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Name: Keno
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Subject: RE: Al Kooper on YCAGWYW and Memo....
Date: Tuesday, August 07, 2018
Time: 11:00:08 AM
Remote Address: 97.107.69.29
Message ID: 316984
Parent ID: 316981
Thread ID: 316898
i think he said he played on you cant always get what you want and memo from turner?
He absolutely did play on both songs. He played guitar on MFT, and the piano on YCAGWYW, but then added in that great french horn to the song, too. He told a great story about those sessions and in just what way Brian was still contributing to the band at that late point.
This took place in mid November of 1968, and BJ was more a co-producer on the 2 nights they worked on these 2 songs and not really a player, as his hand was mending from surgery and it had just come out of a cast a few days before. Some stories claim his hand was still in a cast on those nights, but not according to Kooper's story, or the session logs, as BJ is credited in the logs playing guitar on the second night.
Kooper said in a Rolling Stone interview published in the mid '70s, that it was Brian who got him to come in and play on both songs, less than a month before the Rock n Roll Circus took place. YCAGWYW was recorded on the first night. Mick and Keith were both upset with Brian that night because BJ's hand was too swollen to play guitar or piano; MJ wanted him to play piano on the song, but he just sat on the floor instead reading a book. Brian then ran into Kooper outside of the studio during a early break in the recording on that first night, and invited him in to play on the track, to fill in for him, as BJ put it. Kooper played piano on the cut, and then in the early morning hours after most of the band had left and the session was really over, while they played back the song, with only the Glimmers and BJ still there in the studio with Kooper, MJ felt the song was missing something. Brian then suggested Kooper play a french horn on the song that he had brought in and was thinking of playing himself. Kooper, who had played some wind instruments before, never played the french horn before, so BJ showed him how and next thing you know Kooper actually played it on the entire track, although you can only hear it hear it here and there a bit on a few parts, but you can't miss it on the beginning of the song of course, where it sounds fantastic and sets the song's mood. So Kooper became a main contributor to that song - and more so because of his playing the french horn, and not the piano which you hear throughout the song.
On another unusual note for the song, Charlie got pissed off at producer Jimmy Miller because he wasn't playing the drums in the way Miller wanted him to play them. So Charlie walked out in a huff and didn't return, and Miller (who used to play drums in a band) ended up playing the drums on the song instead for him.
The next night Kooper was invited back by Jagger, but both Charlie and Keith didn't show up, so the only Stones in the studio that night were Mick, Bill and Brian when they recorded MFT. Keith refused to play on the song since it had a connection to the movie Performance, which Jagger was starring in, and recording that one song was actually the main reason for these November sessions (I'm not sure why YCAGWYW was recorded at that time too, but those 2 songs were the only 2 recorded in those 2 days). But Keith was pissed at Mick because Mick was sleeping with the movie's costar, Anita Pallenberg (Keith's then lover) on the set, and even in the movie itself (if you ever saw the uncut bathtub scene that gave the movie an X rating, you know what I mean). So Keith refused to play on the song at all and didn't show up on that next, second night. Charlie was still pissed off at Miller and also didn't show up, so Jim Capaldi of Traffic fame, filled in for him on the drums.
This version of MFT was not the solo version that MJ recorded again later on without the band, but the Stones version that appeared on the Metamorphosis album. Brian's hand was feeling better than next night and he, Kooper, along with Steve Winwood, played the guitars heard on the song. Brian had gotten Capaldi to show up and in turn, Capaldi got his Traffic bandmate Winwood to show. So that's why I say it seemed like BJ was more a co-producer to those 2 songs than he was a player.
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