Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards

by Al Kooper

  Another song which I had just finished, “I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know,” was a split tribute to Otis Redding and James Brown. (The lyrics were a nod to Otis’s song “I Love You More Than Words Can Say,” and the melody was “reminiscent” of James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s World.”) On December 6 (‘67), Otis died in a plane crash and it really fucked me up. The next night we began recording the album. I insisted we record “I Love You” first. Nobody objected. We put down a blistering track, and it looked like this was gonna be an easy album to make. We overdubbed Freddie’s solo and Steve’s fills, and then it was time to put a vocal on it. Everyone was real jumpy ’cause on the reference tape, where I sang live while the whole band played, my vocal performance had been a little shaky (to put it mildly). Now, everyone (including me) was concerned that the addition of my nickel throat might fuck up this hundred-dollar track. I was prepared for this tension, however; I had learned the first few lines of the song in French. So they lowered the lights, and everyone was hanging out in the control room. I was out in the studio with headphones on ready to sing. They started recording, and the room was all tensed up. It came time for my first line, and I sang it in French: “Si je te quitterais.”

  Everyone was hysterical and they stopped the tape.

  “Ohhh, you wanted me sing it in ENGLISH??? Ohhh ... sorry ... okay then, take two.”

  That loosened everybody up, and we started again. Now my eyes were screwed shut, and I was thinkin’ about Otis and this sounds cliched as hell, but it’s true. I was saying to myself, “This is for you.” And I was singing. One take. They called me into the booth for a playback, and everyone was smiling. I listened to it. It wasn’t great and it wasn’t awful, but no one could say it wasn’t real. The one thing I had going for me was that I believed the words of every song I had to sing. If I picked somebody else’s song, it was because I was moved emotionally by it.

  I sang Randy Newman’s “Just One Smile.” I got that from Gene Pitney of all people; it was on one of his early albums. (He did a great job on it.) I picked “Without Her” by Harry Nilsson, my favorite “outside” song at the time. I had a 45 of it that was just about worn out. I had no idea who the guy was, but the baroque arrangement and superb voice did me in. The words were entirely relatable. I turned it into a bossa nova. Later, the song would become a standard, and such hippies as Jack Jones and Herb Alpert would record their own renditions of it. “So Much Love” was a Carole King-Gerry Goffin tune that I’d heard covered by Percy Sledge and Ben E. King. I did a lot of rewriting on it (changed the words in the second verse, left out half the bridge, and changed the melody to the second half of the bridge), and my arrangement was considerably different from the original. Amazingly, at the same time we were recording in New York, Dusty Springfield was in Memphis and by chance cut “So Much Love” and “Just One Smile” on her album Dusty in Memphis. That album was produced by Jerry Wexler, who had previously heard our band’s repertoire and passed. Coincidence? Perhaps....

  Steve needed another song to sing, so I suggested Tim Buckley’s “Morning Glory.” Freddie and I wrote a Bob Dylan-Curtis Mayfield (not-so-strange bedfellows) arrangement, and Steve loved it. He wrote a little ditty called “Meagan’s Gypsy Eyes,” which was about his brief relationship with Mimi Farina, though he named it after Alice Ochs’s daughter. Freddie, Steve, and Bobby wrote the arrangement of that one. John rented this weird organ (an Allen Explorer) from Carroll Music for me to play, and it gave this song quite an individual sound.

  When Steve was putting the vocal on, we convinced him to hold his Adam’s apple between his thumb and forefinger and shake it up and down to simulate fast tremolo on a guitar amp. In truth, it was mostly just to see him standing in the studio all by himself shaking his Adam’s apple up and down and singing. We were all in hysterics in the control room. So much laughing, in fact, that I had a lunatic flash and quickly snuck into the studio on all fours and tackled him from behind in the middle of one of his vocals. He didn’t think that was too funny.

  I wrote another song which was sort of a tongue-in-cheek paean to life in the woods called “House in the Country.” I wrote this in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, on the set of a movie in which I was making my acting debut. The film folded after six days of shooting, but I got a good song out of the experience.

