Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards

by Al Kooper

  The band I’m in now, The Rekooperators, is probably the best band I’ve ever been a member of. To a man, the musicianship is certainly the highest of any of them. With Jimmy Vivino on guitar, Mike Merritt on bass, and Anton Fig on drums, I feel I am invincible when I sit down to play accompanied by a cast like that. Except for myself, they are all employed as musicians on late-night television shows: Jimmy and Mike with Conan O’Brien, and Anton with David Letterman. This makes touring problematical. When we do go out and play (on weekends), we do it because we love to play, not because it’s financially rewarding, because it ain’t. So we are out there performing because we genuinely enjoy playing music together. I think the audience can sense this difference and share that same joy with us. It remains one of the best things in my life now.

  Over the last fifteen years, I’ve probably written fifty really good songs. I feel like I’m still growing and maturing as a writer. However, I can’t face the indignity of the music business to try and do anything with them. I’d be proud to put them out for sale and show my continuing growth as a songwriter, but even without that recognition I’ll just keep writing and playing my songs. Maybe my son will have the fortitude to deal with getting them all released when I’m gone. I’m having too much fun with my other projects to return to the negativity of my past life. I just wish I had looked after my royalties more carefully so I that I didn’t have to chase all these bastards around for my rightful due now (and I could be living in Cambridge!). I’d like to be done with all the legal rigamarole, get what’s coming to me, and move on without looking back.

  I realize I still have much life to live. I’ve tried to document the life I have already lived up to now because it was exciting, different, and humorous. From now on, it should be humorous and rewarding, but not much different than anybody else’s humorous and rewarding life. So I feel safe ending the book here, even though this life could drag on for God knows how long.

  Thanks for traveling this bizarre voyage with me. I hope to see you sometime at a concert. Come up and say hi, and if you bring this book with you, I promise to sign it (that is, if you ask me to!). And remember, I’m a professional—don’t try any of this at home!!!!

  1998-2007

  TRIALS,

  TRIBULATIONS,

  AND A SOULFUL AGGREGATION

  When I first started teaching and I hadn’t been in town very long, a guy called me up and said, “Hi, I’m Bob Doezema, I teach at Berklee, and we put a band together for a fund-raising event every year and play. Our regular keyboard player can’t make it this year, and I wanted to invite you. I figured you’re new in town and you probably haven’t had the chance to play much.”

  I said, “Boy, you got that right!”

  Bob continued, “We’re just playing blues, so you don’t have to rehearse! We’d love for you to come down and play with us.”

  So I said, “I’ll be there.”

  It was simple; it was fun; and it was comparatively menial in my schedule and a wonderful diversion. I participated again a year later. The events are called “galas” at Berklee. And at the second gala I got them to rehearse once, so that I could sing a couple of my songs. By the third one, I made them really rehearse, and we had added horns. So after the third one, I said, “This is pretty good. Do you guys want to go play out in front of a paying audience somewhere?” And they said, “Yeah, we’d love to do that!” I went through two other drummers to get the correct one, and one other bass player. There are six of us total now, and early on I named us The Funky Faculty. We’ve been together about eight years, and the lineup is Bob Doezema, guitar; Jesse Williams, bass; Jeff Stout, trumpet and flugelhorn; Daryl Lowery, reeds and flute; and Larry Finn on drums. I play mostly organ and piano with a minor on guitar and mandolin.

  I needed a band like this because my concurrent band, The Rekooperators, had been taken out of my grasp by guitarist Jimmy Vivino. Now normally this is a negative thing, like losing BS&T to Bobby Colomby. But Jimmy was one of my “discoveries,” and I had supported him as a player and as a person for decades. He just happened to grow into making The Rekoops his backing band instead of mine. I was actually proud of him and his ascent to leader.

  And having the pressure of being the front man reduced to fifty percent made the gigs a lot more comfortable for me. I eventually came to think of myself as a sideman in The Rekooperators and I had zero problems with that. It is a classic jam band, and all the members love it because it’s a blowing-off-steam vehicle. Except for myself, Jimmy, Mike Merritt, and Anton Fig, all play on late-night TV shows, and when they have the time to blast off, The Rekooperators is their first choice. However, when Jimmy took over, I lost a band to play Al Kooper music exclusively. And so God delivered The Funky Faculty, and that’s what we did and still do. We’ve been all over Europe, playing Italy, Norway, Denmark, the Czech Republic, and three tours in Japan. It’s my biggest joy now. At sixty-four, I really love playing live gigs more than anything else. It’s my favorite thing to do.

