Rock's Man on the Spot

...He sang a lot of his old songs, and the new ones sounded familiar as well...

...And so Al Kooper became rock's great overreacher, continually trying to do a little more than he was capable of...

...The level of musicianship is uniformly high...

...Indeed, Edmonds has adopted an interesting format...

...In a brief Foreword, Edmonds writes: "These are Al Kooper's stories, and they are recounted in his own words...

...Consequently, Kooper put most of the album together in Nashville and Atlanta...

...He never quite was able to do so, but he did get the chance to play backup guitar in bars and coffee houses, and he made the most of each opportunity that presented itself: "I was writing bubble-gum songs by day, working in bar bands by night, and trying to squeeze every possible alternative into the time between...

...At the same time, Kooper began hanging around Greenwich Village, trying to convince people that he was a folk singer...

...He composed nearly every tune on the new album, including one whole side written in collaboration with producer and man-about-music John Simon...

...He unplugged, packed up, and tried to look inconspicuous...

...Thus "In My Own Sweet Way" has a down-home feeling, and the subtle harmonic progressions of such songs as "Missing You" and "Turn My Head Towards Home" are in the jazz style...

...Al wanted to retain the balance between the two kinds of music, but Freddy Lip-sius and others in the band pushed harder and harder toward jazz...

...My function was to keep Al on the track and make sure that his reminiscences were appropriately fleshed out...

...Later, when the moment came to launch the new Dylan in live performance at the Newport Folk Festival, Kooper (by now able to hold his own on the organ), was a member of the band that converted folk fans around the country to rock-and-roll...

...Yet the constant striving eventually took its toll...

...Al stayed in the act and played on all the remaining sessions for the album (Highway 61 Revisited...

...A disclaimer from the collaborator would seem to explain the unusual achievement...

...they demonstrated to the crowd—alas, hardly a sell-out—that there was still power, life and beauty left in the crazy music which had brought them all together nearly a decade before...

...Not surprisingly, he had assembled a good band of like-minded spirits...

...Rather than tamper with Kooper's free-association flow by putting a lot of background information in his mouth, he here and there interjects his own brief comments—of both fact and opinion?in boldface...

...Before long he demonstrated that he could write music as well as play it, and had himself installed in a cubicle in the Brill Building?yesterday's Tin Pan Alley turned citadel of kiddie-rock—where youngsters like Carole King, Neil Sedaka, Gerry Goffin, and Cynthia Weill were grinding out an endless series of hits...

...Undaunted, he plunged into an area where again he was a neophyte: producing records...

...Still, for all his travails, Kooper has become an accomplished musician, a real craftsman in a profession where the kids today are faking as hard as he was yesterday...

...On Music ROCK'S MAN ON THE SPOT BY BRUCE COOK Another one of those rock-and-roll survivors has surfaced, breaking through to the light just when it seemed the depths of the '70s had swallowed up the entire crew...

...He soon found, however, that he had created a monster...

...That was when they asked him if he could play the organ...

...Even the cover art (Kooper's head and his girlfriend's transposed on their nude bodies) is an almost wistful reminder of the sexual adventurism of that not-very-distant era...

...Another compensation is Kooper's superior song-writing ability...

...The sad fact is that there are no longer enough first-rate musicians in the Apple...

...His whole career reflects this pattern: from his stint with the Casuals, to his experience with Dylan's band, to his Blues Project days, to his joining one of the most skilled groups in rock, Blood, Sweat & Tears...

...At that point, though, Dylan walked in with the kid who was actually supposed to accompany him...

...After starting out in the late '50s with a teen rock band, the 13-year-old Kooper wangled an audition with a manager who booked record dates in New York and high school dances around Long Island...

...With no previous experience, he took an on-the-job crash course at Columbia and came up with a gold album (the first Super Session) on his initial try...

...Probably more than any other individual, he was the man-on-the-spot in '60s rock-and-roll...

...Although he was never a superstar, he somehow played a significant part in every change the music went through, from doo-wap to Dylan and beyond...

...For despite the fact that the volume was written "with" rock journalist Ben Edmonds, it paints a fascinating and authentic portrait of the rock star...

...Kooper frankly admits he did not have much stuff to show the man, but what he had was enough to get him a job playing guitar with the Casuals, a group that had actually released a record...

...Kooper has a history of getting himself into situations like that...

...At BS&T it was Kooper who came up with the idea of uniting a rock rhythm section with jazz horns...

...Then his marriage broke up...

...Merely wanning up, Mike Bloomfield laid down some brilliant blues licks, and Kooper's chutzpah dissolved instantly...

...If Kooper's concert tour and record were not enough to capture the attention of all his erstwhile listeners, then his new book, the profusely-illustrated Backstage Passes (Stein & Day, 244 pp., $10.00) should bring the strays back into the fold...

...Difficult as it is to imagine someone growing up in rock, Al Kooper has done exactly that...

...After an absence of six or seven years, Al Kooper is back on the scene...

...Kooper's verbal improvisation proves very effective, at least partly because he has so much to remember and tell...

...Yet he makes up for his lack of vocal strength with a deeply-felt directness that suits numbers like "She Don't Ever Lose Her Groove" and the soul-styled "I Forgot to Be Your Lover...

...Moreover, ever since his days as a member of the old Blues Project group, he has been able to inspire demanding standards of performance in the people he works with, and his sidemen here are no exception...

...Kooper's new record—while neither dated nor old-fashioned—has exactly this quality...

...When he started out he knew about three chords and seven licks on the guitar, and could barely find his way around the piano keyboard...

...He was completely unfamiliar with the instrument, of course, but when he sat down and faked it, Dylan decided that Kooper had the sound he wanted...

...It should convince anyone who needs convincing that the music made in those halcyon days of 1968, a time when it looked as if the country was about to fall apart, was filled with a special style, feeling and, above all, energy that has since been lost...

...On thing remains to be said about Act Like Nothing's Wrong...

...What is new here are the influences—country and jazz...

...Kooper, who plays a variety of keyboard instruments on the album plus all of the guitar solos, made himself into a good rock musician practically by force of will...

...For those of you who missed Kooper's all-too-brief stint on the road, he left an album—Act Like Nothing's Wrong (United Artists UA 702-G-0698...

...Finally Kooper, the original leader, was deposed in a bloodless coup...

...apart from that, I changed as little as possible...

...the project was by conscious design anti-slick...

...Hustling as usual, Kooper, who had brought his guitar with him, plugged in and got ready to play...

...And he had psychological problems that he only hints at in his book...

...He recently shot across the country on a fast tour, trailing clouds of nostalgia behind him like jet streams...

...As for the contents of the disc, Kooper would be the first to admit that he has never been a great singer...

...But he would always seek out musicians who were miles ahead of him, work hard to catch up with them, and then involve himself with another, more sophisticated group...

...When I caught up with Kooper, in Baltimore, I was pleased to find he had not changed his ways much at all...

...By the time he was 20 he had an ulcer that made the strains of touring doubly difficult for him...

...Bob Dylan was the hottest thing going in the Village then, and Kooper managed to secure an invitation as a spectator to one of Dylan's early electric recording sessions...

...Incidentally, practically none of the tracks were recorded in New York, previously his home base...