The (Almost) Complete History of Al Kooper

Tell me about the first Supersession.

Well the concept came from that Grape Jam album (given free with Wow in the States but not released here), which was the right idea but didn't really get it the way it should be – with enough variety and everything to make it tasteful to the audience....but that was a significant album because it was the first of its kind. You see, what happened next was that I was given a job as a producer at Columbia, but I didn't have anything to produce. Well, Mike Bloomfield had just quit the Electric Flag, so I thought we should make a record together – our careers had been fairly similar in that we'd both backed Dylan, both were in early blues bands, both had brass bands, and both quit 'em. So I got on the phone to him and said "Let's just go into the studios and jam... it'll be fun and Columbia'll pay all the bills".