  Arthur C. Clarke’s prophetic year, 2001, was a very bad year for me: my mom died; my dog died; 9/11. But let’s discuss the even worse parts of that year for me.

  I noticed that something was a little weird with my sight, but I didn’t know what it was until I actually shut one eye and went, Whoa! My vision was much worse than usual. So I went to the ophthalmologist, and he rushed me over to the head of neurology at Mass General in Boston. She was an older British woman, and she said, “What you have is very rare. What happened is you had a stroke in your eye that, for whatever time period, prevented the flow of blood to your optic nerve and then damaged your sight in that short amount of time, permanently. It’s irreparable, but it won’t get worse. We don’t know much about it, but I have something I’d like to try with you.” Her “treatment” involved two really dangerous drugs, and I had to sign forms absolving them of guilt if anything serious happened to me-Al, the guinea pig. I had to go to the hospital every day and have my blood checked. The other medication she put me on was steroidal, and since I’m diabetic, it jacked my blood sugar way up, which was also not good. This went on for three weeks, and I remember it was around Christmastime, because it wasn’t so jolly. As a joke, I used to say, “I’m the Jewish Ray Charles-half-off.” Nine months later, the same thing happened to the other eye. And then, of course, I lost that Ray Charles line. It was such a good line, too.

  And the British specialist woman was back in Britain doing something. So they sent me to another guy, and he said, “I see how you were treated for the first eye.” He said, “I just wanna tell you: I’m not gonna go that way.” And I just said, “Thank you so much!” ’Cause that was so rough and scary the first time. So that was a relief. And he was very nice, and let me see what the damage was through new tests he gave me They prescribed three different pairs of glasses for me. The everyday pair are trifocals. Then I have another pair that’s just for sitting at the computer. It’s sort of measured for how far I am from the screen. And those are really my lifesavers, because I spend most of my time there. And then there’s reading glasses. Not too much use for them anymore.... It takes so much effort to actually read smaller type that my actual endurance time is, at the most, forty-five minutes-and then it’s a for-sure nap. So reading a book has been neutralized forever. Good thing I was such an avid reader before 2001. But ultimately, I feel I was blessed that this affliction was aimed at my eyes instead of my hands or my ears. Hell, most times I’m playing, my eyes are closed anyway! Adjustment to everyday life was not that difficult. With thirty-five percent of my sight, I feel able to easily get through most situations, and I capitalize on touch to get me through dealing with musical instruments and various TV remote controls.

  Six months after the second eye diagnosis, I had to have an MRI to see how things were going. When they got the results, my regular doctor called me and said, “The eyes checked out great, but ... they found a brain tumor:” And I went, This is unbelievable! First the one eye, and they say the odds
of having it in both eyes are eighty-five percent against and so then both eyes, and now, a brain tumor! And she said, “That’s the bad news” I said, “What’s the good news?” She said, “I know the greatest doctor for that, and with your permission I’d like to call him and see if I can get you in there.” And I said, “You need my permission for that?” I said, “Go!” Living in Boston provides a great medical community. Her referral, who is world famous-people come from all over the world to have him work on them-was Dr. Peter Black. So I went and saw him. He had great office-side manner and made me very comfortable, helped me understand what the problem was. He said, “I’d like to wait a few months and see what goes on with this.”

