The Secret Weapon

Al Kooper left Blood Sweat and Tears in 1968 after just one album, CHILD IS FATHER TO THE MAN, taking a job with the Columbia Records A&R department. Here he began recording albums; first with Mike Bloomfield (the top-ten SUPER SESSION), then Shuggie Otis, and his own solo debut, I STAND ALONE. He continued to do session work, adding his keyboards to records by The Rolling Stones (Al played on "You Can't Always Get What You Want"), Jimi Hendrix (“Long Hot Summer Nights”), The Who (“Rael”), and innumerable others. He also scored the Hal Ashby film The Landlord in 1970. more The album Super Session grew out of a single nine hour jam in 1968 by guitarist Mike Bloomfield and multi-instrumentalist Al Kooper and Stephen Stills of CSNY fame. Kooper and Bloomfield had both previously worked in support of Bob Dylan, in concert and appearing on his ground-breaking classic, Highway 61 Revisited. Kooper's most notable playing with Dylan 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 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 (a Hammond B3), though he had rarely played organ before the session. Wilson soon returned, surprised to find Kooper in the studio. Throughout the song the organ can be heard coming in just behind the other members of the band, as Kooper followed to make sure he was playing the right chords. During recording, Dylan famously said, "Turn the organ up," and a classic rock organ part was born.Al was now the go to man for the organ. via wiki... "Season Of The Witch" was most definitely the gem of the sessions.(in my op)