Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards

by Al Kooper

Boy, was I angry. “Put it out when they get the credits right,” I growled.

  That was the last Dylan album I ever got involved producing. It was one of those situations where you have to place your friendship ahead of working together so closely. You give up one to save the other. While I have never produced another Dylan album, I’ve played on many others and ... we’re still friends today.

  Around this time period, I spent a lot of time recording in London. This was precipitated by a fortuitous meeting with Elton John. I had worn out his first American release (the one with “Border Song” and “Take Me to the Pilot”), and on one occasion noticed that he was only playing two U.S. dates: Boston and L.A. Living in New York City at the time, I hopped the shuttle to Boston and, bunking with my in-laws, proceeded to the club where he was appearing. Prior to showtime, Elton and I were introduced and shared an instant rapport. This is the coolest thing about the rock music fraternity. We all have heard of each other. We all enjoy and suffer the same perks and indignities that come with the lifestyle. So when we actually meet each other, we can cut right to the chase and not hem and haw like you might when meeting a normal person. I love that.

  I invited Elton and his lyricist Bernie Taupin to spend the next day with me, and I rented a limousine. We went visiting the historical sites around Lexington and Concord, where my ancestors vanquished many of their ancestors. We stopped at this one area and Elton read the inscription from a brass plaque aloud: “The Tomb of the British Soldiers—they travelled 3,000 miles to die here.”

  Elton reflected for a moment. “The thing is,” he quipped, “this has happened to so many British bands lately.”

  They played me some new tracks they had just cut and I was overwhelmed, especially by the bass playing. “Who’s playing bass on these tracks?” I inquired.

  “That’s Herbie Flowers, mate. He’s a god in England. And before you ask, here’s his phone number!” they thankfully offered.

  Back in those days, it was my habit to find great sidemen, and then travel to wherever they were and record in their particular indigenous environment. And so it was off to Blighty and the very musical Herbie Flowers Experience. Elton was extremely helpful in securing various musicians for my sessions, and graciously made his office staff available to me. The first record I made in this situation was my solo album New York City (You’re A Woman) at Trident Studios (right next door to a bordello).

  Herbie’s contributions were fantastic. A lanky, loony potsmoker, he was in a class by himself as a musician. I still learn things today by listening to his older bass tracks! He had previously played on Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” was rumored to have played on “OO Bla Di-00 Bla Da” by the Beatles, and had been a member of the successful London band Blue Mink.

  With Elton John. Elton: [Interestedly] Nice package there, mate!! Al: [Tactfully] Uhhh.... If you’ll look a little harder, you’ll ... uhhhh ... notice that the package, although addressed to the right, uhhhh ... is not actually addressed to you, per se. (Photo: Bob Gruen.)

  Herbie Flowers was, like, a-rollin’ ... stoned. (Photo: Al Kooper Collection.)

  When artist and producer friends Harry Nilsson and Richard Perry visited one of my sessions, they asked: “Who’s that bass player?”

  I answered: “That’s Herbie Flowers, boys. He’s a god here. And before you ask, here’s his phone number!”

  Harry and Richard used him all over their stuff (specifically the Nilsson Schmilsson album they were working on at the time), and then there he was, on “Walk on the Wild Side” by Lou Reed. The next Elton album (Tumbleweed Connection) contained perhaps his best playing of all time. “Burn Down the Mission” and “Country Comfort” are still confounding and influencing bass players everywhere today.

  Once, during one of my sessions that Herbie was booked on, we went into the booth for a playback, and there was a particular passage where the bass seemed to be out of time. I stopped the playback and said: “Herbie, do you want to redo that bit there?”

  He looked at me incredulously. “No. I do not want to touch that bit there. Ten years from now you’ll understand it. Just leave it be.”

  Embarrassingly, he was right. Well.... Maybe it was nine years.

