Al Kooper: Rare & Well-Done - The Greatest and Most Obscure Recordings 1964-2001

Rarely in the history of rock music has a person cooked up a musical smorgasbord with as much success. Al Kooper, whose Hammond B3 confections influenced everyone from Procol Harum to The Wallflowers and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in-between, proves through these two discs that his genius was more than organ simply the riff from Dylan’s ‘Like a Rolling Stone.’

Those familiar with his menu will welcome the US appearance of some of his best work on the ‘well done’ disc. The Blues Project, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Super Session (with Stephen Stills and Mike Bloomfield), Kooper Session (with Shuggie Otis) and his solo albums are all represented. This music is rife with soul, brass, blazing guitar solos and a person who knew what he wanted musically and then was able to coax it out of his co-conspirators. His version of ‘This Diamond Ring’, a song he co-wrote originally for The Drifters, gives you a sense of the spirit the track should have taken before it was bleached by Gary Lewis and the Playboys. ‘Bury My Body’ is a gospel tune set ablaze the incendiary guitar of a 15-year-old guitar genius named Shuggie Otis. (Check out the 2001 reissue of Otis’ lost gem from 1974, ‘Inspiration Information - World Psychedelic Classics.’) Add in Super Sessions’ ‘Season of the Witch’ and the BS&T classic, ‘I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know’ and you are well on your way to pure Kooper heaven. Just this single disc would have made most consumers ecstatic. And would have made the release memorable. But that would have left a big part of the story untold.

Disc two, the rare disc, is the better entrée.

Starting with a 2001 update of ‘I Can’t Quit Her’ from BS&T’s Child is Father to the Man, you realize that this disc is going to be filled with treasures you could not have imagined. Give him an inch and he’ll produce a Brian Wilson harmony-filled ‘Autumn Song’. His work with Bill Lloyd delivers a never-used contribution to the XTC tribute CD, Making Plans for Nigel. His genius for arrangements delivers a big band version of The Beatles’ ‘Hey Jude’. There’s also an outtake from Dylan’s New Morning, ‘Went To See The Gypsy’. All told, there are more sweets than you’ll find in a Krispy Kreme store. That all of this music has gone unheard is unthinkable. And, according to Kooper, there is another couple hundred or so songs still waiting in the cooking book.

We will hear a portion of that music soon. An expanded, remastered edition of SUPER SESSION with four bonus tracks (an outtake from the original sessions, a live outtake and remixes of 'Season of the Witch' and 'Albert's Shuffle' sans horns) plus a concert CD from the Fillmore East with Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield featuring Johnny Winter on one track, are scheduled for release in January, 2003. In the meantime, track down 'Rare and Well-Done'. It will satisfy even the most discriminating palate.

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