Actually, we never made it to dinner.\u00c2\u00a0 Al had to reprogram his keyboard and ate up too much of the appointed time.\u00c2\u00a0 So, we sat in the dressing room and ate catering.\u00c2\u00a0 At least I did.\u00c2\u00a0 A sandwich of salami and cheese on rye bread.\u00c2\u00a0 Did the trick.<\/p>\n
Anyway, I showed up at McCabe’s on schedule but they were guarding the door like an Iraqi prison.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, if THESE guys had watched the gate nobody would have escaped.\u00c2\u00a0 They needed a password.\u00c2\u00a0 I thought of saying "swordfish" but I just told them to tell Al "Bob" was here.\u00c2\u00a0 They gave me a look like I was an ingrate, but a couple of minutes later the door opened wide.\u00c2\u00a0 Later I was told they couldn’t believe I didn’t employ a last name.\u00c2\u00a0 But, with a last name like mine, that demands spelling, I let it go.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean when you’re expected, your first name is enough.<\/p>\n
And I walked into the performance space and Al was sitting on stage fiddling with his Korg.\u00c2\u00a0 Interacting with the sound man.\u00c2\u00a0 Then he started playing "I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know".\u00c2\u00a0 I instantly knew why Irving changed the formula from a fan club experience to paying an exorbitant fee for soundcheck access.\u00c2\u00a0 This was the musical HIGHLIGHT of the evening.\u00c2\u00a0 As I wandered the hall, picking out my evening seat, Al Kooper ran through one classic song after another.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a mindfuck.\u00c2\u00a0 How many times had I heard these songs?\u00c2\u00a0 On my bedroom floor.\u00c2\u00a0 In my car.\u00c2\u00a0 And here was the guy who wrote them, SINGING them!<\/p>\n
Maybe you don’t know Al Kooper.\u00c2\u00a0 But you do.\u00c2\u00a0 He co-wrote "This Diamond Ring".\u00c2\u00a0 And was a founding member of Blood, Sweat & Tears.\u00c2\u00a0 And was in the Blues Project before and did the "Super Session" record thereafter.\u00c2\u00a0 And produced my favorite Tubes album, the very first, with "What Do You Want From Life" and "White Punks On Dope" as well as the first two Lynyrd Skynyrd albums, with "Free Bird" and "Sweet Home Alabama".\u00c2\u00a0 I’m a fan.\u00c2\u00a0 And to be there, getting a private concert, was a body-tingling experience.<\/p>\n
On the way up the stairs to the dressing room, Al tried to explain to Evil who I was.\u00c2\u00a0 He ultimately said we were "mutual fans".\u00c2\u00a0 I LOVED that!<\/p>\n
Al had told me the show was his Ray Davies piece.\u00c2\u00a0 Playing songs and telling stories.<\/p>\n
You could say it was like "VH1 Storytellers", but it wasn’t.\u00c2\u00a0 You can hear the KACHING while watching "Storytellers".\u00c2\u00a0 You know the act is promoting an album or a tour and really isn’t interested in telling you ANYTHING!\u00c2\u00a0 And, if per chance he is, there’s not enough time to get the complete story out.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas last night was like hanging out in the living room with a friend.\u00c2\u00a0 Hearing the EXTENDED version.<\/p>\n
The most interesting confabulation of the evening was Al’s explanation of "The Modern Adventures Of Plato, Diogenes And Freud".<\/p>\n
There’s an incredible remaster of the first Blood, Sweat & Tears album.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is really the ONLY album.\u00c2\u00a0 The second, with the big hits, sounds creepy today.\u00c2\u00a0 What with David Clayton Thomas blathering.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s too slick.\u00c2\u00a0 It was made for radio.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas the debut, with Al handing lead vocals, sounds like a time capsule of the New York streets in the sixties.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s an earthiness, a grit, that never appeared in the music of the west coast.\u00c2\u00a0 Music made by thinking people.<\/p>\n
Most of "Child Is Father To The Man" is the sound of a horn band.\u00c2\u00a0 But there’s this one swirling track, where Al is encased in strings.\u00c2\u00a0 THESE are the songs we fall in love with on albums.\u00c2\u00a0 Songs that are NEVER played on the radio.<\/p>\n
