by Al Kooper
After the first show, Bob invited me to ride in his bus to the next stop. I started in right away: “Hey, man—why don’t we play more songs we recorded together? I thought that’s why I got the call.... And next time, ya know, I only stay in hotels with residents under ninety years old and touchtone phones, OK?”
We laughed, and that seemed to break the ice. I think this began the second phase of our friendship where we looked at each other as people who had been through a lot together and apart, and had survived it all. It was easier to be with him now. Not many people who had been in the picture all those years ago were alive or in Bob’s current phone book. Hell, I wasn’t in that book until the week before!
We started adding the older songs, and they sounded great. “I Want You,” “Like A Rolling Stone,” “Just Like a Woman” were big hits with both the audience and the band itself. Even so, Bob still wouldn’t show up at soundchecks. I thought it would be great because we could try out more older material.
“Oh, man ... I can’t come there ... I got all these guitars to tune!” was his answer to why he didn’t make it to soundchecks. The guy is admittedly hilarious.
New Orleans was a fun stop for me on the tour. I bought this bright red Afro wig and brought it to the gig that night. I had this nice suit on, shirt and tie and all, capped with this full-on almost-Bozo wig. The band was in tears laughing. I walked into Bob’s dressing room with it on.
“Oh, man ... that is obscene!” he said as he smiled, recoiling in mock horror. As we walked to the wings to prepare to go on, his mood changed quickly. The dynamics of our relationship precluded him telling me I couldn’t wear the wig onstage, but he was very upset. We stood side by side in the wings, saying not a word. I was imagining Dylan trying to figure out how to sing a song about God with Bozo the Clown playing the organ to his immediate right. Bob Meyers yelled “House lights” to the engineer, the house lights dimmed, and the crowd erupted. I pulled the wig off as we walked out and tossed it to Meyers offstage.
“You know I wouldn’t do that to you, Bob,” I said reassuringly, enjoying the look of sheer relief on his face. I couldn’t find the wig after the show until we were boarding the bus and I saw the driver was wearing it!
Another night, I walked out onstage forty-five seconds late, just as they were starting “You Gotta Serve Somebody,” wearing a hotel waiter’s outfit and carrying a room service tray in one hand and a towel on my other arm. Three months is a long time to be on a tour bus.
Early in the tour, Bob began “Like A Rolling Stone” so slowly, it felt like half an hour until we hit the last chord. After the show, I said, “If we play ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ any slower, we won’t have to do any other songs in the show.”
Bob knew it had been slow. “Maybe I should drink some coffee before we go on, Al,” he suggested.
“That’s a good idea, Bob,” I replied. And every night, as we’d walk to the wings, the ritual would begin as I’d say: “How many cups, Bob?” and he’d pick a number between 0 and 122, depending upon what his energy level was that evening. That way I’d know whether Jim Keltner should count off “Like A Rolling Stone” or leave it to Bob.
One night, at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, my parents actually came to see the show. When Bob was introducing the band, he said: “I’d like to say hello to Mr. and Mrs. Kooper. Glad ya could make it ... and greetings!!” I’d never heard him do that before and I kept a cassette of that show just for posterity.
I hadn’t done the sideman thing in many years, and I quite enjoyed it. No interviews, no real responsibilities, just show up and play. The road crew was wonderful, and I never had to lift a finger. The last leg of the tour was a bunch of Florida dates. The night of our Atlanta show I asked Bob to introduce the band at its end. I had lived in Atlanta and conjectured that some people in the audience might enjoy knowing the dot they saw behind the organ was me. Bob hadn’t been introducing the band lately anyway. So the time came and he said: “Anybody here ever heard-a Al Kooper? [Two beat pause.] Well that’s him over there!” Nothing about anyone else in the band. I was real embarrassed. I never asked him to introduce the band again, which is why he probably did that in the first place.
The bus began a real long haul to Fort Lauderdale, right after our Atlanta show. I opted to take a plane the next day and stayed overnight in Atlanta. Everyone was really looking forward to the Florida leg, because we had begun to get the cold weather at the end of November and it was gorgeous in Miami then. I remember arriving at the hotel in Fort Lauderdale, late afternoon, and there was our entire band pool-side in Panama hats, sunglasses, tanning oil, and drinks with parasols in them. I dropped my bags and collapsed laughing.