  Things were tense in the marriage department at this time. Now my wife Joan was a great gal (still is, I imagine). She will always own a piece of my heart for two incidents:1. At one point in our chronology, we were living in this un-air-conditioned rat-trap on Waverly Place in Greenwich Village. I would come home at night, strip down to just jockey shorts, and read the New York Post while Joan dear would cook dinner. So this particular night, as I was regaling myself with the daily murder count, she ran into the barely-living room and announced that the stove was on fire and could I do something about it. So macho Al sauntered into the kitchen, opened the oven door, and a huge fireball shot out and singed my eyebrows and hair. I hurriedly shut the oven door and the two of us looked at each other in a we-don’t-own-a-fire-extinguisher panic. “Let’s just split!” she said.

  2. Same scenario: me reading the paper and Joan cooking. Add to the participants Magoody, a new sheep dog puppy that we were currently unsuccessfully house training (don’t ask). I was really engrossed in the paper but I did hear Joan scolding the dog: “Magoody! NO! BAD DOG!!” Then Joan walked into the living room, with a newspaper full of apparent doggie-doo, and flung it off the newspaper, across the room onto my bare, sweat- drenched chest! I stared in disbelief, while she collapsed in laughter across the room.“I can’t believe you just did that to me,” I said with righteous rancor. “Oh cool out, will ya?” she said as she walked over to me, picked up one turdlet in her bare hands and took a bite out of it! I thought I had married John Waters’ ex-wife until I realized that Joan had just cooked chocolate fudge and was pushing the envelope of my sense of humor. What a gal, huh?

  While I was cavorting around London, our marriage was crumbling. In a nutshell, it was the basic scenario of the musician-marries-pretty-girl-who’s-left-at-home-way-too-many-times-and-doesn’ t-have-a-career-of-her-own movie. We separated and I found myself living in a hotel room in the city I resided in. The irony was painful: I’d come home from touring to yet ... another hotel room.

  The Beast & the Beauty: Al and Joan, New York City, circa 1969.

  (Photo: ©1970, The Estate of Peter Hujar. All rights reserved.)

  Finding an apartment in New York City is a perilous task. It can take months. I was incredibly depressed, and emotionally weak; the perfect profile for a drug abuser. I had quit all drugs in 1967 while I was putting BS&T together, but now I suddenly crumbled and fell victim to the world of painkillers. I hesitate to document this part of my life (sound the serious alarm here for the next few paragraphs), but I feel perhaps it may help someone out there to see a foolishness of choices and light the way out of the tunnel for them. Back then, there were no rehab centers, and one had to take matters into one’s own hands. At any rate, I’ll be concise.

  Percodan was the choice I made. Favored by doctors for migraines and dentists for post-op relief, in my eyes it was a chicken-shit, Junior Miss heroin substitute. Not forlorn enough to punch a needle in my arm, I chose these convenient little escape tablets to cope with my problems. Completely unaware of the addictive features, I went hog-wild. With the help of inspired tale-telling to various East and West Coast “Dr. Nicks,” I built up a formidable stash. Behind my back, the members of my performing band would take bets on how many times I would walk into the microphone during each performance. My friends from Dr. Generosity’s (an Upper East Side rock star hangout in Manhattan that had become my clubhouse) would literally carry me home on occasion, when I nodded out past closing time. Cute. And into this potentially lethal chemistry, I added the purchase of my first automobile: a brand-new dark blue 1972 Corvette with two tops. Putting that car into the equation was the closest I had ever come to inadvertent suicide so far.

  One night, I was performing at a college in New Jersey. I had dated a woman twice before w
ho was the sister of an actor who would become famous in two years on a television sitcom. I called her from the college and asked her if she wanted to spend the night together when I got back from New Jersey. The plan was that I would pick her up at her place on my way back from the gig and we would “hang out” at my hotel for the rest of the night. I had driven the Corvette to Jersey since the gig was so close. As I headed back to the city with the top down, I realized I was starting to nod out. I drove faster toward her apartment and stumbled to the buzzer when I got there. Some Romeo.

  This was a dangerous game I was playing. She came downstairs and got in the car.

  “Can we get something to eat?” she said. “I’m starving!” Just what I needed.

  I answered: “Michelle, I’m seriously nodding out here. Let’s just get something delivered to the hotel, OK?” She agreed, and I told her to call for food wherever she wanted and handed her a wad of bills.

  “I have got to take a nap for two hours,” I went on. “Order some food, make yourself comfortable, watch TV, and before you know it, I’ll be up.”

