The Weight - Al Kooper & Mike Bloomfield

Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield had previously worked together on the sessions for the ground-breaking classic Highway 61 Revisited by Bob Dylan, as well as playing in support of his controversial appearance at the Newport Folk Festival in July 1965. Kooper had recently left Blood, Sweat & Tears after recording with them on their debut album, and was now working as an A&R man for Columbia. Bloomfield was about to leave Electric Flag, and at relative loose ends. 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.

After putting out the result: “Super Session” in 1968, featuring Bloomfield on side one of the LP and Stephen Stills of Buffalo Springfield on side two, Kooper & Bloomfield took Super Session live. After Bill Graham’s Fillmore East was selected as the venue and a band was assembled, they jammed across three nights. The LP “The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield & Al Kooper” was released documenting these gigs shortly thereafter.

More recently, while looking through the Columbia vaults, Al Kooper discovered additional tapes previously thought to be lost from the Fillmore East. These were published in 2003 under the name “Fillmore East: Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield. The Lost Concert Tapes 12/13/68” and document a further collaboration with a different band at the same venue. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.