While in Miami, I got to see my old friend Bill Szymczyk, and I talked to him about producing my next album. The tour ended, and I went back to L.A. and reality. Back to that horrible furniture. How much can a man take? Well, at least the condo had a laundry room!
Plans were now afoot for a new Kooper album, to be produced by Bill Szymczyk: a duet record with Jeff “Skunk” Baxter (I would find out soon why he was called “Skunk”). The package was put together and offered to CBS Records, and then-president Al Teller signed the deal. I had not made a record since 1976’s Act Like Nothing’s Wrong on United Artists (now owned by EMI). The concept this time was sort of a modern Super Session, with less emphasis on blues and more on rhythm and blues. I can’t tell you how many times record companies have asked me to remake Super Session. I was sick of reading reviews about how my vocals were adequate or less than adequate, and for one of the only times in my life, I succumbed to criticism. Three guest lead singers sang two songs each, and two instrumentals were offered. I sang only two songs on the album; a Billy Boy Arnold blues tune called “I Wish You Would” and one of my new songs, “The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter.” Valarie Carter, Mickey Thomas (pre Starship and post Elvin Bishop), and Ricky Washington (Bill Szymczyk’s gardener!) did the singing. Backup musicians included: Elliot Randall, Bruce Gary, Neil Stubenhaus, Vinnie Colaiuta, Paul Harris, Joe Vitale, “Chocolate” Perry, and the Tower of Power Horn Section.
We toiled over this flawed masterpiece for a few months. Right in the middle of recording, that skunk Baxter nixed it being a duet record on his lawyer’s advice. He still played, but dumped the responsibilities on me. When it was finished, Szymczyk and I were invited up to Teller’s office to play it for him. At the conclusion of the playback, Teller, with an annoyed look on his face, complained: “This is not the record I expected you to do.” I suppose there will always be that communications breakdown between musicians and businessmen, but it was still a heartbreaker for Bill and me. We exchanged the same glance that Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway shared in Bonnie and Clyde just before they were pumped full of two thousand rounds of hot G-man lead. And that, my friends, is the story of the album Championship Wrestling, aborted in stillbirth by Al Teller, who released it anyway just to prove to Bill and me what a dud it would be if the company completely ignored it.
There was still one post-recording, memorable experience that came out of that album. I was playing the flagship show of the Championship Wrestling tour at the Bottom Line in New York City, and an extremely inebriated version of adult film star Sharon Mitchell, whom I had seen on the screen but never met, was in the front row. In the middle of a cover version of ZZ Top’s “Fool for Your Stockings,” she clambered onstage in a red leather coat and began to dance. My roadies were always instructed never to remove a woman from the stage unless she was carrying a lethal weapon, so she was left alone.
Now the place was packed with press and fans, and that must have encouraged her, because Sharon soon doffed her coat and was nude except for a garter-belt and stockings. (Does that qualify as a lethal weapon?) Luckily, I happened to be videotaping the show, and I silently prayed this was being filmed correctly. It was, by the way, and is one of the funniest video artifacts I own. Alan Pepper and Stanley Snadowsky, owners of said club, were having a shit hemorrhage over in
the corner, because what Sharon was doing was basically against the law in their club. Regardless, no one had the good sense to take her off the stage as she crawled around while we played. Greg George, my sax player at the time, went into a solo of “Harlem Nocturne,” a popular background tune for strippers, and we all followed him. I looked out into the audience, and all the women were completely horrified, while the men just had stupid grins on their faces. Flashbulbs and jeans buttons were popping everywhere. The song thankfully ground to a close and Sharon was escorted offstage. They still talk about that night at the Bottom Line!
Onstage with Sharon Mitchell. The Bottom Line, New York City, 1982. Al: “Hey, Sharon... if you wanna jump onstage here, ya gotta entertain this crowd!!” Sharon: [Trying her best]. (Photo: Ebet Roberts.)
For a couple of years after that, every time we played New York City various adult film stars would attend our shows. We became the favored band of that genre. No one attempted to equal Sharon’s performance, thankfully; they all just sat and watched each show and then came backstage to pay “their respects.”