  The horn introduction to that song was extremely high-pitched. It was difficult to record as the boys had to contort their faces to hit some of the higher notes, but they got it inside of an hour. A few days after that, we were overdubbing percussion on that track, and working with an assistant engineer who was filling in for our regular guy, Lou Waxman. Part of Lou’s job was to run the tape machines, making sure the right tracks were in record and playback. So Bobby was in the studio with headphones and a tambourine, and John said “OK, roll it.” The tape started rolling, but we didn’t hear anything. Not a good sign. All of a sudden this middle-aged engineer jumped up and slammed the machine off. Like a deranged player out of Othello, he paced up and down screaming, “Oh my God! Oh my God!”

  John and I were looking helplessly at each other, trying to figure out if he had erased the whole song or what. John played it back to check and it turned out the engineer had erased the horns from that really hard beginning part. The guy was having a nervous breakdown all the while. It was a drag, but it wasn’t a disaster. It just meant an hour’s work some other day. Once we established this fact, you’d think the guy would cool out or somethin’. Nope. He was going bananas. By then, all John and I could do was laugh at this guy. He phoned for a replacement and went home in a state of shock.

  As the album neared completion, we brought in a string section to spice up some of the songs and put the backup on my solo song. We decided to have an overture on the record, and John and I wrote a satiric medley based on themes from all of the songs. I’m not sure, but I think we had the first rock record with an overture. It was certainly the first with an underture.

  We recorded the overture and it sounded legit, which was far from our intentions. John asked Bobby, who had this ridiculous laugh, to laugh all the way through the tune (one minute and thirty-two seconds), so people would know for sure that we weren’t serious. Bobby went in, started laughing and discovered that it’s not as easy as it might sound. His peculiar laugh was very high-intensity, and he could only get about fifteen seconds on tape at a time. So we kept backtracking until, about an hour later, we had a complete track of Bobby’s insane laughter.

  After laughing hysterically for over an hour, he walked into the control room out of breath. His face was sort of an iridescent green color as he sat down on the couch. We listened to the playback and everyone was howling along with his laugh track. As the playback ended, Bobby leaned over and threw up, then fell asleep on the couch for the rest of the night. He had OD’d on laughter. Probably the first such casualty in recording history.

  To get atmosphere for the opening and closing of “House in the Country” we needed some down-home ambience; a pastoral setting to complement the song’s theme. We took a poll and found out that, among ourselves, we could imitate a number of woodsy animals! We filled up eight tracks with Bobby the frog, Freddie the bird, Al the goat ‘n’ goose, and Steve the horse. It actually achieved that country feeling, but it was hard to keep from breaking up while we were doing it. I kept thinking to myself, “Grown men are doing this!” Then we got a bunch of our friends’ kids to sing at the end, highlighted by Bobby Colomby’s nephew, who looked at everyone coaxing him to sing and blurted out, “I don’t wanna!”’ We kept that on the record. From the first note of “I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know” to the last mix of “So Much Love” took a grand total of two weeks. On December 22, 1967, exactly two weeks after we began, we finished our first album just in time to take a break to celebrate the holidays.

  Still we had no title and no cover idea. Initially, we wanted to call it How I Spent My Summer Vacation, and even went so far as to shoot a cover in various sum
mer-fun regalia. It proved too silly for the album’s contents, however. I racked my brain for weeks until I came up with an interesting idea. There was a semifamous poster of a Telly Savalas-looking fellow with a freshly lit cigarette sitting with a young boy in short pants on his lap. The lad has his exact face, a minor photo retouch, but extremely effective in that setting. The photo was shot by one of my idols, Alfred Gescheidt, one of the deans of darkroom technique in trick photography.

  At my insistence, Bob Cato, Columbia’s art director, put in a call to Gescheidt, but he was unavailable. What we did then was to duplicate the poster idea of the man and boy using the members of the band sitting with little children on our laps. Later each child’s face was replaced by the face of the person whose lap they occupied. The album was then called Child Is Father to the Man. Bob Cato shot the cover himself, but the credit on the album reads: “Cover Photo by Bob Cato apres Al Gescheidt.” Credit where credit is due. In later years, the Man/Boy Love Society used the ... oh, just kidding!

