You can attribute some of it to great timing. Some luck was involved. More than anything, a certain indefinable skill for knowing just what the music world needed to hear played into the phenomenon.
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We’re talking about how Al Kooper found numerous ways to make a massive impact on the music scene. Here are four occasions when Kooper’s magic touch made a huge difference.
“Ring” Bearer
Kooper was always a bit of a jack-of-all-trades in the music industry, even in the earliest part of his career. Even as he was trying to establish himself as an artist in the early 60s, Kooper was penning songs for some of the music publishing companies located in New York City, the so-called Brill Building scene. In that guise, he wrote a song called “This Diamond Ring” with Bob Brass and Irwin Levine. The trio envisioned it as more of a soul song. They were aghast when they heard the peppy recording delivered by Gary Lewis & The Playboys. But Lewis, son of Jerry Lewis, managed to capture the hearts of pop fans with the song, which went all the way to No. 1 in the US in 1965.
A “Stone” Throw
For the most part, Kooper’s sporadic work as a session musician came as a guitarist. When Tom Wilson, a producer friend of his, told him he was helming a Bob Dylan session in June 1965 for a Bob Dylan single, Kooper thought he might show up and get a gig. Then he saw blues ace Mike Bloomfield walk in the door, and he knew he wasn’t going to play guitar on the track. So Kooper snuck behind the organ, even though he hadn’t really played it much before. Kooper just blasted away on the chords to the song. When Dylan made it back into the control room, he loved what he heard from Kooper. The song’s name: “Like A Rolling Stone”, is simply one of the most iconic tracks in rock history.
Breaking A Sweat
Kooper had already been a part of the band Blues Project when he helped put together a new outfit with some of the members of that previous group. With Blood, Sweat & Tears, Kooper was finally going to take on a starring role after all his behind-the-scenes success. On the band’s 1968 debut album Child Is The Father To The Man, Kooper led the way in terms of songwriting, singing, and, in general, formulating the band’s overall, horn-based sound. Unfortunately, other members of the group thought they might be better off going a different direction for the frontman position. Kooper was out by the time the group recorded their second album, which was the one that gained a mass audience.
Zombie Rescue
As he looked for his next musical endeavor, Kooper cooled his heels for a while, working for Clive Davis at Columbia Records as both a producer and an A&R man. At one point, he found himself in Great Britain looking for acts that he might be able to import. After diving into a bunch of albums, he discovered Odessey And Oracle, a baroque pop LP delivered by The Zombies. He found out, to his surprise, that it was an album that was already the property of Columbia. Kooper convinced Davis to give a US single release to the song “Time Of The Season”. The song became a massive hit. But The Zombies, thinking that their album had failed, had already broken up by that time.
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