Al Teller’s reaction to the Championship Wrestling album pretty much left a permanent bad taste in my mouth about making Al Kooper albums (and about Al Teller!), so right then and there in 1982 I retired that aspect of my life. Now, mind you, it takes a great deal of discipline not to make a solo album, especially if you’re the producer as well. It’s too much fun and the ultimate masturbatory recording experience, but ultimately it’s overkill. Still, if someone allows you to do it, it becomes addictive. They should offer a twelve-step program for artists who make too many albums. I know there are some fans out there who wish Van Morrison or Neil Young had used some restraint at various stages of their careers. On the other hand, how else would I have been inspired to stop if they had been restrained?
Son and proud father. Los Angeles, 1986. (Photo: Gary Nichamin/BOOM! Graphics.)
On my son Brian’s fifteenth birthday, March 29, 1982, he came to spend the evening with his poor old Dad. I was planning on a night of clubbing, so he’d feel like the mighty stud we all hoped he would grow up to be. Bruce Gary, the drummer from The Knack, was along with us this night; in fact, we were in his vehicle. Bruce was driving, I was riding shotgun, and Brian was in the backseat with white-framed shades on! As we drove along Sunset, Bruce stopped and engaged a few hookers in conversation, teasing Brian about buying him one for his birthday. I nixed that. Then Bruce fired up a joint. Now, I never hid anything from Brian. I let him see the good parts of life tempered with equal doses of bad. Drugs had never come up because, as he plowed through his teen years, my drug years were way behind me. But here comes Bruce’s pot being passed around. I took the joint and offered it to Brian. He vehemently and wordlessly shook his head no. “Listen,” I said, “tonight’s your birthday and we’re gonna party like maniacs. I won’t tell your mom and it’s okay with me if you smoke this. BUT ONLY FOR TONIGHT!” He smiled, took the proffered joint, and worked it like a pro. I laughed at myself for thinking he had never done this before. I could just imagine my Dad and I passing weed around. No way. My father would say things like:
“I sat down next to this dame, and let me tell ya, she reeked of the pot.”
A Timothy Leary he was not.
The next few years featured some of the low points of my professional life. That “career opportunity window” one hears so much about came crashing down on my fingers. People didn’t seem all that interested anymore. Work dried up in the record production field, and I started to tread water while I figured out what to do next. I moved into cheaper digs and scaled my whole lifestyle back to accommodate this sudden chill. I put bands together in New York and Los Angeles.
In New York, the best part of all this was the discovery of Jimmy Vivino. Making his move from New Jersey, Jimmy became a member of my band, gained my confidence and support, and has been my musical director for over fifteen years now. Because I didn’t play too many gigs, he supplemented his income by putting bands together for other people from my era, among them Felix Cavaliere, John Sebastian, Johnny Rivers, Darlene Love, Johnnie Johnson, Laura Nyro, Dion, and Clarence Clemons. He was briefly in a band with Jules Shear called The Reckless Sleepers.
Jimmy is one of the most well-liked musicians on the East Coast, and I’m very proud of my long-standing association with him. His profile became much wider (and so did he) when he became the musical director for Late Night With Conan O’Brien under Max Weinberg’s smiling leadership. People got to hear his great arrangements and guitar-playing on a nightly basis, and he began to get the recognition he so richly deserved from the general public.
In Los Angeles, I had a real ragtag band of old friends, who were, like myself, “between engagements.” Hutch Hutchinson had left The Neville Brothers and moved to L.A., and I grabbed him on bass. He’s currently having great moments in Bonnie Raitt’s band. Richie Hayward was displaced when Little Feat initially broke up, and I snared him on drums. With the two of them as a rhythm section and the addition of two ancillary players, we played around the L.A. bar circuit just to keep our chops together, not to mention paying the rent, while we waited for the next career train to stop in our various stations.
After spinning my wheels awhile, I went to New York on a long shot to meet with Jerry Jaffe, president of PolyGram Records. Jaffe was looking for someone to helm PolyGram’s West Coast office. I had to wait it out for a few months, and was lucky enough to be able to stay at Terry Southern’s loft in SoHo during this period. I met some great people there, rekindled my relationship with Harry Nilsson, heard the best stories about The Paris Review from Terry, and got through some real emotionally and financially trying months with a lotta help from my friends. Finally, a deal was pounded out, and I became West Coast Head of A&R for PolyGram.
