Could you tell us a little bit about when you first came to that Broadway scene, the Brill Building, maybe what year it was, how old you were, and possibly a little bit about the differences in those buildings.

Well, uh, when I started in the music business I was first introduced to 1650 Broadway, uh, which was in reality where everything happened in the '60s. The actual Brill Building itself was, uh, a harbinger of pop music in the '40s, up until the mid-'50s probably. And then 1650 took over. The big, uh, biggest concern in the music business was a company called Alden Music, which was a company that was run by Al Nevins and Don Kirschner, Don Kirschner of Don Kirschner's Rock Concert fame. But he actually did more more for music than Don Kirschner's Rock Concert. Uh, this company signed some unbelievably great writers. Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Neil Sedaka and Howie Greenfield, Helen Miller, just an amazing amount of great writers. And, and they wrote the anthems of the '60s, the early '60s in 1650 Broadway in this huge complex called Alden Music. And they had a stranglehold on the charts. Now I came into this, I was writing with two other guys and we had to buck these people, and it was impossible. And through some miracle we got a, we got a number one record, which was "This Diamond Ring" by Gary Lewis and the Playboys, which was actually a song we had written for the Drifters. And it was turned down by the Drifters and it was a rhythm and blues song, and the Gary Lewis record was completely devoid of all the rhythm and blues we had written into the song and when I first heard it I was horrified. But then the next time I heard it, it was on the Ed Sullivan Show, and I was feeling a little better about it. And then very quickly it knocked an Alden song out of number one, "You've Lost That Loving Feeling," certainly not for quality's sake. And uh, we had a number one record in the heyday of Alden, which is pretty darn good.

Was the scene there pretty much the kind of thing that has come up, down to us…

Maybe you can get into the Brill Building be the old out of date thing, and get to that more quickly.

Well, in the, uh, '30s and '40s, the Brill Building was the hub of, uh, musical activity in Tin Pan Alley in New York City. I believe Irving Berlin was there, and uh, and everything just centered around there. It was the Sinatra place. And then these upstarts started booking into 1650 Broadway, all these new people. I imagine the rents were cheaper too. And 1650 became like the alternative, uh, music place in the late '50s and early '60s. And uh, one of the complexes that was there was uh, a publishing company run by Al Nevins, who was a songwriter, who had written "Twilight Time" for the Platters and who was a member of the Three Sons. And uh, and Don Kirschner, who was also a writer, who wrote with Bobby Darrin mostly. And they started a publishing company and they signed some amazing writers. They signed, uh, Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Howie Greenfield and Neil Sedaka, and just got amazing songs, and ran out and placed them all over the music business and got a stranglehold on the top ten in the early '60s. There probably was not a week from 1962 to 1965 that there wasn't an Alden song in the top ten, and usually more than one. And so this kind of catalyzed 1650. And uh, there were a lot of firms there. I was there from the time I came into the music business, from 1958 on, and dealt with a number of places there.

Were there cubicles with pianos and teams of songwriters working or is that mostly myth?

There was the place that I worked, there was definitely that. We, I used to joke about it. Uh, uh, there was a, every morning at 10:30 I'd come into work and I'd go into this cubicle that had a little upright piano and fake white cork bricks on the wall, and a little slate that came out of the wall that you could actually write on. And uh, and a door that locked from the outside. And uh, and every day from 10 to 6, we'd go in there and pretend that we were 13 year old girls and write these songs. That was the gig.

Could you hear other people working from down the hall or next door.

Oh, they were right next door, yeah, you could. It was semi-soundproofed by the fake white cork bricks. But not really soundproofed. Every now and then we could steal somebody else's stuff.

Was there some difference that you noticed in sort of in personal style and just the whole sort of way of operating between the people who came into this Broadway music scene in the early '60s and the generations of people who had been there earlier?

Well, the, uh, the first generation from the '50s that were in 1650 were pretty much all crooks, I mean just out and out crooks. And the next generation had a little more finesse. But I mean those first wave of people, you know, definitely would take all your money, no doubt about it.

