Al Kooper and Stephen Stills – "Season of the Witch" (1968)

When I look over my shoulder

What do you think I see?

[NOTE: Al Kooper was a musical genius with a capital “G.”  He was a songwriter, a performer, a record producer – he contributed the classic organ part on “Like a Rolling Stone,” founded Blood Sweat & Tears, and masterminded the Supersession album (among many other accomplishments).  Kooper was so smart, in fact, that he hired my late friend Joe Scott to arrange the horn parts of Kooper’s cover of “Season of the Witch,” which I’ve named to THE 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” COVER RECORDS HALL OF FAME.]

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A few weeks ago, I was doing some research in preparation for writing about the 1968 Al Kooper-Stephen Stills cover of Donovan’s “Season of the Witch” – which I had chosen to be a member of the 2022 class of the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” ALBUM TRACKS HALL OF FAME.

In the course of that research, I was surprised to discover that the horn parts for that recording had been arranged by Kooper and a gentleman named Joe Scott – who I had interviewed for 2 or 3 lines some eight years ago.

Everything about the Kooper-Stills version of “Season of the Witch” is purt near perfect.  Most of the heavy lifting was done by Kooper (on the Hammond B-3 organ) and Stills (on electric guitar).  But the frosting on the cake of that record are the horns.  

The horns come and go as the volume and intensity of the various segments of the eleven-minute-long “Season of the Witch” wax and wane.  When they cut loose about eight minutes in, they help create a truly ecstatic thirty seconds of let-it-all-hang-out music that is the emotional climax of the record.

The horns keep quiet during the remaining two and a half minutes of “Season of the Witch,” which gives us a much-needed opportunity to catch our breath and let our pulse rate return to normal.

Click here to listen to “Season of the Witch.”

*     *     *     *     *

In 2014, I became more than a little obsessed with the Arbors’ 1969 recording of “The Letter.” (You may not remember that record, although it did peak at #20 on the Billboard “Hot 100.”  But I’m sure you’re familiar with the original recording of that song, which was a #1 hit for the Box Tops in 1967.)  

Joe Scott

With all due respect to the Arbors and the instrumentalists who backed them, what made their recording of “The Letter” so extraordinary was its inspired arrangement – which was the work of Joe Scott (né Joseph Scaduto), who was not only an arranger but also a very talented pianist and composer.

I eventually was able to track Joe Scott down and interview him.  I don’t remember exactly how long we spoke on the phone, but it was a very long conversation – Joe very kindly kept answering my questions until I finally ran out of them.

Here are links to the three 2 or 3 lines posts that I wrote after that conversation:

Click here to read my first Joe Scott post.

Click here to read the second post.

Click here to read the third one.

*     *     *     *     *

I’ve written almost 2000 2 or 3 lines posts since 2009.  Most of them are trifling – personal reminiscences of no great interest to anyone except their narcissistic author, or “humorous” [sic] pieces that only occasionally work.

Every once in a while, I write a post that digs deeply into a record’s overarching structure and its component parts.  Despite sometimes losing sight of the forest for the trees and succumbing to pedantry, I think those posts are worthwhile because they provide some illumination of what makes a record tick.

But I’m proudest of the posts I’ve written that feature interviews with musicians who may no longer be  well-known (if they ever were) but who were responsible for producing great records that are still worth listening to.

Among that latter group of posts, I think the ones that feature my interview with Joe Scott may be the best I’ve ever done.  He helped create a record that was so unique and utterly beautiful that I can’t imagine I will ever tire of listening to it, and I think that his contribution to that work of musical art deserved to be explored in detail.

*     *     *     *     *

When I discovered that Joe Scott had contributed to making “Season of the Witch” the great record that it is, I couldn’t wait to contact him and ask him what he remembered about his arranging collaboration with Kooper – who is only one of the most multitalented musicians of his generation.

But I was saddened to learn that Joe Scott died in February of this year after a long battle with leukemia.  