A dashing young Jimmy Vivino prepares backstage to go onstage. New York City, 1985. (Photo: Al Kooper.)
Although in the late sixties I had served in a similar capacity for CBS in New York and was familiar with “the drill,” the job had changed radically in the ensuing twenty years. In 1968, it consisted of going to clubs all over the country scouting for talent. In 1983, it consisted primarily of having lunch with lawyers and managers. I found it difficult to combine eating food and keeping it down in the presence of most of these people, and I guess it was apparent, because the more aggressive of them would complain to Jaffe that their phone calls went unanswered by Kooper.
In between vomiting at some of the better restaurants in Los Angeles, I was miraculously able (with a lot of outside help) to get PolyGram to sign Richard Thompson, the English songwriter/Stratocaster hero, formerly of Fairport Convention. Through the years, he had put out solo albums and duet albums with and without his then-wife Linda, on Joe Boyd’s Hannibal label. Richard had built up a strong, dedicated audience in England and the U.S., and Boyd decided it was time to increase Thompson’s audience in ways he was not able to do. This called for the resources of a major label (i.e., marketing, publicity, and distribution all on a grander scale than Boyd himself could provide). Richard and I shared the same booking agent (Elizabeth Rush), and she really was the catalyst that brought the whole deal together. We got Jaffe to go see him live, I told Jaffe how great I thought Richard was, and Elizabeth came in and closed the deal.
One night I gave a lecture to a songwriting class in the Valley. A rather attractive woman from that lecture called me at PolyGram to ask me a few more questions. I boldly asked her out, and we began seeing each other. Her name was Vivien Bilbeaux. She was a legal secretary and an illegal songwriter. Here we go again.
Concurrently, purely by accident, I had found a very strange band to sign. Some group invited me to Club Lingerie to hear their set at 10 p.m. on a Tuesday night. I arrived at 9:50 p.m. to find I was not on the guest-list. I was just about to pay to gain entrance when some likable English guy waved me in. He managed the opening band, who were just going on stage, and so I sat down and politely gave them a listen. They were incr
edible. There were three synthesizer players, a bass player, and a drummer, playing great modern R&B, with no guitar player. How refreshing! The songs were quite good, and I couldn’t believe my good fortune. I rushed into the dressing room after their set and said to the first band member I could accost, “Are you guys signed??”
“No, actually, we’re not,” came the reply, and a big grin lit up my face. Unlike many of my contemporaries who just sat in their offices, signed nothing, and picked up their check every week, I wanted to find a great band. Jerry Jaffe would be in L.A. in two days. He had to hear this.
I set up a showcase at a local rehearsal studio. The boys were great, and Jaffe gave me the thumbs up. The band was called St. Regis. They were made up of Greg and Marc St. Regis, two fraternal twins who played keyboards, wrote, and sang all the songs; Jeff Bahr, another keyboard player; Nick Tumler, the drummer; and James Neuble, on bass. We went into pre-production, polished all the material, tightened the arrangements, and got ready to record.
I wanted to take the band away from L.A. and all the distractions inherent there so we could concentrate on recording only. I chose Bill McEuen’s studio in Aspen, Colorado, where Bob Edwards had done a few Dirt Band albums. It was fall and it was beautiful there. Till we got into the studio.
The two brothers would get incredibly competitive and contrary with each other in the studio, and each session quickly degenerated into shouting matches between them. Shades of The Kinks and Oasis! Bob Edwards set up a roll of flip-cards with chronological descriptions like “2 HOURS AND 15 MINUTES TO GO,” “1 HOUR AND 45 MINUTES TO GO,” etc., etc. Each day’s session would last a mere four to six hours before it would just deteriorate into ugly name calling. Schedules fell by the wayside. The trip to Aspen only yielded a third of the amount of finished product it should have. Returning to L.A., we settled into Westlake Studios to complete the record at the usual snail’s pace of four to six hours a day. I began to record the brothers’ tantrums secretly on cassette, lest someone think / was responsible for the mounting costs.