What about the sort of arrival of folk music on the new York music scene, with some reference to how your Al Casey persona developed and perhaps was a kind of double life being part of that scene in 1650 and then the folk thing.

Yeah, well, uh, the part, I was pretty much a rock and roller pop music guy. And that's how I made my living, and that's what I did, and that's what consumed my life pretty much. And then my friend from Forest Hills, Paul Simon, turned me on to Bob Dylan. And uh, and that kind of had me at war with my values. Like how could I be a 13 year old girl every day when I was listening to this stuff which was lyrically, you know, more challenging, and more adept at the kind, than the kind of thing I was doing in my daily trials. And uh, the thing that was really weird about it is that then I played on that record "Like A Rolling Stone" which sort of started the whole thing. And just, uh, uh, I'm trying to get the chronology correct. I had, I think I had had "This Diamond Ring" already, prior to playing on "Like A Rolling Stone", but only just a little bit for that. You know, the transition was very strange. I was playing in a band at the World's Fair, uh, with my good friend Harvey Brooks. And we were partners. And whoever got us, whoever got a gig would get the other guy in on the gig. So he got the World's Fair. And then I remember that we went right from the World's Fair to playing with Bob Dylan, that was our next gig. So it was interesting times. Then it was, uh, uh, I think that was the end of my Tin Pan Alley days.

What about your period of Al Casey the folksinger, was this before --

That was just, that was around the World's Fair time, that was, uh, uh, my Dylan emulation period. That's when I was writing, you know, ersatz Dylan songs. That's who Al Casey was. He was a guy, he was, you know, the Queens Bob Dylan.

Had you played organ at all before you ended up playing on "Like A Rolling Stone".

Well, I'd played a little on demos, on songwriter demos that I had done. But I didn't really understand the instrument. It's kind of like I pushed a few buttons and, and if I got something that was close to what I wanted, that's what I would do, but I didn't understand what really made it tick.

Can you do that and say play the organ?

Right. Prior to the "Like A Rolling Stone" session, uh, I had sort of dabbled with the organ. I'd used it on, uh, on songwriter demos. But I didn't understand the instrument very well, the possibilities and capabilities of it. I would just push a few buttons and whatever came out if it was close to what I needed, I'd keep that. And I could never figure out how to turn it on. It was sort of a complicated process. So, it was a, uh, and it still is, an intimidating instrument. There's a, there's a lot of things going on, on this. If you watch somebody play in concert, you have, uh, these drawbars here, which alter the sound, and then these black and white keys here, the reverse black white, which change the sound on both manuals. Then you have the Leslie thing. [plays organ] Which makes the speakers whirl around. Then you have echo. And you have vibrato. And somebody that's real into a Hammond organ will be -- and I left out percussion, you have percussion. Like that. So all these things are going on, and all these possibilities are going on. And if you get to be an integrated player, then you're constantly tweaking all these things while you're trying to play at the same time. And it's, uh, it's a lot of fun to watch an organ player like from overhead. And some guys play bass with their left foot. Which uh, I don't think there are any Jewish people that can do that, you know, and I'm Jewish. But there are a lot of non-Jewish people that play bass with their foot while they're doing all that other stuff. I mean I can hardly do all that other stuff, and then to think of something to play at the same time. So what I played on "Like A Rolling Stone" is very primitive compared to what I involved to when I understood more of the instrument.

What kind of strategies did you develop for fitting in with what was going on in Dylan's music. Was it a pretty loose situation? Was it a question of finding places to fit? Were there any sort of guidelines at all?

Well, the Dylan sessions were very disorganized, to say the least. I mean, uh, the "Like A Rolling Stone" session I was invited by the producer to watch. And only through sheer ambition did I end up playing on it. Uh, and the fact that I could do that is a testament to how disorganized it really was. Uh, however, I had played sessions prior to this as a guitar player. So it was not unusual for the people that were on that session to see me be on a session. What was unusual was that I playing keyboards. That was the only weird thing about it. And in fact I had planned to play guitar on that session. Until Mike Bloomfield, and sat down and started playing, and I went, whoa! Because I had never heard any white person play like that before. And he was about my age, and he just, that finished off my guitar career, just like that, in one afternoon. And so still being ambitious to want to play on the record, I was a mediocre keyboard player. And uh, I seized the opportunity and played the organ. And the take that I played on was the keeper take. So, you know, before they could get me out of there, it was already accepted. Ahh.

