Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards

by Al Kooper

  I thought all this would improve my relationship with the various members of the band, hopefully delaying overkill for at least a year. But while I was busy keeping to myself, the band was forming into various little political pockets (the Colomby-Katz faction most notably), and musical revolution was in the air. The failure of my voice to endure on the tour had caused concern and, unbeknownst to yours truly, plans were afoot to change all that.

  One of my founding concepts was that Freddie Lipsius and I would write an arrangement, and the band would be asked to play it in its entirety one time to my satisfaction before any suggestions were offered. At that point I could take suggestions, and usually did. I will admit I ran my dream a little Hitleresque (witness Jeff Lynne and ELO), but I was trying to prevent it from becoming a disorganized nightmare.

  The true beginning of the end came at rehearsal one day. Freddie and I had written an arrangement of Stevie Winwood’s “Dear Mr. Fantasy,” to be played for the first time that day. I double-checked the parts as I handed them out and was surprised to find they had been altered from what Freddie and I had arranged. Bobby had taken the liberty of changing the parts without bothering to ask anyone. Freddie and I had spent at least six hours on that arrangement, but our work had been erased and there was no way we would be able to hear it. I walked out of that rehearsal, furious. I suppose Bobby was trying to show me what life was like under my rule, but I didn’t get the hint. Also, I couldn’t help thinking back to the day we decided to form the band. My contingency for going along with it was that it would be under my guidance and leadership, and Bobby had readily agreed.

  I suppose the final spark that incited the mutiny was my growing dissatisfaction with Steve’s progress as a player. I felt he was holding the band back from some incredible musical pyrotechnics. I went around to each member separately and suggested that Steve be replaced. To a man I was turned down cold. Of course, I wasn’t aware that my offing was in the cards; I just assumed they didn’t want to upset the delicate balance that was holding the band together. So I could keep basically honest, I approached Steve and told him what I had done. Instead of calmly taking it in, or interpreting it as a rather crude instructional criticism of his playing, he went nuts.

  The next day a band meeting was hastily held at our lawyer’s, who happened to be Steve’s brother (nepotism I was too blind to consider). Before we could even come to verbal blows, Randy Brecker took the floor and announced he had been offered the trumpet chair in Horace Silver’s group, and he thought he was gonna take it. Silver was a top-flight jazz pianist and composer, who led an extremely influential quintet at the time. Bobby freaked out and filibustered in an attempt to talk him out of it. Randy’s loss to the band would be a heavy one. Even so, I defended his position on a growth basis. Horace had never hired a white trumpet player in his group before, and so Randy would be participating in history. What an honor!

  Horace had been one of my boyhood idols, and I also knew Randy would be happier with the comparative freedom of expression he could find in that situation. Randy was a genius player, but you can’t force a man one way when his mind is made up the other. Bobby sat down, exasperated. There were cracks in his ship even he hadn’t anticipated.

  Then the shit hit the band. Bobby said he felt we should hire a lead singer because of my limited voice capabilities and my voice’s lack of tour endurance, and I should be relegated to organist and composer/arranger. He was totally prepared in his support. I was certainly aware I was not one of rock’s trendsetting vocalists, yet I was at least as good at what I did as Steve was at what he did. But I guess they wanted a new singer more than I wanted a new guitarist. I was heart-broken as I left the meeting, ’cause I knew the dream was over.

  It was heavy drama at the Garrick that night. All of us knew it was over, but we didn’t know when it was gonna come to final blows. We played a tense first set, culminating in Jerry Weiss telling me, “Go fuck yourself,” right in the middle of the encore. It knocked the air out of me. I called everyone into the dressing room as soon as we got offstage.

  “OK,” I said, “you don’t want me in the band, you don’t want to play the tunes I choose, and I don’t want you to suffer working with me. I’ll go away and make my music elsewhere. Anybody who wants to join me is welcome, because you win—I quit. I’m sorry it had to end like this.” And I was out the door.