Joe Scott at the piano

From his obituary in the Palm Beach Post:

Joe was born to Sicilian immigrants Felipo and Maria Scaduto.  At an early age, Joe showed an extraordinary aptitude for music. In his teens, he attended Arts High School in Newark while working professionally on weekends and nights playing piano and accordion.  He went on to Manhattan School of Music where he earned a Bachelor and a Master degree.  During the sixties, Joe had a successful career arranging and conducting for such varied talents as Frank Sinatra, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and Phyllis Diller, to name a few.

Always full of surprises, in the seventies Joe decided to go to law school.  After practicing law for almost fifteen years, Joe retired to Palm Beach County with his family in the late eighties and returned to music.

Here in Florida, Joe performed and shared his love for classical music and jazz with students of all ages at Palm Beach State College and Floria Atlantic University Lifelong Learning in Jupiter, Boca Raton and Vero Beach.  For more than thirty years, Joe Scott was a well-known figure on the Palm Beach music scene.  Although Joe was incredibly modest about his musical achievements, the sound of his piano was loved by many and delighted thousands throughout his life.

Click here to watch a video of Joe performing with the Joe Scott Trio.

*     *     *     *     *

As the Palm Beach Post obituary notes, Joe Scott’s many years of playing jazz piano in the Palm Beach area earned him many fans.  But I’m guessing very few of those people knew what an accomplished arranger he was.

I hope that my 2 or 3 lines posts about Joe Scott’s contributions to “The Letter” and “Season of the Witch” – two truly remarkable records – will help remedy that. 

Al Kooper and Stephen Stills – "Season of the Witch" (1968)

 

When I look over my shoulder

What do you think I see?

A few weeks ago, I was doing some research in preparation for writing about the 1968 Al Kooper-Stephen Stills cover of Donovan’s “Season of the Witch” – which I had chosen to be a member of the 2022 class of the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” ALBUM TRACKS HALL OF FAME.

In the course of that research, I was surprised to discover that the horn parts for that recording had been arranged by Kooper and a gentleman named Joe Scott – who I had interviewed for 2 or 3 lines some eight years ago.

Everything about the Kooper-Stills version of “Season of the Witch” is purt near perfect.  Most of the heavy lifting was done by Kooper (on the Hammond B-3 organ) and Stills (on electric guitar).  But the frosting on the cake of that record are the horns.  

The horns come and go as the volume and intensity of the various segments of the eleven-minute-long “Season of the Witch” wax and wane.  When they cut loose about eight minutes in, they help create a truly ecstatic thirty seconds of let-it-all-hang-out music that is the emotional climax of the record.

The horns keep quiet during the remaining two and a half minutes of “Season of the Witch,” which gives us a much-needed opportunity to catch our breath and let our pulse rate return to normal.

Click here to listen to “Season of the Witch.”

*     *     *     *     *

In 2014, I became more than a little obsessed with the Arbors’ 1969 recording of “The Letter.” (You may not remember that record, although it did peak at #20 on the Billboard “Hot 100.”  But I’m sure you’re familiar with the original recording of that song, which was a #1 hit for the Box Tops in 1967.)  

Joe Scott

With all due respect to the Arbors and the instrumentalists who backed them, what made their recording of “The Letter” so extraordinary was its inspired arrangement – which was the work of Joe Scott (né Joseph Scaduto), who was not only an arranger but also a very talented pianist and composer.

I eventually was able to track Joe Scott down and interview him.  I don’t remember exactly how long we spoke on the phone, but it was a very long conversation – Joe very kindly kept answering my questions until I finally ran out of them.

Here are links to the three 2 or 3 lines posts that I wrote after that conversation:

Click here to read my first Joe Scott post.

Click here to read the second post.

Click here to read the third one.

*     *     *     *     *

I’ve written almost 2000 2 or 3 lines posts since 2009.  Most of them are trifling – personal reminiscences of no great interest to anyone except their narcissistic author, or “humorous” pieces that occasionally work but most often do not.