  So I said, “Okay.” Three months later he went in and looked again, did the MRI. And he said, “Maybe another three months; I don’t see anything happening, so I don’t feel like I want to go in and operate.” And I’m thinking, I don’t feel that way.... I want you to go in and get this thing out, because I’m not getting any younger, and it’s not getting any smaller. I figured, as you get older the odds increase against you. So at the third exam, I was gonna verbalize this, but he said, “Well, it’s starting to grow a little bit, I think I’d like to go get it.” And I thought, Thank God! and I said, “When do you want to do this?” and he said, “How about in two weeks?” and I said, “Fabulous.” I’ve always been of a mind that I can do anything if I have a week to prepare for it. With diabetes there’s always the threat that you’re gonna lose your feet. So I have an advance, and I’m thinking, Maybe someday you’ll lose your feet, so just be ready for that. As you can see, I have a positive outlook. The day of the tumor operation, we had to be there about 6 a.m. And I really was thinking, Okay, let’s go. It wasn’t like, Oh, my God, I may not come out of this, or Oh, I’m so scared, or anything like that. I was fine.

  I do not have a fear of death. I’ve had such a wonderful, amazing life, I’m not gonna miss anything. I’ve already lived the life I wanted to live. Anything else is a bonus.

  Well, this was a big one for me ... I had miraculously never broken a bone, and the only other time I was under the knife was for a kidney stone. I basically felt lucky. I had the best doctor and the best attitude. I remember they anesthetized me and said, “Count backwards.” The last thing I remembered was ninety-eight ... and then I woke up, and Dr. Black was there, and my wife Susan was there. He said to me, “Everything went fine. You’re okay. I only shaved a quarter of your hair along the left side where I operated. The operation took eight and a half hours, got a bit bloody at the end, but all is well.” I had a bandage on at the time, and felt okay; I was taking everything in. Let’s say they operated on a Monday. So it was Monday night when I came out of it. Tuesday was a tough day; I didn’t like being in the hospital and I hated the bed. The doctor visited and said, “You’re doing very well, so I’d like to get you home Wednesday afternoon.” Brilliant. But I thought they must really need hospital space to check somebody out after brain surgery in two days!

  And I was just so glad to be able to get home. I went up to the bedroom, which is on the second floor of our house. I lay down, and they had a visiting nurse who would come in and put a machine on my legs just to stimulate them because of the inactivity. She would come in every four or five days and do that. It was a six-week recovery. I was on a lot of painkillers, which worried me, because in the past, as you’ve previously read, I had an addiction to painkillers, and now I was taking the same thing I was addicted to, and the same amount I’d been taking at the height of my addiction.

  The doctor said to me at the three-week point, “I’m going to stop the pills Thursday. I’m just telling you, and then you can take these other pills, which don’t deal with the same area, but they’re painkillers.” So I said, “Okay,” and I stopped on Wednesday, because I really wanted to know what was going to happen ... and it was a very smooth changeover. There was still pain, but there wasn’t that withdrawal thing, because before I was treating mental pain, and this time I was treating physical pain. And there’s a big difference ... speaking as far from a doctor as one can be, although I am a Doctor of Music.

  So it was a totally smooth transition, and that meant a lot to me. Well, those six weeks, I was mostly bedridden. Susan had to pulverize every bit of food I ate, because I couldn’t open my jaw very far because of the operation being just above my ear. I don’t know why this was, but I couldn’t chew properly, so then that was part of the fun... asking for steak shakes! So I think the first three months plus, I was also waiting for the hair to grow. I wasn’t gonna go out there with a left-headed mullet. Tumorettes syndrome? Now, for those people who are reading this and are married or have a significant other, if you’re the one being operated on and recovering in this six-week period, your task is much easier than the other person’s. My wife, God bless her, made it through that. It was much tougher on her than it was on me. And it was tough on me! But taking care of an immobile, complaining mate for a month and a half is not suggested for happy marriages.

  So the hair grew back pretty fast, which was good. But the six weeks were brutal for both husband and wife.

  As I’ve said before, I was concerned about the vision loss, but I felt that I could overcome whatever the drawbacks were gonna be. Even when the second eye went, I said, “I know I can deal with this,” in terms of playing. The biggest loss there was the reading, but fortunately, I’d read a lot of books before. Unfortunately, since the brain tumor, I can’t remember which books! I noticed a certain memory loss right away; it was comparatively small. I expected it anyway. But it wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be. And now, it’s gradually getting a little worse, but I suspect that’s the age factor.

  So I don’t think either of those problems hurt my performing abilities. The eyesight thing just changed them a little bit.