  Canadian singer David Clayton-Thomas finds out he’s been accepted to replace Kooper in Blood, Sweat & Tears. (Photo: Alice Ochs.)

  As I rounded the corner, I heard Bobby saying, “Can’t you see what he’s trying to do ...?” and I realized that it would be impossible for me to be in a group again. Because, simply, I wasn’t trying to do anything. I just did what came naturally to me, and to be resented for it caused me to retire from participating in the world of bands until 1991, when I hesitantly put The Rekooperators together. That band has outlasted both The Blues Project and BS&T by four years and still counting.

  Returning to 1968: I ran into Freddie in the men’s room. He was real down and disillusioned. He said he was gonna go back to school. “No,” I said. “Stay with ’em. They need you to hold the band together if it can, indeed, survive me and Randy leaving.”

  Freddie did stay on, and everyone knows the rest of the story. With David Clayton-Thomas to replace me as singer, and Dick Halligan to cover my organ playing, with half a new repertoire, a new horn section, and a new producer (James William Guercio), they went on to set trends and records in the music business. I was proud when their next album hit number one. Even though I received no financial interest, I knew where it had all begun. God bless you, Maynard Ferguson. I had lived in my musical Camelot. It only lasted eight months, however, shot down from a grassy knoll by “Lee Harvey” Colomby.

  In an interview on the Web recently, like one of the characters in Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, Colomby imaginatively recalled the origins of Blood, Sweat & Tears. Quoting Bobby directly:“Steve (Katz) and I discussed the merits of Al’s songwriting (thieving) and I asked Steve to ask Al if we could use some of his material in a band we were going to start [AK: I guess Bobby liked “thieving” in his choice of material!]....! received a call from Steve telling me that not only did Al agree that we could use his songs...BUT that Steve asked Al to join the band as its lead singer....”3[AK: Steve Katz would even refute that!]

  Bobby also states (a) that I came up with the name of the band from the title of a Johnny Cash album (!!!!), (b) that Jerry Weiss left the band to form Ambrosia (it was actually Ambergris that he started), and (c) that Randy Brecker joined his brother Michael in Horace Silver’s band. (Michael didn’t join Horace’s band until nine years later.) So this is just a small example of the misinformation that just one person can put out there that will be picked up by researchers and used as the truth.

  Shortly thereafter Bobby copyrighted the trademark Blood, Sweat & Tears in his own name (something I never would have dared to do even though it was I who christened the band). I know that, when Columbia Records sent any royalties for Child Is Father to the Man (which eventually earned a gold record) to Bobby’s Blood, Sweat & Tears, my portion never got mailed to me. I find Bobby’s version and Steve Katz’s version (that I left The Blues Project because they wouldn’t perform “This Diamond Ring”?—ludicrous!) of the origins of the band silly revisionism. They ousted me from the band I had envisioned like the monster who killed Dr. Frankenstein, regrouped with a singer of their choice, and made millions of dollars (in addition to my share of the royalties). Wouldn’t you say that if they had a war with me, they won? So why come up with these stories? They won. I left, as they desired, they made an embarassing amount of money, traveled all over the world, won Grammys--and secretaries everywhere thought they were the greatest thing since sliced bread for three years. So why attempt to discredit me after thirty years? They got everything they ever dreamed of. You know, it doesn’t really matter anymore. If they can live with “Lucretia MacEvil” and their Las Vegas desecr
ation of “God Bless The Child,” then God bless them.

  Okay. It’s off my chest forever....

  1968-1969:

  A&R AT COLUMBIA

  RECORDS,

  SUPER SESSION,

  MIKE BLOOMFIELD,

  LIVE AT THE FILLMORE,

  BILL CRAHAM,

  NORMAN ROCKWELL,

  THE ROLLINC STONES. AND

  THE FIRST SOLO ALBUM

  At this time, Columbia Records was headquartered in the CBS Building on Sixth Avenue between West 52nd and 53rd Streets in midtown Manhattan. Creative Services were on the tenth floor, A&R was on the eleventh floor, Publicity was on the fifth floor, etc. They occupied a nice chunk of the building. The building was commonly known as “Black Rock” because that’s what it was made out of, and partly because of the film Bad Day at Black Rock.