  Another great date with Al. This was fine with her, however, so I headed off to the bedroom. It was 1 a.m. and I crashed instantly and awoke at 4 a.m., refreshed and randy. I sashayed into the living room, and the little doll was attired in nothing but one of my shirts (quite oversized for her). She was out cold with a drinking glass still in her hand. How cute, I thought. I kinda settled down next to her on the couch and made a few moves. I got zero response. I shook her gently to wake her up. No response. She began drooling.

  Oh shit, am I in trouble, I was thinking. I tried the mirror trick, and to my relief she was still breathing.

  I gave her one last tentative shake and said to her: “Okay, this is your last chance! If this is some method acting tour-de-force, now is the time to ‘fess up ’cause I’m about to call an ambulance.” No response.

  I was really scared now. I called the hotel doctor and dressed her as best I could while waiting for him to arrive. He examined her and called for an ambulance. Suspected overdose. My world is just filled with irony, I was thinking. I’m nodding out a few hours ago and now I’m taking her to the hospital!

  She was rushed to an emergency room, where I paced around. The cops took her handbag and emptied it onto a gurney, looking for whatever had felled her. It was a moment out of a Woody Allen film. An incredible amount of stuff tumbled out: hair-brushes, makeup, cigarettes, magazines, address books, tampon holders, scraps of paper, and loose tobacco, for starters. The cops looked incredulously at each other and began the task of weeding through all this feminine paraphernalia. I was actually able to grin for a moment until I started imagining the headlines in tomorrow’s New York Post:

  DEAD NUDE GROUPIE FOUND IN ROCK STAR’S HOTEL ROOM

  This sobered me up rather quickly. About an hour later, some doctor arrived with the news: “You got her here just in time. If you had slept through the night, you’d have awakened to a corpse in your room. She overdosed on something or other, and we were able to pump her stomach and save her. You’re a lucky guy.” Somehow, I didn’t feel like a lucky guy.

  Around lunchtime, she was discharged from the hospital, and I took her in a cab to her soon-to-be-famous brother’s place. We walked into his soon-to-be-better-decorated apartment.

  “She’s all yours, big brother,” I announced as I quickly took my leave. As I headed out the door, he looked at me with the look of a weary man who had done this before. Whew! Close call, kids....

  Part of me took this as a sign from above (or below). A heavenly (or hellish) warning to curtail my chemical activities. Shortly thereafter, the clouds parted and I found an apartment. Situated on the Upper East Side on 84th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues, I was close to my clubhouse (Dr. Generosity’s) and this fabulous New York institution called Papaya King (amazing juices—nectars of the gods). It was then that I realized that this was my first apartment on my own. I had gone from my parents’ house to my first marriage, from my first marriage to my second marriage, and now finally, I Lived Alone. I was happy.

  I decorated the joint like a stoned-out rock star and then realized, hey!—I don’t have to take these pills anymore! I’m cured! So I just stopped dead cold—a brave gesture at the least. The next day, I got this wicked flu and then the truth hit me like a ton of bricks: I am actually physically addicted to the Percodan! And I was booked solid for the next six weeks with only two or three days off a week. I made an appointment with this doctor that I saw for actual physical ailments. Now this was no Dr. Nick. He was a serious, older man, who knew more than most doctors. He was so good, in fact, that I went to him despite Kooper’s Medical Law, or KML: If you can’t make them laugh, get rid of them.

  On this occasion, I went in on some unrelated pretense (maybe an ingrown toenail) and asked him: “By the way, I have a friend who is addicted to Percodan and wants to end his horrible addiction. Is there some drug that can ease the pain and effects of withdrawal?”

  The doctor paused maybe eight and a half seconds, and then, with only the most incredibly subtle trace of a baby smile, said: “No.”

  Of course he realized the true story. How stupid of me. He knew there was no friend.

  That doctor was my only hope. As I mentioned before, in 1971 there were no rehab centers and I knew I would need more than three days off to end this curse myself. The really twisted part was that I was ready to stop taking the pills, but didn’t have the time frame to do it in. So now I had to take a daily dosage just so I wouldn’t get sick. This did not appeal to my intellectual side.

