Song:Season Of The Witch
Album:Rare + Well Done: The Greatest & Most Obscure Recordings
Al Kooper should be more famous than he is. He's been in several successful bands, had some success as a solo artist and has produced many bands. Of course a lot of this was a long time ago and then Kooper quit the music business in the 80s. He was born Alan Peter Kuperschmidt Feb. 5, 1944 in Brooklyn, NY. A lot of Jewish immigrants shortened their names. I ought to know. Remember Short Shorts by The Royal Teens? 14 year old Al Kooper was the guitarist. Then he wrote the hit This Diamond Ring for Gary Lewis & The Playboys. He played Hammond organ with Bob Dylan at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. That was the famous concert where Dylan got booed for going electric and Kooper played organ on Like A Rolling Stone. He also had some success with Blues Project and of course he also started Blood, Sweat & Tears. That didn't turn out too well and Kooper took a house production job at Columbia. Kooper had his biggest success as a solo artist with a couple of albums he recorded with guitarist Mike Bloomfield. Season Of The Witch is from the 1968 album Super Session. Stephen Stills was brought in when Bloomfield's heroin addiction got the best of him and he disappeared in the middle of the nine hour session. Electric Flag keyboard player Barry Goldberg & bassist Harvey Brooks along with session drummer Eddie Hoh also appear. The album was a big hit and went gold. This 2CD comp is a good intro to Kooper's music. Kooper also produced The Zombies hit Time Of The Season at Columbia. He moved to MCA in the early 70s and discovered and produced Lynyrd Skynyrd. Kooper continued to record solo albums through the 70s but never had that much success. He quit the music business in the 80s but returned in the 90s with a live album called Soul Of A Man. It's sort of a reunion album and this video performance of Somethin' Goin' On is from that concert. It's a Blood, Sweat & Tears song. Kooper's latest CD White Chocolate was released in Oct. 2008. This just scratches the surface. Al Kooper has played on hundreds of sessions but the average music fan probably doesn't know about him. Here's Al Kooper performing Somethin' Goin' On in New York 1994.
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