  The day after Jerry Weiss told me off on stage, I found myself in Clive Davis’s office at Black Rock, trying to explain to him the changes his $40,000-plus investment was putting itself through.

  “Well, they don’t like me, they don’t want me to sing anymore. I mean, what would you do? I quit and ... uh ... I really had no choice.”

  Clive suggested I stay with the band until a suitable replacement could be found. Concerned with my personal safety, I flatly dismissed any such notion (as I imagined the band certainly would), and that brought me to the other reason for my visit that day.

  “Clive, I’ve decided to produce records full-time now. I’m in no position to record a solo album, join, or much less form a band at this point. Being that you have me signed individually as an artist, I felt you should have first refusal on my services as a producer. Let me know what you think within a week.” He was still wondering about his investment as I bade my bye-byes out the door.

  Four days later Walter Dean, head of the CBS Business Affairs division, called to say that I had a job as staff producer in the A&R department at Columbia Records. I was bouncing off the peeling walls of my ghetto cell with joy. Columbia had called my bluff, but I was (sort of) ready to deliver. I felt this was an important decision on Clive’s part for two reasons:1. I was sure there would be other people with plights similar to mine in the near future and, if my test run proved successful, perhaps large companies would open their doors to them.

  2. It was something of a precedent at that time for a major corporation to hire a long-haired freak on staff.

  A contract was to be signed and, being that I had no manager, I wound up representing myself. To a hippie busting his guts to hold down $150 a week, doubling that amount and adding an expense account, an office, and a secretary seemed like moving next door to Howard Hughes. Later I found out that they got me for comparative peanuts, and that they were deducting that salary from my future royalties, but for the time being I was joyous.

  Before I started my new job, I took a cash advance and went to London for the first time to see first-hand what all the fuss was about. I had a wonderful time (except for the food) and met some great people. I bought about forty albums, ones you couldn’t find in the U.S., and couldn’t wait to hear them when I got home. One of them stuck out from all the rest in its brilliance of songwriting, production, and focus. The first day I went to work at CBS I took it with me. I made an appointment with Clive Davis and put the album on his desk. “I really think we should purchase the master rights to this album for the U.S.,” I aggressively suggested. He took one look at the cover and replied, “We already own this album. I was just about to sign off on our option to release it domestically.”

  Now, it got good to me—

  “I think that would be a huge mistake Clive. Why there’s at least two hit singles here.” He told me he would sleep on it and thanked me for bringing it to his attention. Two weeks later I got an interoffice memo saying they were gonna put it out, with instructions to rewrite the liner notes and pick a single. Cautiously, Clive released it on a little subsidiary label CBS had called Date Records, in case I turned out to be wrong. But my lucky streak was goin’ strong and that is how the single “Time of the Season” by The Zombies came to be number one. The album Oddesey [sic] and Oracle had been out quite awhile in England. (In fact, the band had already broken up and metamorphosed into a new band called Argent that CBS had signed before “Time” was released.) A buncha Zombies crossed the ocean to take photos and get gold records. No one at CBS thanked me for this; I received no gold record or cash recompense. But The Zombies, who knew what really happened, made sure to come to my office and thank me profusely. That was worth it all to me at that time.