Did you find as you went on and did those gigs with him also, after that session, were there certain things that you could do on the organ that seemed to work in his music and certain things which were within your grasp which were just not happening?

Well, see the good thing is, musically Bob is a primitive. He's not a Gershwin, or somebody that uses eloquent music terms. He's more blues derived and he's a primitive. So my primitive organ playing fit in with that very well. My, my influences were mostly gospel. So I was playing my twisted Jewish equivalent of gospel music over his twisted equivalent of rock and roll music. And it was a very excellent marriage. It was good. And at the same time I was thinking in my head as a session musician, I still had this sort of code, which is, if the artist could play this instrument what would he play, and that's the approach that I was taking. And you have to, you have to stay out of the way when it's correct to stay out of the way, which I even did on "Like A Rolling Stone". And then uh, the very funny thing about "Like A Rolling Stone" is it was a six minute song, there was no music to read from. And there I was playing this unfamiliar instrument. So I would come in on the upbeat of one. I would wait until the band played the chord, and then as quickly as I could come in play the chord. So the band would go, uh, [plays] -- this is the band, this is me. [plays] So if you listen to the record you can hear I'm always on the upbeat of the band, because I'm listening to hear what the chord is. And I had good ears, and that's really what got me through that take. The other thing is, see where the Leslie speaker is over there, at the session, that was covered up by sound material. And the band was playing so loud that I couldn't even hear the Leslie. So I was playing, it sounded like this -- well, no, not even. This is what it sounded like to me -- when I was playing. And I just knew what those notes were from having a little musical knowledge. But I could not hear it until I came into the playback. And it very could have easily have been wrong, but it wasn't.

Dylan seems to have really liked the organ sound. There's a quote from him in something that we were just looking at, where he said that, uh, he felt that this particular combination of organ and electric guitar and harmonica was really what he was hearing in his head. Did he express anything like that to you?

Well, at the end of the playback of that take of "Like A Rolling Stone", or actually during the thing, he said to the producer, turn up the organ. And Tom Wilson said, oh man, that guy's not an organ player. And Dylan said, I don't care, turn the organ up, and that's really how I became an organ player. And uh, like maybe a year later, Bob and I were in Los Angeles playing at the Hollywood Bowl. And we had gone record shopping, and we were sitting in the hotel room listening to all these records that imitated the sound that we did. And I was laughing because they were imitating me not knowing what I was doing, which is not lost on me. So I used to enjoy that quite a bit. The Al Kooper quote-unquote ignorant organ sound.

You would have really enjoyed me hearing trying to play your organ parts on a recorder.

I would have.

What was Tom Wilson, what kind of producer was he in the, in the studio. I know that you were an associate of his before that time, before that session. What did he bring to sessions?

Producing Bob Dylan was pretty much a spectator sport. Uh, you would, your job would be to put, to select the cast. And if you'd done a good job you'd just step back and let all these different chemistries interact and let it go. And uh, uh, that was an interesting cast. However, I had not been selected that day. And uh, but after that day I was selected. And then, then it started to gel and make sense. And I felt more comfortable once I knew I was in and I had so much to learn on this instrument. I liked that. I liked being challenged by music. It's good for me.

Do you have any sense of why Dylan stopped working with Tom Wilson after "Like A Rolling Stone", this huge hit?

I don't think it had anything to do with Bob. I think it was Columbia politics, Columbia Records politics that, that, uh, Tom Wilson left after "Like A Rolling Stone". Because I think then the "Highway 61" album was produced by Bob Johnston if I'm not incorrect. And Bob Johnston was an entirely different producer than Tom Wilson. Tom Wilson had produced jazz records and was a Harvard educated, uh, black man, who was a…