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Classic Vinyl

With John Gardiner

Oh, no, must be the season of the witch

Tuesday, July 1, 2003

There were a few guys who defined 1960's electric blues for me. They were guys who were not stars – there were no Eric Claptons among them, although they rubbed shoulders with the Eric Claptons of the world. I've written about a couple of them – John Mayall and Paul Butterfield. This week, I thought I'd get into a couple of others.
While little Stevie Winwood was grabbing some major press back in the mid to late '60's as the keyboardist for blues-based groups like Traffic, Al Kooper was my choice as the guy who should have gotten most of the press. This guy did a lot to shape the groundbreaking music of the '60's. Even though he never had a #1 hit, he was big stuff indeed.
For example, when you think of horn bands like Chicago and Blood, Sweat and Tears and Lighthouse, don't think of the usual folks associated with those bands. Think Al Kooper because it was Kooper who was the driving force behind BST, sitting in on their first album which is solidly based in the blues and which is simply their best recording.
When Jimi Hendrix was looking to add keys to a tune, he usually looked no further than Al Kooper. The Hendrix classic Voodoo Chile has Kooper on keyboards and it's an amazing tune, putting the guitar master and the keyboard master together on vinyl.
But I was most interested in two albums that featured Kooper along with another of my '60's blues heroes, Mike Bloomfield. Bloomfield had played with Butterfield – in the same band as Alvin Bishop if you can believe it! – and he was part of the outstanding blues outfit, Electric Flag – and I'll tell you that this one Electric Flag album is worth going out and buying a new turntable.
So, in about 1968-69, Kooper and Bloomfield get together to produce two of the most remarkable live electric blues albums of the period. They do one album called simply "Super Session" and then a second album called "The Live Adventures of Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield". And I'll tell you, folks, that it simply doesn't get any better than this.
Drummer on both these albums is Canada's own Skip Prokop, who I think got his first taste of the potential of horns while working on these two albums. The big bear, Harvey Brooks, is the bass player and, man, was he my favourite back in the old days. You could have your Jack Bruces and your Noel Reddings, just give me Harvey Brooks playing Harvey's Tune – truly great stuff.
Anyway, I was in love with '60's electric blues back in the old days and Kooper and Bloomfield more or less defined the music in those days. Then, along came the 1970's, and they were gone. I'm not sure I heard a thing about either of them for years. I remember an Al Kooper release at one point, but I'll bet that was away back about 20-25 years ago.
Someone told me back a while ago that Mike Bloomfield had died a few years ago. I guess that would be easy enough to check. In fact, the same person told me that Paul Butterfield was dead, too, and that would be easy enough to check too. But I've chosen not to check and so they're still alive and making music to me. These guys were true musical innovators of a kind not seen today.
Even think about Prokop who I last heard was selling radio advertising in London. It must gall him to see the no-talent "musicians" of today hauling down the big pay cheques and bragging about what big stars they are, when a guy like him still has to work for a living. Prokop is a true musical giant, who once had the chance to form the back-up band for the immensely popular Mammas and Pappas – instead he came back to Canada and formed Lighthouse, one of the impact bands of its era.
There hasn't been any true musical innovation worth talking about for the last 25 years. All we've done is go around in circles. But it was guys like Kooper, Bloomfield, Prokop and Harvey Brooks who were part of the last generation of true musical innovators. They didn't get much recognition, but they were masters of what they did. "Oh, no, must be the season of the witch. Oh, no, must be the season of the witch."



John Gardiner is a 25-year-veteran of the community newspaper business, but he is also a prolific writer of moralistic short fiction he refers to as "emotional thoughtscapes" or "adult fables". Samples of his fiction can be found at:

He has also produced a noteworthy piece of humanist philosophy which can be found at: http://www.xs4all.nl/~aboiten/ad502.htm He welcomes comments on his work.