  In those days, I was very un-money conscious. When you are, the sharks can smell it and move in for the kill. I had no concept of the Big Picture. The music business is a very youth-oriented business, and we all get varied windows of opportunity that usually shut down tight on us before we are ready for them to do so. The idea is to have all your ducks in a row, so that when a particular window does shut on you, your royalties, residuals, and savings from your previous body of work will cover you for the rest of your life. I was twenty-four years old and didn’t think anything like that. So long as I had a roof over my head, food to eat, and enough petty cash to buy records, magazines, and flashy clothes, I was quite content. I moved my wife and our belongings to a rat-free apartment house on the edge of the Village (which also, ironically, housed one-time Blues Project manager Sid Bernstein, Au Go Go magnate Howard Solomon, and Verve Folkways’ Prez Jerry Schoenbaum; talk about living in your past!). I bought some new clothes in England, got a haircut, and began the next phase of Al in Wonderland.

  I sat in my office the first day and just beamed. My secretary had previously worked for someone who recorded original cast albums of Broadway shows, and she was downright terrified of me. I didn’t know what was going on in this weird-ass building, and she certainly wasn’t gonna clue me in. Next door to me was my old friend Wally Gold, Aaron Schroeder’s assistant throughout my writing career, who was also just starting work there. That was reassuring. Wally, however, was their easy listening great white hope, and was soon extremely busy producing Peter Nero, Jerry Vale, and Barbra Streisand.

  On my right was the office of John Hammond, Sr. He was a certifiable legend in his own time, having discovered Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin, Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and Stevie Ray Vaughan in the course of his career. His son, John, Jr., was an established blues singer and a good buddy of mine, and it was easy for his dad and me to establish a rapport. John Sr. was a sly guy. He kept to himself, so folks weren’t sure what the ol’ gent was ever up to. John knew what he liked and he never lost his ears. He had no use for business by the book, which used to freak people out up there, but I related to that! In essence, he was the original Columbia Records hippie. John Sr. had married William Paley’s sister many years before. Bill Paley was Chairman of the Board of CBS and Columbia Records. John was well-placed there. Here’s a story that was told in those days:

  Every Thursday night, Hammond, Paley, and a bunch of corporate heavyweights had a standing card game at Paley’s home. One Thursday they were gathered there in the middle of a hand and Paley asked: “What’s new at Columbia Records nowadays, John?”

  Keeping his poker face down in his hand, Hammond answered: “I got fired today. ”

  The room exploded into laughter and disbelief. Paley couldn’t stop guffawing. “Who on earth fired you, John?” he asked with tears of laughter in his eyes.

  “The new guy, Dave Kapralik,” John answered.

  “Well, don’t empty your desk just yet,” Paley blurted out in between howls of laughter. The card game continued as usual.

  The next morning, Dave Kapralik was the one emptying out his desk drawers. John Hammond was just not to be trifled with, no matter how quiet he was.

  Across the hall from me was David Rubinson, who produced most of the alternative albums recorded at Columbia Records. I found out later he was instrumental in getting me hired, and I owe a great debt to him for that. David pro
duced and signed Moby Grape, The Chambers Brothers, Taj Mahal, Tim Rose, and an avant-garde group called The United States of America. I first met him when I sat in on the Moby Grape Wow/Grape Jam album (the real first rock jam-session album). David later realized the promise he showed early on, by producing and managing some of the finest acts on the scene in those days, including Herbie Hancock, Santana, and The Pointer Sisters.

  The interior design of the floor I worked on was Fellini-ish. It was designed by some guy who had probably always dreamed of doing doctors’ offices in Italy, but got stuck with a record company in New York instead. This development evidently didn’t deter him. The color scheme was your basic chiaroscuro (black and white) with a lot of light beige and grey thrown in for good measure; you could wear a faded referee’s shirt to work and blend right in with the environment. The part that killed me was that the walls to each office were prefab and the more important you got, the wider your office suddenly became. I had your medium-sized shot, an uncommonly lucky debut. One guy in Artist Relations (I still don’t know what that job means. Is he/she the person the record company hires to surreptitiously fuck the artist? My experience leads me to believe the answer is “yes.”) had the tiniest office, barely large enough to accommodate a desk and two chairs. He had to beg the use of someone else’s office if he had a meeting with more than one person.