  For a month and a half, I lived this horrible life of preventive drug maintenance until the time I had booked to kick the addiction arrived. I told everyone I was going on vacation to an undisclosed place and stocked my apartment for the inevitable onslaught. I should have had someone help me, but I was simply too embarrassed to share my horror with anyone else. That first morning I took my stash, which was quite formidable, stared at it for a full five minutes, then quickly flushed hundreds of pills down the toilet.

  This was it. No turning back now.

  I knew I had a day before the withdrawal would set in, so I went to the market and bought supplies, and began reading one of the books I had naively set aside for this trip. The next morning, the flu began again. I woke up bathed in sweat with a temperature that was raging. I cursed myself for flushing my stash as I spent most of the day retching into the very toilet down which the stash had exited.

  Ever wonder what happens when you take ten Percodans a day for a few months and then suddenly stop? When I wasn’t bathed in sweat, I was suffering incredible chills. Tylenol was the medication I had allowed myself, and I’m surprised I didn’t just down the whole bottle. All the demons I had avoided for 27 years were in that apartment alongside me running wild. Eating was impossible as nothing really stayed down. I drank as much water as I could to keep from dehydrating and replaced meals with frozen fruit bars, which were all I could get away with eating. This went on more or less for five days.

  On the sixth day, I began to feel the stirrings of the first minor victory. I had periods of normal body temperature. I was so thankful that I eschewed reading or watching TV. I just sat there and marveled at feeling human again, albeit a shell of a human. I wondered how Jerry Lewis had gotten through this (another book-confessed Percodan addict). The soundtrack for this nightmare was provided by Stevie Wonder’s Music of My Mind and Rory Gallagher’s self-titled solo debut. To this day, when I hear any music from those two albums, memories of all kinds flood my soiled synapses. They were my only companions on that unguided tour through hell.

  Week two began weakly. I needed to get my strength back and develop a new daily regimen. The food I had foolishly bought on the first day was all spoiled. I ventured outside for the first time in a year unaddicted. Words basically fail me here. Breathing the fall air, seeing the birds—I took nothing for granted. The people who worked at the market that knew me were
kind enough not to comment on my appearance, and I headed home with my new supplies. That next week began the mental rebuilding. I knew one thing. I would eventually have to leave New York City. The demons were waiting around every corner. It would never be the same again.

  Touring was pretty much a way of life for me in this era. I had a four-piece combo of childhood friends, and I often would take my best friend, Michael Gately, along, who would play court jester. We gigged about four days a week and usually returned home on the off days unless we were doing a full-blown tour.

  Around ’71, I was rounding out a nationwide tour with a few dates in the New York area. One concert was booked out at C. W. Post College in Greenvale, Long Island. The last time I played at old C. W. was for their homecoming weekend of 1962-1963, which I mentioned before, when an unknown Paul Simon and I played twist tunes as part of his dad’s society orchestra!!!

  Anyway, here I was back at C. W., and at $5,000, I think they were paying me one hundred times what they paid me last time. Not bad for seven years’ work. We were headlining this show with Long John Baldry and The J. Geils Band in support. I had seen The Geils Band play a week earlier, and there was no way I was gonna follow them. I never dug headlining anyway. In a three-act show, it’s hipper to go on second ’cause you get the audience in their prime. By the time the third act comes on they’ve sat through at least three hours of god-knows-what, and they’re tired. Also, if you headline, you gotta hang around all night long, and that is the lowest. It’s strictly a matter of ego and management, but let me get in there, play, and go home, I don’t care if I open the damn show.

  I strolled on down to The Geils’ dressing room while Baldry was onstage. Peter Wolf, their lead singer, was an old friend of mine (used to interview me when he was a DJ in Cambridge, Massachusetts), and we said hi and all the amenities. I then asked them if they minded closing the show and they were glad to do it. It also let the show make more sense in terms of energy buildup. Baldry was into his last song, so I made it back to my dressing room to get ready. My folks had made one of their infrequent pilgrimages to hear their “darling son,” and I wanted to get up there and “kick a little ass” for Mom and Dad.