We're in our final three days of being in an Empire State of Mind. We started in the big mean city with The Blues Magoos who made a name for themselves in Greenwich Village. Now we turn to another Greenwich Village band. The Blues Project. The band only lasted two years but put out an amazing amount of music in that brief period. Today we focus on their fifth single, released in March of 1967 for Verve Folkways Records. The song is the Al Kooper penned, No Time Like The Right Time. Other members are Danny Kalb, Roy Blumenfeld, Steve Katz and Tommy Flanders.
Al Kooper had been playing as a session guitarist when he was called into a session with Bob Dylan. Mike Bloomfield was also at that session and Kooper saw he had little chance. He switched to organ for the Like A Rolling Stone session and then joined The Blues Project as an organ player. He should also be lauded for being the person who pushed The Zombies and Columbia Records to finish their swan song of an album.
What a cool song. Heavy surf start, delicious pop lyrics, some strange psych instrumentation interlude, more heavy surf. Cool!
ReplyDeleteTo make one correction. Al Kooper, standing in the middle in the above picture, played a role in encouraging Columbia to release Odessey and Oracle in the US and he even writes on the liner notes. It was already out on CBS in the UK.
Not the most cool looking cats in New York, were they? Thanks for the clarification re: Kooper and The Zombies.
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