Legendary keyboardist Al Kooper and the Season of the Ditch
Published December 29, 2004
Universal Music Group, seized by the outpouring of grief over the death of Johnny Cash, planned on reissuing his 4 American Recordings titles on SACD. An progress report inquiry posted to Johnny Cash's website yesterday went unanswered. And this in spite of
Johnny's daughter Kathy posting her father's poetry all day. I can only assume that this project has become another reality of the season of the ditch. Also; a rumoured reissue of David Crosby's "If I Could Only Remember my Name" has fallen off the radar.
In 2002, the Annual Surround Sound Awards named Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" best multi-channel release of that year. How could Sony and the members of Pink Floyd drop the ball on the rest of their titles? If any band is worthy of studio blender remastering its Pink Floyd. Just think of the money that Sony could make or could have made from surround sound reissues of "The Wall", "Wish You Were Here" and "Animals".....not to mention the additional revenue from the sales of the players and home theater equipment to reproduce them.
This February, the Grammy Awards ceremony will present its inaugural honour for the best in surround sound recordings. Alas...it may be their one and only pause to recognise this marvel of sonic technology.
As an afterthought, this article must be post scripted as "the season of the bitch". In a day and age of soul-less, heartless, manufactured pop stars we once again shelve brilliance for the sake of the bottom line. I'm not saying that these reissues would have saved the music industry or appreciably improved Sony\BMG's 2005 revenues. Instead, it's simply disenchanting to me as a music critic and purveyor of surround sound recordings to write about upcoming Motley Crue 5.1 compilations and to get at all excited by a reissue of an AM-hell stalwart like the Carpenters..
As a post script; I would strongly recommend that everyone who reads this to follow the link and purchase a piece of history that is the Mike Bloomfield-Al Kooper-Stephen Stills "Super Session" remaster on cd....you too will be the coolest kid on the block with music that truly rocked a generation..
Ron Wheeler
www.surroundablog.com
- Legendary keyboardist Al Kooper and the Season of the Ditch
- Published: December 29, 2004
- Type:
- Section: Music
- Filed Under: Music: Blues, Music: Classic Rock and Oldies, Music: News
- Writer: Ron Wheeler
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I came of age listening to what was then called underground or progressive radio in the late 60s. Both of the albums mentioned in this review got a significant amount of airplay on Cleveland underground stations at the time, and I quickly became a fan. I played my original vinyl copy of Super Session until I wore it out. I still play the CD.
"Season of the Witch" is indeed a standout cut, but I can't think of a weak tune on the entire disk. Bloomfield is one of the great unsung guitar heroes (commercially, at least, but that's no surprise) of the 60s, and Stills' country-laced fills and solos remain some of his best playing to date.
BST went on to greater and greatly deserved commercial success after Kooper was replaced by David Clayton Thomas, but Child is the Father to Man stands as a prime example of East Coast progressive rock.
BST brought a welcome contrast to the somewhat looser sound of seminal West Coast jam bands like Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and Quicksilver Messenger Service. It is no slight to those fine bands to observe that their identification with late-60s music is an unforgivable artistic injustice to BST and other East Coast bands like the Blues Project (which evolved into BST), the New York Rock Ensemble, and numerous others.
The albums Mr. Wheeler mentions here are ample evidence that rock musicians on the East Coast made their contributions to 60s music.
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I came of age listening to what was then called underground or progressive radio in the late 60s. Both of the albums mentioned in this review got a significant amount of airplay on Cleveland underground stations at the time, and I quickly became a fan. I played my original vinyl copy of Super Session until I wore it out. I still play the CD.
"Season of the Witch" is indeed a standout cut, but I can't think of a weak tune on the entire disk. Bloomfield is one of the great unsung guitar heroes (commercially, at least, but that's no surprise) of the 60s, and Stills' country-laced fills and solos remain some of his best playing to date.
BST went on to greater and greatly deserved commercial success after Kooper was replaced by David Clayton Thomas, but Child is the Father to Man stands as a prime example of East Coast progressive rock.
BST brought a welcome contrast to the somewhat looser sound of seminal West Coast jam bands like Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and Quicksilver Messenger Service. It is no slight to those fine bands to observe that their identification with late-60s music is an unforgivable artistic injustice to BST and other East Coast bands like the Blues Project (which evolved into BST), the New York Rock Ensemble, and numerous others.
The albums Mr. Wheeler mentions here are amble evidence that rock musicians on the East Coast made their contributions to 60s music.