Al Kooper Quotes

• 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.

  Al Kooper

  Rocks, Rock And Roll, Influence

  12 Copy quote

• At the end of the playback of the take of "Like A Rolling Stone", or actually during the thing, Bob Dylan said to the producer, turn up the organ. And Tom Wilson said, oh man, that guy's not an organ player. And Dylan said, I don't care, turn the organ up, and that's really how I became an organ player.

  Al Kooper

  Player, Men, Guy

  14 Copy quote

• I liked being challenged by music. It's good for me.

  Al Kooper

  6 Copy quote

• If you'd done a good job you'd just step back and let all these different chemistries interact and let it go.

  Al Kooper

  Jobs, Let It Go, Different

  7 Copy quote

• 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. So I would come in on the upbeat of one. I would wait until the band played the chord, and then as quickly as I could come in play the chord.

  Al Kooper

  Song, Funny Things, Play

  6 Copy quote

• Mike Bloomfield sat down and started playing, and I went, whoa! Because I had never heard any white person play like that before. And he was about my age, and he just, that finished off my guitar career, just like that, in one afternoon.

  Al Kooper

  Guitar, Play, Careers

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  Al Kooper

  Opportunity, Player, Ambitious

  "Rock and Roll". "Shakespeares in the Alley", openvault.wgbh.org. September 1995.

  8 Copy quote

• Producing Bob Dylan was pretty much a spectator sport.

  Al Kooper

  Sports, Bob, Dylan

  6 Copy quote

• ...You couldn't help being influenced by Dylan.

  Al Kooper

  Helping, Dylan

  6 Copy quote

• The place that I worked I used to joke about it. There was a, every morning at 10:30 I'd come into work and I'd go into this cubicle that had a little upright piano and fake white cork bricks on the wall, and a little slate that came out of the wall that you could actually write on. And a door that locked from the outside. Every day from 10 to 6, we'd go in there and pretend that we were 13 year old girls and write these songs. That was the gig.

  Al Kooper

  Girl, Song, Morning

  4 Copy quote

• I think it was Columbia politics, Columbia Records politics that, that, Tom Wilson left [Bob Dylan] after "Like A Rolling Stone".

  Al Kooper

  Thinking, Rolling, Records

  6 Copy quote

• 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. Tom Wilson had produced jazz records and was a Harvard educated.

  Al Kooper

  Different, Albums, Records

  4 Copy quote

• Musically Bob [Dylan] is a primitive. He's not a Gershwin, or somebody that uses eloquent music terms.

  Al Kooper

  Use, Bob, Dylan

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Al Kooper

  Ambition, Bob, Facts

  7 Copy quote

• Every now and then we could steal somebody else's stuff.

  Al Kooper

  Stuff, Stealing, Now And Then

  "Rock and Roll". "Shakespeares in the Alley", openvault.wgbh.org. September 1995.

  4 Copy quote

• In the, uh, '30s and '40s, the Brill Building was the hub of, uh, musical activity in Tin Pan Alley in New York City. I believe Irving Berlin was there, and uh, and everything just centered around there.

  Al Kooper

  New York, Believe, Cities

  "Rock and Roll". "Shakespeares in the Alley", openvault.wgbh.org. September 1995.

  4 Copy quote

• Unlike so many Dylan-writer-wannabes and phony 'encyclopedia' compilers, Sean Wilentz makes me feel he was in the room when he chronicles events that I participated in. Finally a breath of fresh words founded in hardcore, intelligent research.

  Al Kooper

  Intelligent, Research, Rooms

  5 Copy quote

• 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.

  Al Kooper

  Mean, Rolling, Watches

  4 Copy quote

• The first generation from the '50s that were in 1650 [Broadway] were pretty much all crooks, I mean just out and out crooks. And the next generation had a little more finesse. But I mean those first wave of people, you know, definitely would take all your money, no doubt about it.

  Al Kooper

  Mean, People, Doubt

  4 Copy quote

• I started in the music business I was first introduced to 1650 Broadway, uh, which was in reality where everything happened in the '60s.

  Al Kooper

  Reality, Broadway, Firsts

  4 Copy quote

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