Al Kooper - Naked Songs

Columbia Records

It seems that Al Kooper primarily does his best work when other people are asking it of him. Despite being capable of churning out gold in collaboration with artists like Bob Dylan or The Rolling Stones, he couldn't do it for Columbia Records, no matter how much of a contractual obligation "Naked Songs" was.

The opening track rolls around and already I'm sure Kooper has been listening to "Madman Across the Water" too many times. "(Be Yourself) Be Real" is comprised of the heavy-handed preaching taken from the psychedelic era that ultimately means nothing, and the lens of gospel through which it is presented does nothing to make what he is singing holy. The instrumentation is dreadfully commercial, walking on trails that have been better tread by dozens of other artists long before this.

Sultry, slow and deliberate is the rendition of "As the Years Go Passing By", where Kooper does an excellently convincing job of begging and pleading and moaning as he simultaneously lambastes the woman he loves for her perceived transgressions. Charlie Brown delivers down-n-out guitar solos that are so scorching they could give the devil first degree burns, tying the tension into a neat little bow. The song is fit for a burlesque performance, everything building and building and building until you're sitting on the edge of your seat, just in time for that fucking anti-climax.

"Jolie" is Disco before Disco, drawing its silk shirt sensuality straight from a blaxploitation movie. Unfortunately, Kooper's white soul lacks the spunk of the similar white blues found in contemporaries such as John Mayall or Paul Butterfield, leaving the measure of emotion to fall right off the bottom of the graph. Vocally, Kooper is just going through the motions, desperately trying to copy the performance on the former and falling just short of the mark.

Apparently Kooper is capable of doing both: country and western. While "Blind Baby" has the potential to grow on me, I can't look past the fact that the arrangement is built up on cliches, and the rich vocal harmonies are doing nothing to save the so-accurate-it-feels-like-parody replication of the traditionals.

While a powerful performance, "Been and Gone" suffers from the issue plaguing the majority of this record: it just doesn't move. The tune is disturbingly romantic, like an obsessive heroine in a psychopathic chick-flick on Coke (and it certainly sounds like Kooper might've snorted a line), but the song simply sis on its ass in the corner, wringing its hands and darting its eyes, but otherwise remaining completely still.

The rest of the record, with the exception of the perfumed mystique of "Peacock Lady", is particularly negligible. "Sam Stone" is dreadfully saccharine, and the two remaining soul tunes--Sam Cooke's "Touch the Hem of His Garment" and the original "Where Were You When I Needed You"--lack any hint of genuine emotion and feel polythene. "Unrequited" is a passable example of smoky blues, but it is far from a saving grace. Perhaps Kooper will be able to provide us with something more substantial when he gets back to session work.

Rating: 3/5