this particular song stuck out to me like it did to you, from listening to the original album when it first came out.<\/p>\n
And Fred Lipsius’s sax solo, I can still hear it in my mind all these years later.<\/p>\n
R. Lowenstein<\/p>\n
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And al kooper produced and arranged the first appaloosa album—what a gem—john parker compton had IT for a wee slice if time—recall seeing him on Sundays at the Cambridge Common (moments before seeing Wild Thing….and boy are they a different story for another time)<\/p>\n
Frank<\/p>\n
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Bob, Thanks for giving this song, and album, perspective and kudos. \u00c2\u00a0Funny thing about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I Love You More Than You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll Ever Know\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. \u00c2\u00a0Just to focus on the lyrics for a moment, Kooper goes for it\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6he’s a blob on the floor at the foot of his lover: Total surrender\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.totally committed to capturing THAT feeling, the vulnerability and magesty that so many of us songwriters have poked at but rarely delivered with out falling into soft or sappy. \u00c2\u00a0As much as I love the singer\/songwriters of that era, there seemed to be a lot of metaphoric waxing on that we as the listening public undinable loved\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.but this is a bullet straight to the heart of that emotion. \u00c2\u00a0Not easy to be so direct, and that is where Kooper’s delivery comes in. \u00c2\u00a0Can’t find many singers better than, or should I say more emotive than the late Donnie Hathaway, but Kooper’s version comes from deep inside. \u00c2\u00a0A true gem. \u00c2\u00a0Thanks again Bob.<\/p>\n
Brad Cole<\/p>\n
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\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Everything but the cape.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Nice.<\/p>\n
Growing up in New England and living in Boston after I graduated college in 1094, I knew Al Kooper to be a Boston legend.<\/p>\n
I ran into him at a comedy club – a Robert Schimmel show. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not one to approach \u00e2\u20ac\u0153stars\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t resist. It was Al F*cking Cooper. No story here – just a bit of hero worship.<\/p>\n
Al used to have a great website\/email, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new music for old people.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That was so damn good.<\/p>\n
Judd Marcello<\/p>\n
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OMG! Your take on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I Love You More Than You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll Ever Know\u00e2\u20ac\u009d brought tears to my eyes. At 3 a.m. on a Sunday morning. Thanks for your great thoughts.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Bob Askey<\/p>\n
Longmont, CO<\/p>\n
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Also a huge fan of Child Is The Father. But this track which I have on a vinyl promo of
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Easy Does It\u00e2\u20ac\u009d still gives me goosebumps. \u00c2\u00a0If I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get Springsteen to sing \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Jungleland\u00e2\u20ac\u009d at my funeral this will have to do. EE<\/p>\n