Every once in a while, I write a post that digs deeply into a record’s overarching structure and its component parts.  Despite sometimes losing sight of the forest for the trees and succumbing to pedantry, I think those posts are worthwhile because they provide some illumination of what makes a record tick.

But I’m proudest of the posts I’ve written that feature interviews with musicians who may no longer be  well-known (if they ever were) but who were responsible for producing great records that are still worth listening to.

Among that latter group of posts, I think the ones that feature my interview with Joe Scott may be the best I’ve ever done.  He helped create a record that was so unique and utterly beautiful that I can’t imagine I will ever tire of listening to it, and I think that his contribution to that work of musical art deserved to be explored in detail.

*     *     *     *     *

When I discovered that Joe Scott had contributed to making “Season of the Witch” the great record that it is, I couldn’t wait to contact him and ask him what he remembered about his arranging collaboration with Kooper – who is only one of the most multitalented musicians of his generation.

But I was saddened to learn that Joe Scott died in February of this year after a long battle with leukemia.  

Joe Scott at the piano

From his obituary in the Palm Beach Post:

Joe was born to Sicilian immigrants Felipo and Maria Scaduto.  At an early age, Joe showed an extraordinary aptitude for music. In his teens, he attended Arts High School in Newark while working professionally on weekends and nights playing piano and accordion.  He went on to Manhattan School of Music where he earned a Bachelor and a Master degree.  During the sixties, Joe had a successful career arranging and conducting for such varied talents as Frank Sinatra, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and Phyllis Diller, to name a few.

Always full of surprises, in the seventies Joe decided to go to law school.  After practicing law for almost fifteen years, Joe retired to Palm Beach County with his family in the late eighties and returned to music.

Here in Florida, Joe performed and shared his love for classical music and jazz with students of all ages at Palm Beach State College and Floria Atlantic University Lifelong Learning in Jupiter, Boca Raton and Vero Beach.  For more than thirty years, Joe Scott was a well-known figure on the Palm Beach music scene.  Although Joe was incredibly modest about his musical achievements, the sound of his piano was loved by many and delighted thousands throughout his life.

Click here to watch a video of Joe performing with the Joe Scott Trio.

*     *     *     *     *

As the Palm Beach Post obituary notes, Joe Scott’s many years of playing jazz piano in the Palm Beach area earned him many fans.  But I’m guessing very few of those people knew what an accomplished arranger he was.

I hope that my 2 or 3 lines posts about Joe Scott’s contributions to “The Letter” and “Season of the Witch” – two truly remarkable records – will help remedy that. 

Al Kooper and Stephen Stills – "Season of the Witch" (1968)

When I look over my shoulder,

What do you think I see?

Some other cat looking over

His shoulder at me

[NOTE: Most eleven-minute-long rock records could be improved by cutting them in half.  But the Al Kooper-Stephen Stills cover of Donovan’s “Season of the Witch” – which clocks in at 11:07 – is a Goldilocks track: it’s not too long, it’s not too short, it’s just right . . . which is one of the reasons I’m including it in this year’s class of the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” ALBUM TRACKS HALL OF FAME.  I originally wrote about “Season of the Witch” on October 29, 2010 . . . and then again (inadvertently) on February 8 of the following year.  What follows is an edited version of my original 2010 post.]

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“Season of the Witch,” which was written and originally recorded by Donovan Leitch  in 1966, is a perfect song for paranoiacs.  Donovan had good reason to be paranoid – just a few months before his Sunshine Superman album was released, he became the first big British rock star to be busted for marijuana possession.  

Julie Driscoll and Brian Auger covered the song in 1967.  (I only recently became familiar with their version, which is very good.)  

Vanilla Fudge's version of the song was released as a single in 1968 and made it to #65 on the Billboard “Hot 100” chart.  

The legendary supergroup, the Masked Marauders, included it on their one and only LP in 1969.  (You’ve never heard of the Masked Marauders?  Really?)