  Diabetes is something they haven’t cured yet, and I’m not the best diabetic patient who ever walked the earth, so that’s something that I’m constantly fighting. And that’s an everyday battle. Everything that I like to eat, I’m not allowed to eat anymore. Carbohydrates are the joy of life. So it’s very tough. I can still have carbohydrates, but in very small amounts.

  I could be a better patient if I were another person. But I’m sixty-four years old; I’ve sort of grown into who I am. And I do what this person can do, and that’s all I can do. At the end of the live show, I thank the audience for coming, and I say that I will sign anything they’ve brought. “I just have to go in the dressing room for twenty minutes ... and shoot up.” And everybody laughs. The really funny part is I used to say that before I got diabetes. And now I say, “The bad part is ... it’s insulin.” And they laugh again, this time a little more knowingly, because the average age of a person who comes to see me live is ... deceased. But I think my life changed around sixty. Up to that point, I laughed at the birthdays. “I don’t look so bad. I feel good. I’m still doing what I like to do.” At sixty, the physicalness of my age started to matter more. But as soon as I could, I was out playing again. I had to put a rider in my booking contracts that they had to get this exact musical equipment rented for me, because I was playing by touch, and there couldn’t be any substitutes. So that was the main difference. I had taught myself in that time period-before I went out and played again-to operate everything by touching. For instance, I can work the entertainment center remote control better than my wife can, because I don’t need the lights on to see it. I definitely don’t think of myself as blind, or really, not even close. I think I see as well as you do. I really do. I’m in my world, and in my world I see fine. And that’s the best way to be with it.

  I was very upset when they took my driver’s license away. There are only two cities I need to drive in, Nashville and Los Angeles, so it doesn’t matter. But now it causes me problems because I can’t get around easily in those cities. It’s great not to drive in Boston, though, let me tell you. It’s a gift.

  So there were very few good things that happened in 2001;
maybe two. One was the release of a two-CD set called Rare and Well Done.

  Sony came to me-they own most of my album catalogue-and they said, “We want to put out a two-album look at your career, and we’d like you to be involved.” And I said, “I would really love to be involved.” My contact guy at Sony has always been Bruce Dickinson. Bruce conveys what I want to the suits and saves me from dealing with them so I can get the creative parts of reissues done. In this two-CD set we took one CD and made it a sort of “greatest hits.” But we went in and remastered the tracks we chose, which had never been done before. In other words, we upgraded the sound of each track using comparatively modern technology rather than what was available when the tracks were originally recorded and mastered. For the second CD, I decided to unearth as many unreleased tracks, alternate takes, and rarities as I could find. Once I decided that, I was able to come up with the title of the album. The Well Done was obviously the first CD of my most popular tracks over the years, and the Rare was stuff that I didn’t think many people had heard before. I had a single out in 1965 that’s very rare, called “New York’s My Home,” and we included that after Bruce tracked down the master. And then the demo of “Somethin’ Goin’ On,” a track from the Child Is Father to the Man album, which was lying in a box of demos in my basement. I was aiming that at fans of that album, and the basement was a great source of material for the Rare CD. I was, for the first time, trying to think, Would I like this if I were a fan? and I’d never done that before. I think that’s the only time I really approached the content of an album that way.

  Jaan Uhelszki, my friend who wrote the liner notes for the album, suggested that she go and get comments from various peers, about a particular song or about me in general. And she said, “I’d like to get a list from you of people you think would be interesting, and then I would like to pick some people.” And I said, “Well, don’t tell me the people that you’re gonna pick.” And, you know, the result of that was better than any award that I could get from anybody. I didn’t know that was gonna be the case, but ... people I really admire, like the band XTC, to have the two guys that are the key guys in the band say really nice things about me-I was totally surprised! And Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top, who I worship. It just was the best thing for me about that album-to have the blessings of my peers is so much more important than any statuette. And I lead a hermetically sealed life in the confines of my Somerville home, so I would’ve had no way of knowing any of this. So that’s a great thing that Jaan did. And also, it made my awardless life really enjoyable. I don’t care-the way things are politically, I really have no desire, and don’t need to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, because it’s not really that; it’s the Rock and Roll Hall of Sales. I think that the music speaks for itself. I don’t have a blank area in the breakfront, you know, to display awards or anything like that.