Turns out this is the song that broke up the band.\u00c2\u00a0 It had no horns.\u00c2\u00a0 The rest of the guys didn’t want it on the record.\u00c2\u00a0 They called a band meeting.\u00c2\u00a0 And, when deadlocked, they decided to leave the decision to the producer, John Simon.\u00c2\u00a0 Who agreed with Al.\u00c2\u00a0 Probably sealing his fate.\u00c2\u00a0 Because bands are democracies, and if you go against the majority, you ultimately lose.<\/p>\n
But, the SONG was about a SHRINK!\u00c2\u00a0 That all the guys in the Blues Project went to see.\u00c2\u00a0 Who was into psychedelics.\u00c2\u00a0 The word spread.\u00c2\u00a0 From the band members to their wives to their friends.\u00c2\u00a0 They built this guy’s practice.\u00c2\u00a0 But then it came out this psychiatrist was sleeping with his women patients, i.e. the band members’ WIVES!\u00c2\u00a0 So, everybody stopped seeing him.\u00c2\u00a0 Cold.\u00c2\u00a0 There was never any further contact.\u00c2\u00a0 And pondering this in the absence thereafter, and wanting the last word, Al wrote "The Modern Adventures Of Plato, Diogenes And Freud".\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, I didn’t tell it right.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s Al’s show.\u00c2\u00a0 But it was such a different era.\u00c2\u00a0 With Simon & Garfunkel referencing analysis.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody searching.\u00c2\u00a0 Today it’s about LIMITS!\u00c2\u00a0 Yesterday it was about exploration.\u00c2\u00a0 "The Modern Adventures Of Plato, Diogenes And Freud" has got an ethereal sound that sets your mind free.\u00c2\u00a0 And minds haven’t been free in eons.<\/p>\n
The line of the night capped the tale of an old buddy.\u00c2\u00a0 Who ran into his ex-wife at the bar.\u00c2\u00a0 She looked really fine.\u00c2\u00a0 He wondered why he ever broke it up.\u00c2\u00a0 Then he confided to Al he "took a walk through the old neighborhood".\u00c2\u00a0 I CRACKED UP!\u00c2\u00a0 That could be the best euphemism I’ve ever heard.<\/p>\n
But that’s the kind of story Al’s got.\u00c2\u00a0 An endless observer of human beings, he replicated quotes of old bluesmen in the Texas countryside and uneducated hicks in Tennessee.<\/p>\n
Maybe you’ve never hung with musicians.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s about jokes and stories.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, a few got rich, but most musicians were screwed by the business, and all they’ve got is the music, their relationships and their experiences.\u00c2\u00a0 To be let inside this world is to find a treasure trove of riches, the kind you’ve always been looking for, but didn’t even know existed.\u00c2\u00a0 And to hear the tales from a master…<\/p>\n
Al’s stories don’t include low-level players, but people like Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan.<\/p>\n
On the sidewalk after midnight, Al told me Joni had broken up with the drummer of the Blues Project.\u00c2\u00a0 So, Al walked her home, keeping her company.\u00c2\u00a0 And, as she sat in her apartment playing her tunes he couldn’t believe it.\u00c2\u00a0 He rang Judy Collins.\u00c2\u00a0 At 3:30 in the morning!\u00c2\u00a0 You can imagine she wasn’t happy.\u00c2\u00a0 But Al told her she knew he wouldn’t have woken her up if he didn’t have a good reason.\u00c2\u00a0 Judy was going to Newport the next day, as a board member of the festival.\u00c2\u00a0 She had to take Joni with her.\u00c2\u00a0 In her CAR!\u00c2\u00a0 So Joni could play her music for Judy.\u00c2\u00a0 Al swore if Judy did this it would pay dividends, she’d want to put Joni on the bill.<\/p>\n
Needless to say, Judy Collins’ career was blown wide open by her cover of "Both Sides Now".<\/p>\n
I’m gonna leave the Dylan stories to Al.\u00c2\u00a0 Some were priceless.\u00c2\u00a0 But they’re his.<\/p>\n
It’s just fun to be a member of the club.<\/p>\n
No, it’s a lifelong dream.<\/p>\n
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Actually, we never made it to dinner.\u00c2\u00a0 Al had to reprogram his keyboard and ate up too much of the appointed time.\u00c2\u00a0 So, we sat in the dressing room and ate catering.\u00c2\u00a0 At least I did.\u00c2\u00a0 A sandwich of salami and cheese on rye bread.\u00c2\u00a0 Did the trick. Anyway, I showed up at McCabe’s on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-4D","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}