The story behind the recording

[Nail Soup]

I love hearing stories about how records were made and so on… here’s my favourite which was related by Al Kooper about the distinctive organ on Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone”.

Al was in a recording session for Dylan “Like a Rolling Stone” – on guitar. The producer was not happy with what he was doing so asked him to sit out.

Then Al saw the organ in the corner of the room and asked the producer if he could play that instead. The producer was just about to say ‘no’… but got called away to take a phone call.

So Al joined the session on organ. But because he didn’t know the chord structure very well he waited till the rest of the band had changed chord before he did… so that’s where he gets the great behind-the-beat organ part.

Then the producer was going to bury the organ in the mix…. but Bob Dylan heard the organ part and said “Hey- what’s that?” and insisted that it was pushed right up in the mix.

 

So please give any stories etc behind the recording - incidents, techniques, whatever!

[Dad3353]

28 minutes ago, Nail Soup said:

... he didn’t know the chord structure very well...

It's no wonder that he didn't get the guitar gig, then..! 

[BadHands]

16 hours ago, Dad3353 said:

It's no wonder that he didn't get the guitar gig, then..! 

Beat me to it! 

[uk_lefty]

I think the Bootleg recordings has him trying to work it out on organ. All makes sense now

[MartinB]

Great story! There was a Reverb article recently with some similar tales: https://reverb.com/uk/news/when-studio-mistakes-created-music-magic

[DaveFry]

During the recording of " Here Comes The Sun " George Harrison's Moog developed a fault where at the end of a phrase it would portamento down to the lowest note . They phoned for an engineer to come and fix it but by the time he arrived they decided to keep one phrase of the recording :

 

During the recording of Carly Simon's " You're So Vain " bassist Klaus Voorman surprised her with a short intro . She exclaimed " son of a gun ! " in surprise and it ended up on the record .

 

 

During the recording of Lee Morgan's " The Sidewinder " bassist Bob Cranshaw forgot the pick-up he had come up with at the start of the tune when it came to the final head so the band had to re-record the ending and the engineer spliced it on .

 

 

During the recording of "Roxanne "Sting sat on a piano thinking the lid was down .

 

[stewblack]

I belive Booker T and his MGs were jamming around a riff while in the studio. 

The single they'd recorded needed a B-side and much to the band's surprise their 'jam' was deemed to be suitable. The guitarist was asked to move the guitar part to a different point in the song and that was that. 

One of the musicians thought the tune stank so bad they should call it onions. Deciding that spring onions (or green onions as they're called stateside) are more palatable to more people, they went with that instead... 

[bassace]

More from my era. When Humphrey Lyttelton recorded Bad Penny Blues Joe Meek was the recording engineer. By the time the record was released JM had worked his ‘magic’, with max compression etc, particularly on the piano, and the band hated the sound. The disc became one of a few jazzers to get into the top ten charts. 

Me? It opened a whole new palette of sounds and Joe’s sound went on put a lot of tunes into the charts.

We played support to the Tornadoes at the Cheltenham Arts Ball 1965. Clem Cattini, what a nice bloke.