[Harp-L] Like a Rolling Stone (was A Whiter Shade of....Yikes!)

["Gary Lehmann" <hqr@xxxxxxx>]

>From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Kooper
"Like a Rolling Stone" Session
Kooper's most notable playing with Dylan likely is the striking organ parts
on "Like a Rolling Stone". Kooper had been invited to the session as an
observer, and hoped to be allowed to sit in on guitar, his primary
instrument. After hearing a guitar player who turned out to be Mike
Bloomfield warming up, and recognizing that Bloomfield was a much better
player, Kooper put his guitar aside and went to the control room. During the
recording of "Like a Rolling Stone", Paul Griffin moved from organ to piano.

Kooper told producer Tom Wilson that he had a good organ part for the song
(which he later noted was just a ruse to get into the session), and Wilson
responded "You're not an organ player, you're a guitar player", but Kooper
insisted that he play. Before Wilson could explicitly reject Kooper, he got
a phone call. Kooper went and sat down at the organ, though he had rarely
played organ before the session. Wilson soon returned, surprised to find
Kooper in the studio. You can hear the organ coming in just behind the other
members of the band at many places in the song, to make sure he was getting
the chords right. During recording, Dylan famously said, "Turn the organ
up," and a classic rock organ part was born. While the combination of piano
and organ was common in church settings, it was relatively new to pop music
and attracted considerable attention.

The organ was the iconic Hammond B3. Kooper later revealed that because it
is a somewhat complicated instrument to turn on (hold one switch for a
count, then flip the other switch)-- had it not already been done by someone
else at the studio -- he probably wouldn't have figured it out on his own,
and would never have maneuvered his way in to the role as organist on these
sessions.

-----Original Message-----
From: harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Cljdm@xxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2006 7:23 AM
To: bogio@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] A Whiter Shade of....Yikes!

Hi, 

Does Garth get any compensation for Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone"?