Others to record the song included Sam Gopal, Pesky Gee!, Suck, Hole, Luna, Dr. John, Joan Jett, Richard Thompson (his version is on the “Crossing Jordan” soundtrack album), and . . . Lou Rawls? 

Al Kooper (circa 1968)

But the version of “Season of the Witch” I remember best is the Al Kooper-Stephen Stills version that was included on the 1968 Super Session album. 

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Super Session was Al Kooper’s brainchild.  

Kooper was sort of a rock music Renaissance man – he did everything and did everything well.  

When he was 14, he was playing guitar for the band that recorded “Short Shorts.”  

When he was 16, he co-wrote “This Diamond Ring” for Gary Lewis & the Playboys.  (I believe this puts Kooper within two degrees of Leon Russell, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they had a one-degree connection somewhere down the road.)  

And when he was 21, Kooper famously talked his way into playing the organ on Bob Dylan's “Like a Rolling Stone.”

A few years later, Kooper formed Blood, Sweat & Tears, but left after their first album, Child Is Father to the Man (which is an absolutely brilliant piece of work).  

He discovered Lynyrd Skynyrd, and produced their first three albums.  He produced the first Tubes album.  He was the musical director for the mid-1980s Michael Mann television series, “Crime Story,” which starred one of my favorite character actors, Dennis Farina.  And this barely scratches the surface of Kooper's musical accomplishments.  

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Super Session features Kooper and guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills, but Bloomfield and Stills never play together on the record.  (It's Bloomfield on side one, and Stills on side two.)   Here's the story behind that.

Kooper decided to do Super Session shortly after leaving Blood, Sweat & Tears.  He was working as an A&R man for Columbia Records at the time.  (A&R stands for "artists and repertoire" – in essence, Kooper was a talent scout).  Bloomfield was about to leave Electric Flag, so Kooper called to see if he was free to come down to the studio and jam.

Kooper booked two days of studio time and recruited keyboardist Barry Goldberg and bassist Harvey Brooks (both were old pals of Bloomfield's from the Electric Flag), along with session drummer "Fast" Eddie Hoh, who by coincidence had played drums on Donovan's recording of "Season of the Witch."  The first day, the group recorded mostly blues-based instrumental tracks.

When Kooper returned to the studio for a second day of recording, Bloomfield was nowhere to be found.  The desperate Kooper was able to reach Stephen Stills, who was in the process of leaving Buffalo Springfield and who agreed to drop by the studio and help out.

That day, Kooper's merry little band recorded mostly vocal tracks, including Bob Dylan's “It Takes A Lot to Laugh, It Takes A Train to Cry” and a leisurely, eleven-minutes-and-seven-seconds long version of “Season of the Witch.”

The album, which eventually went gold, cost just $13,000 to make.  It was The Blair Witch Project of rock albums, and helped inspire a whole series of “supergroup” collaborations — including Blind Faith and Crosby, Stills & Nash.  

Kooper forgave Bloomfield for bailing out on Super Session, and the two of them made several concert appearances after the album was released.  A three-night gig at the Fillmore in the fall of 1968 was turned into a two-record album titled The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper.   (The cover of that album was a painting of Kooper and Bloomfield by . . . are you sitting down? . . . Norman Rockwell.)

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Click here to listen to the Kooper/Stills version of “Season of the Witch.”

Stephen Stills – "Change Partners" (1971)

So we change partners

Time to change partners

According to Greek mythology, Castor and Pollux were fraternal twin brothers who had different fathers.  

Castor was the mortal son of King Tyndareus and Queen Leda of Sparta.  But Pollux was one of the immortals, because his father was Zeus – who had taken the form of a swan and seduced Leda after she had sex with her husband.  (In some versions of the myth, that Zeus-Leda coupling also resulted in the birth of Helen of Troy.)

"Leda and the Swan" (Rubens)

Castor and Pollux got into a fight with two of their cousins over the ownership of a herd of cattle, and one of the cousins killed Castor with a spear.  As the son of Zeus, Pollux didn’t have to worry about dying, but he was devastated by his brother’s death.  