  By this time, after surviving many personal crises, Joan and I had decided to marry quietly at City Hall. The clergyman who performed the ceremony lisped, and I confess I laughed through the entire vows. Not a good start. The deed was done, however, and life chugged on.

  The album came out to fairly good reviews, and Columbia sent us on a ten-city promotional tour. We played to the press of each city and talked on countless radio stations about ourselves and our new album. In San Francisco, Bill Graham put us in Winterland trapped in a staggering show: Jeremy & The Satyrs, James Cotton, and Cream. We held our own and got good reviews. The Family Dog headlined us the next week at the Avalon, with John Handy and Son House as support, and we did good business. Rolling Stone covered the gig and gave us a three-page spread with photos.

  I remember one night in Boston we’d finished gigging early and had all returned to the hotel. Joan had joined the tour that day. It was only 11 p.m. or so, neither of us was tired, and we were in a mischievous mood. Bobby Colomby’s room was across the hall, so I walked across and listened at his door. He was sweet-talking a young lady in his inimitable fashion, and I silently laughed as I listened to his secret persuasions. After awhile, it became quiet. I gave them about ten minutes to develop their new relationship before bludgeoning Bobby’s door.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Police. Open up in there!!” I gruffly hollered, as Joan strolled across the hall with her new Polaroid camera.

  “Just a minute,” Bobby stalled, to the sounds of intense rustling from inside his room. Finally, the door opened and Bobby appeared in his shirt, with one leg in his pants and two out. FLASH! went the Polaroid. Hysterical went Joan and I as we collapsed laughing in the hallway.

  Bobby took it pretty well until I recited his seduction rap of the past hour verbatim. Red-faced, he pulled me into the bathroom.

  “This is the only way I can show you how embarrassed I am,” he said, plunging his naked foot completely into the toilet and flushing it continuously.

  After he regained his composure, he decided it was a great joke, and shouldn’t we try it on Steve? This time Bobby would call ahead to Steve’s room and warn him that the police were ransacking everyone’s room. Then I would hammer on his door. Give it a little more credibility.

  Bobby on the phone: “Steve. I’m glad I got you. I can’t really talk much but the cops are going through everyone’s room, and they’ve got search warrants and they’re being really vicious and don’t—”

  Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Kooper were proud to announce the marriage of their son, Alan, to a Fender Telecaster covered with decals. The honeymoon was soon to be over. BS&T, Winterland, San Francisco, 1968. (Photo: © Jim Marshall. Used with permission.)

  BAM! BAM! BAM!

  Steve on the phone: “Oh my god they’re here, gotta go!”

  Steve must have been truly terrified, because he was rooming with one of the horn players who was the biggest doper in the band. He must have flushed half of Mexico down the toilet in about three seconds. He then came to the door, opened it, and FLASH! Another shot for my growing Polaroid collection. This time I was in tears I was laughing so hard, crawling down the hallway, leaving Steve talking to the wall: “That’s the meanest shit I’ve ever seen....” It was, actually.

  Flushed with our success, we sorted out the vulnerable ones in the band for our caper, and all of them got their pictures taken that night. If the Polaroids hadn’t faded, they would have made a great album cover.

  Just to balance out the karma, the band repaid me the next day. We were flying from Boston to Chicago, and the group was gathered at the gate half an hour before departure time. I was sitting there in the cheap faux fur coat I had bought for the winter and this weird moustache I had grown for the tour. The stares were a little heavier than usual, it being proper Boston and all that. Bobby came over with his carry-on bag and asked if I’d watch it for him while he went to the magazine stand. Sure. Then came Steve with the same request. Pretty soon I was surrounded by everyone’s luggage, all by myself in this stupid coat and moustache, and everyone walking by was breaking up that this weird looking asshole was traveling with twenty-seven pieces of luggage. They were now even with me.

  In St. Louis, we had to cancel the gig ’cause I lost my voice, and Columbia wanted me in shape for the more important San Francisco and L.A. dates. We signed some autographs at the place we were supposed to play and made it back to the hotel. Don Johnston, our roadie, Jerry Weiss, and I were in my room, spacing out on how boring St. Louis was at 11:00 p.m. on a Tuesday night.

  “Let’s escape!” I hoarsely suggested. “We’re gonna fly to ’Frisco in the morning, so why don’t we just fly out tonight and not tell anyone.”

  We called the airport and, sure enough, there was a 2:45 a.m. nonstop with three empty seats calling our names. We packed our shit and snuck out without anyone in the band seeing us. A definite caper.

  There was only one other passenger on the flight, an old lady in first class. The stewardesses turned out to be hip and not at all hard to look at. It was not long before we were getting high and necking. It was surrealistic. These things do not happen on commercial flights (and never will again, if I’m any judge).

  We landed in ’Frisco about 5:45 a.m. and deplaned, carrying (concealed) about half the equipment, cargo, and miniature booze bottles they had on board, courtesy of our new “girlfriends.” The prize possession was the battery-operated emergency bullhorn, which Don Johnston won from his fair damsel (and which was later to get us nearly kicked out of our hotel for disturbing the other occupants when Don called the band to quarters at 4:00 a.m.).

  While we were waiting for our real luggage, Jerry Weiss was leaning against the wall trying to adjust to this new life-style. Quite a difference from pushing up a horn in the back row of Larry Elgart’s dance band like he used to do before he met Freddie Lipsius. Jerry just kept saying over and over, “It didn’t happen. I can’t believe it!”

  The bags came and we jumped in a taxi and headed for the hotel. No sooner did we pull away from the curb than the driver turned around and asked, “Anyone want to get high?” That was it for Jerry. New Yorkers aren’t used to such mellowness, especially in the traditional armored attack vehicle known as the taxi. He didn’t ever wanna leave California.

  Back in St. Louis, meanwhile, “the great escape” had been easily ascertained. Noting the absence of our luggage, no one was uptight; they knew we were in California. But they sho’ was jealous when they got there and heard about our pie-in-the-sky!

  We returned from the tour with a developing reputation and an album entering the charts. It was decided that we needed to tighten up, so we took up residence at the Garrick Theater (adjoining the Cafe Au Go Go) following The Mothers, who had concluded a six-month stint there. I was hoping we wouldn’t stay quite so long as they did. The Mothers moved downstairs to the Au Go Go, and The Electric Flag moved in across the street at the Bitter End. B. B. King opened a week at the Generation C
lub, and you’d best believe the Village was jumpin’. In between sets, along with the Flag, we would catch The Mothers. The Flag weren’t able to catch our show and vice versa as we were all on the same schedule.

  When our last show ended, however, B. B. King’s started. We used to finish up and catch the tail end of his set. I sat in his dressing room after the show, renewing a friendship with one of the most sincere, incredible human beings ever to set foot on the planet. I told him about the new band, and we figured out that his schedule made it impossible for him to catch us. He was real interested in hearing us, though, so I put on my thinking cap.

  The next night, when B. B. finished his last set, BS&T was “in the house.” They closed the club doors and we hopped onstage to play an after-hours set for B. B. and the employees of Generation. We played about forty-five minutes and before our closer began, I invited B. B. to join us onstage. It was “Somethin’ Goin’ On,” a tune I’d written in the style of B. B. King. We played up to the guitar solo and then dropped the volume way down and B. B. played, building slowly to his inevitable climax. As the horns eased in behind him, he took a step forward and really began to play. Obviously inspired, he played things I had never heard him or any other guitar player play before. He was rocking from side to side smiling, and as each verse ended, I yelled out, “Don’t stop now, Bee,” and he was up and away again. After ten minutes he took it down, and the band and the audience went nuts. Even if we had had the foresight to record it, I don’t think anyone would’ve believed it. Elvin Bishop was in the audience and he later concurred that, indeed, it was the best he remembered ever hearing B. B. play. It was ten minutes of sheer ecstasy I will never forget.

  The seeds of discontent, however, had been sown, and it was only a matter of time before they blossomed. In The Blues Project, we had done everything together. Knowing such behavior did not solidify group unity, I attempted the opposite with BS&T. I only hung with the band at rehearsals or gigs, preferring the confines of home and the company of Joan, wife number two. The formation of the band had a stabilizing effect on my previous mental aberrations, and my subsequent abandonment of drugs made me the straightest one in the band (although certainly not the straightest looking).