''Super Session'' is an album by the singer and multi-instrumentalist

Al Kooper Al Kooper (born Alan Peter Kuperschmidt; February 5, 1944) is an American songwriter, record producer, and musician. Throughout much of the 1960s and 1970s he was a prolific studio musician, including playing organ on the Bob Dylan song " Like ...

, with the guitarists

Mike Bloomfield Michael Bernard Bloomfield (July 28, 1943 – February 15, 1981) was an American blues guitarist and composer. Born in Chicago, he became one of the first popular music stars of the 1960s to earn his reputation almost entirely on his instrume ...

on the first half and

Stephen Stills Stephen Arthur Stills (born January 3, 1945) is an American musician, singer, and songwriter best known for his work with Buffalo Springfield; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Crosby, Stills & Nash; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; and Manassas (band ...

on the second half. Released by

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American reco ...

in 1968, it peaked at No. 12 on the ''Billboard'' 200 during a 37-week chart stay and was certified gold by

RIAA The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...

Background

and

had worked together on the sessions for

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan; born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Described as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his nearly 70-year ...

's ground-breaking classic ''

Highway 61 Revisited ''Highway 61 Revisited'' is the sixth studio album by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on August 30, 1965, by Columbia Records. Dylan continued the musical approach of his previous album ''Bringing It All Back Home'' (1965), usi ...

'', and played in the backing band for his controversial performance with electric instruments at the

Newport Folk Festival The Newport Folk Festival is an annual American folk-oriented music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, which began in 1959 as a counterpart to the Newport Jazz Festival. The festival was founded by music promoter and Jazz Festival founder Geor ...

in July 1965. Kooper had recently left

Blood, Sweat & Tears Blood, Sweat & Tears (also known as "BS&T") is an American jazz rock music group founded in New York City in 1967, noted for a combination of brass with rock instrumentation. BS&T has gone through numerous iterations with varying personnel and ...

after they recorded their debut album, and was now working as an A&R man for Columbia Records. Bloomfield was about to leave the Electric Flag, and at a loose end. Kooper telephoned Bloomfield to see if he was free to come down to the studio and jam; Bloomfield agreed, leaving Kooper to handle the arrangements. Kooper booked two days of studio time at CBS Columbia Square in Los Angeles in May 1968, and recruited keyboardist Barry Goldberg and bassist Harvey Brooks, both members of the Electric Flag, along with well-known session drummer "Fast" Eddie Hoh. On the first day, the quintet recorded a group of mostly

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

-based instrumental tracks. It included the modal excursion "His Holy Modal Majesty", which was a tribute to

modal jazz Modal jazz is jazz that makes use of musical modes, often modulating among them to accompany the chords instead of relying on one tonal center used across the piece. Though exerting influence to the present, modal jazz was most popular in th ...

musician

John Coltrane John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the Jazz#Post-war jazz, history of jazz and 20th-century musi ...

, who had died the previous year, and was also reminiscent of "East-West" from the second Butterfield Blues Band album. On the second day, with the tapes ready to roll, Bloomfield returned to his home in

Mill Valley Mill Valley is a city in Marin County, California, United States, located about north of San Francisco via the Golden Gate Bridge and from Napa Valley. The population was 14,231 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Mill Valley is lo ...

in the San Francisco Bay Area, saying he had been unable to sleep. Needing to have something to show for the second day of booked studio time, Kooper hastily called upon

, who was in the process of leaving his band,

Buffalo Springfield Buffalo Springfield was a Canadian-American Rock music, rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1966 by Canadians Neil Young, Bruce Palmer and Dewey Martin (musician), Dewey Martin and Americans Stephen Stills and Richie Furay. The group, widely know ...

, to replace Bloomfield. Regrouping behind Stills, Kooper's session men cut mostly vocal tracks, including " It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" from ''Highway 61'' and a lengthy and atmospheric take of " Season of the Witch" by

Donovan Donovan Phillips Leitch (born 10 May 1946), known mononymously as Donovan, is a Scottish musician, songwriter and record producer. He emerged from the British folk scene in early 1965 and subsequently scored multiple international hit singles ...

. Although Harvey Brooks's closing "Harvey's Tune" includes overdubbed horns added in New York City while the album was being mixed, the album only cost $13,000 to complete. The success of the album opened the door for the " supergroup" concept of the late 1960s and 1970s, as exemplified by the likes of

Blind Faith Blind Faith were an English rock supergroup that consisted of Steve Winwood, Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, and Ric Grech. They followed the success of each of the member's former bands, including Clapton and Baker's former group Cream and ...

and

Crosby, Stills & Nash Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN) was a folk rock supergroup comprising the American singer-songwriters David Crosby and Stephen Stills and the English-American singer-songwriter Graham Nash. When joined by the Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Youn ...

. Despite the fact that Bloomfield left the recording session after the first day, he and Kooper made several concert appearances after the album was released. The results of one of those became the album '' The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper''.SuiteLorraine.com

Releases

Along with the stereo version, ''Super Session'' was released as a 4-channel

quadraphonic Quadraphonic (or quadrophonic, also called quadrasonic or by the neologism quadio ortmanteau, formed by analogy with "stereo" sound – equivalent to what is now called 4.0 surround sound – uses four audio channels in which speakers are po ...

version in the 1970s. The quadraphonic version was released on SQ matrix encoded vinyl and discrete

8-track cartridge The 8-track tape (formally Stereo 8; commonly called eight-track cartridge, eight-track tape, and eight-track) is a magnetic-tape sound recording technology that was popular from the mid-1960s until the early 1980s, when the compact cassette, ...

tape. On April 8, 2003, Legacy Records reissued the album on compact disc with four bonus tracks, including both an outtake and a live track with Bloomfield, and two with the horn overdubs mixed out. In the early 2000s, it was intended that it would be remixed for the new 5.1 channel version to be released on SACD. But in late 2004, Al Kooper commented: Both 5.1 remixed SACDs were released in 2014 by Audio Fidelity. The original quadraphonic mix of ''Super Session'' was released on Hybrid SACD by Sony Records Int'l in 2023.

Track listing

Personnel

vocals, piano,

Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert, first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding #Drawbars, drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, sound was created ...

, Ondioline, electric guitar, twelve-string guitar *

electric guitar on side one, reissue tracks 10, 12, 13 *

electric guitar on side two, reissue track 11 * Barry Goldbergelectric piano on "Albert's Shuffle" and "Stop" * Harvey Brooksbass guitar * Eddie Hohdrums, percussion Additional personnel *

Horn section A horn section is a group of musicians playing horns. In an orchestra or concert band, it refers to the musicians who play the "French" horn, and in a British-style brass band it is the tenor horn players. In many popular music genres, the term ...

unknown session players; arranged by Al Kooper and Joe Scott * Fred Catero,

Roy Halee Roy Decker Halee (born 1934) is an American record producer and engineer, best known for working with Simon & Garfunkel, both as a group and for their solo projects. Early life Halee grew up on Long Island, New York. His father, also named Roy ...

engineering Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...

* Martin Greenblattdigital mastering

Charts

Certification

References

{{Authority control 1968 debut albums Al Kooper albums Mike Bloomfield albums Stephen Stills albums Columbia Records albums Albums produced by Al Kooper