Zeus transformed the brothers into the two brightest stars in the constellation Gemini so they could be together forever.

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The myth of Castor and Pollux illustrates the phenomenon of heteropaternal superfecundation – The term used to describe the fertilization of two or more eggs produced during the same cycle by sperm deposited by different fathers.  (Homopaternal superfecundation is the term used to describe the fertilization of two or more eggs produced during the same cycle by sperm deposited during two separate acts of sexual intercourse by the same father . . . which is much less naughty.)

Statues of Castor and Pollux in Rome

Genetically, Castor and Pollux are only half-brothers.  By contrast, the offspring of identical twins who marry identical twins are genetically as similar as siblings – but we consider them to be cousins.

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Heteropaternal superfecundation is more common in animals such as cats and dogs than in humans for two reasons.  

First, female cats and dogs routinely produce several eggs each time they ovulate (unlike human females).

Second, female cats and dogs are somewhat more receptive to having sex with multiple partners in a relatively short time span.  (Human females – most of them, at least – are more discriminating.)

*     *     *     *     *

In 2015, a mother of twins went to court in New Jersey to force the man she said was the father of those twins to pay child support.  When she admitted that she had had sex with another man at about the time that she became pregnant, the judge ordered a paternity test.

It turned out that her twins had two different fathers.  So the man she had sued was ordered to pay child support for one twin but not the other one.

In the words of the New York Times, “It was a tangled web of love and biology.”  

*     *     *     *     *

I’m guessing that a lot of instances of heteropaternal superfecundation go unnoticed.

After all, siblings don’t necessarily look that much like one another, and fraternal twins are just siblings who happen to be born at the same time.

The problem comes when there is a difference in the appearance of the twins that makes it obvious that the father of one isn’t the father of both.

Oops!

For example, imagine you have a white mother and a white father, and one of the twins looks a lot like Barack Obama looked like when he was a baby.   

Lucy . . . you got some ‘splaining to do!

*     *     *     *     *

Stephen Stills’ “Change Partners” was released in 1971 on the Stephen Stills 2 album.

Its lyrics were apparently inspired by the country-club dances that Stills attended as a young man growing up in the South – dances where young women often danced with as many different partners as there were musical numbers performed during the course of the evening.

But some viewed the song as a metaphor for the constant comings and goings of the individual musicians who had at one constituted Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

The recording features Jerry Garcia on pedal steel guitar.  

Here’s “Change Partners”:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:  

Buffalo Springfield – "For What It's Worth" (1966)

There's battle lines being drawn

Nobody's right if everybody's wrong

Most people think “For What It’s Worth” was a protest song about Vietnam, or civil rights, or some other big-ass sixties political issue.  But it was actually inspired by something much less significant: the Sunset Strip riot of 1966.

(Riots are coming back into fashion)

Los Angeles officials had responded to complaints from local residents and business owners about the traffic congestion and noise generated by the young people who flocked to the clubs along the “Sunset Strip” by instituting a 10 pm curfew.  

On November 12, about a thousand protestors – including Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda – congregated on the Strip to demonstrate against the curfew, blocking traffic and generally making a ruckus.  Fights broke out, store windows and car windshields were broken, and a city bus was trashed.

Rioters punish an innocent LA city bus

Stephen Stills seems to have stumbled upon the demonstration by accident.  After observing the melee, he headed back to Topanga Canyon and wrote “For What It’s Worth” in about 15 minutes.  

Buffalo Springfield recorded the song on December 5 – barely three weeks after the Sunset Strip riot – and it eventually climbed to the #7 spot on the Billboard “Hot 100.”

It’s one of the seminal songs of the sixties, but it’s not a song I would have expected to peak that high on the pop charts.

Tomorrow 2 or 3 lines will feature another Stephen Stills song that was recorded by Buffalo Springfield.

Here’s “For What It’s Worth.”  (Nice chapeau, Stephen Stills!)

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: