Born To Rock & Roll

What do you do when you’ve bullshitted your way into playing organ on “Like A Rolling Stone”, gone electric with Dylan, served on the board of directors of the Monterey Pop Festival, founded Blood, Sweat, & Tears, discovered Lynyrd Skynyrd, played French horn on “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”, and wrote tunes for the Banana Splits? If you’re name is Al Kooper – and believe me, it would have to be – you write a book.

Backstage Passes & Backstabbing Bastards: Memoirs of a Rock N’ Roll Survivor, Koop’s long-out-of-print autobiography, is back – and in its third edition, to boot. It’s not really a stretch to surmise that the man who once guested on his own solo albums under the nom de rock of “Roosevelt Gook” would have a pretty wicked worldview, and indeed he does. From his upbringing in Queens to the building next door to the Brill Building through the Blues Project, Bob, and Michael Bloomfield, the Village, San Francisco, Atlanta, London, Nashville, LA, and – finally – lovely Somerville, MA, Uncle Al covers all the bases. And though he most assuredly does look back in anger from time to time, it doesn’t drag things down because even when spewing venom, Alan Peter Kuperschmidt is one funny bastard. Hell, the book’s worth picking up for the photo captions alone – seriously.

Backstage Passes ranks right up there with Ian McLagan’s All The Rage as THE premier rock n’ roll memoir – despite the years spent in the trenches, Al, like Mac, isn’t jaded to the point where he’s lost his love for music or his sense of humor, and that is evident on every page . You really do need to own this. Buy it today before it goes out of print and starts pulling in three bills on eBay again. And pick this up as a companion piece – you won’t be sorry.

Anyway, here’s Al singing “Wake Me, Shake Me” at Monterey: