Chords for The Story of How "Like a Rolling Stone" by Bob Dylan was Recorded - Al Kooper

Hi, this is Joe Chambers.
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Today's clip features studio musician and keyboard player Al Cooper telling the story of Bob Dylan's like a rolling stone
When
and I met this producer named Tom Wilson and
_ _ And he started at first
taking my songs and
Recording them with people so he knew me as a songwriter
Although he knew that I played guitar
On sessions.
He never hired me though, but he did record my songs with people _ nobody ever heard of though and And
_ _ Then he found out that I was like a Bob Dylan fan
So he said Al you want [F] to come to a Dylan session and watch I?
Said yeah, I would love that.
He says [E] next Thursday _
_ [Em] Two o'clock
Studio [Bb] B.
I said, thank you so much Tom and [E] I said
Man, I want to play on that session.
I really want to play on that session
And so you know I was practicing away and saying boy, I got to be good
I want to play with Bob Dylan
And I was just going to go there and tell him I misunderstood him that he you know hired me
I thought he hired me to play
And so I got there real early and I plugged in and all the other musicians as they came in they've [Ab] seen me on sessions
Didn't look weird to them
And I was doing pretty good and then
Dylan came in with
another guitar player and
And the guy sat down next to me, and it was like plugged in he was warming up and
Just in warming up.
He played 50 times better than me, and I went I'm in deep trouble here
I got to get out of here
_ so I
got up and left the room and then I came back and I
Took the guitar and I put it in the case
I put it under the chair, and I went back in the control room where I belong and Tom Wilson never saw any of that
He got there, and I was in the control room where I was supposed to be and he didn't see the other stuff
[N] _
and and so the session is going along and they move the
Organ player over to piano they don't like the organ _
So I went over Tom Wilson I said man I said
I'm gonna play the organ.
I got a great part for this which was
Total lie I didn't have anything.
I just wanted to play on this session
_ And he said oh, yeah, he said you you a guitar player.
What you doing, and then they said Tom
You got a call on line one.
He said Al you guitar player sit down and
And he went and got the call and I said well.
He didn't say no
Just told me I was a guitar player, so I was
21 years old
I've been in the business since I was 14.
I knew a thing or two about
You know recording sessions and being a session musician just not on the organ
It's a matter of fact the Hammond b3 organ is a really difficult instrument to turn on
And I didn't I didn't really know how to turn it on
So I went out there, and I went please please he didn't turn it off.
Please please it's still on it was still on
If it was turned off this story would have a different ending and I sat down at the organ and again nobody looked at me funny
_ and
and then Tom came he said
_ Okay, this is _
Take two
_ Hey
What are you doing out there?
and you all the magicians are laughing and everything and
That was the moment when he should have said you know would you get your white ass back in the control room?
That way you're supposed to be and he didn't do it.
I
Don't know you know we never discussed it, and he's gone now
So I don't know what he was thinking
But he was laughing
And he stopped laughing he said all right all right here we go
You know he gave me a chance and I couldn't [Em] hear
The organ because the speaker for the organ was way across the room with a blanket over it
So it didn't leak into other instruments
_ And it wasn't really very loud in the headphone mix
So I couldn't hear what I was playing _ [N] and the guitar
The other guy that was playing on a session was very loud in the headphones _
So I had to play by knowing by looking at my hands and knowing what notes went into the course fortunately
There's only like four chords in the song also.
There was no music
So I had to have memorized the song and I wasn't sure that I really had it so
When I was playing I would like wait an eighth note before I came in to make sure [Em] it was the right chord
And that was like part of my part that I was playing
Because I didn't want to be the one that made that mistake.
You know I learned that many years ago
Especially since I was doing this commando raid on the organ
so _
It turned out to be the only complete take of the day that take
So it ended and Tom Wilson said if you [N] all want you know come in the studio.
We're going to listen to that back
So we all went into the control room
And they're playing it back and it after about 30 seconds Dylan says to Tom Wilson says turn the organ up
Tom Wilson says hey Bob that guy's not a organ player.
He's just a you know
he's a guitar player and Bob said I don't care what he is make the organ louder and
_ _ _ This past Monday a week ago
Was the 43rd anniversary of that day
_ _ And that's the day that I became an organ player
thanks to Tom Wilson and Bob Dylan and
_ that was the take that they kept for like a Rolling Stone and I became a famous organ player and
My style which as I'm telling you right now was based on ignorance
Became a very copied organ style
This was not wasted on me.
I thought this was pretty funny, but I had to learn
How to play better because people were calling me for sessions once that came out and went to number one
They wanted that organ sound everybody wanted that organ sound then matter of fact with Dylan
we used to go to the record store and buy like a bunch of records and go back to his apartment and
Listen to these people imitating what we were doing and we just thought it was the funniest thing in the world I
Mean when the session was over
_ Dylan came over to me said
Can you come back tomorrow?
You know and play on the rest of the record I said
Absolutely.
I said thank you for asking me and I'm telling you that's that's how I became an organ player I
_ Have to say, you know at that time when I was 21 and you know trying to make it in the music business.
I
believe that I was
90% ambition and
10% talent
My ambition was amazing.
I mean for me to do that, you know, that's a ballsy thing to do and
and
_ [B] _ and then
[F] _ Now I'm 64 years old.
Like I said, it's
43 years since that happened and I think it's
Totally reversed now now.
I think I'm 90% talent and 10% ambition
[D] _ _ [Am] _ _ _ _ [D] _ _ _