E-Mail This Article to a Friend Can’t quit her Al Kooper’s back for more and so’s Danny Klein; plus Paperboy Reed’s gospel BY TED DROZDOWSKI
	Related Links Al Kooper's official Web site Danny Klein's official Web site Paperboy Reed on the Best Music Poll 2005

Ask rock-and-roll legend Al Kooper why he’s just made his first solo album in nearly 30 years and he’ll explain, " My songs hated me because they couldn’t get out of the basement. And I felt bad. "

Kooper and his songs — nine of them plus kindred covers — are feeling better now that Black Coffee (Favored Nations) has been released. The disc’s relaxed and soulful tone is set by the swinging ballad " How My Ever Gonna Get Over You " and " Going, Going Gone, " a tune written with Dan Penn that could be a refugee from the Stax and Muscle Shoals hit factories. But there are instrumental fireworks too, like a revival of the classic " Green Onions " recorded live by Kooper’s band of Berklee profs, the Funky Faculty.

The Somerville resident’s musical résumé runs deep. The keyboardist, guitarist, and singer joined the Royal Teens, of " Short Shorts " fame, as a teen. He penned hits for Gary Lewis and Gene Pitney in his early 20s and was a key figure in the American blues-rock scene with the bands Blood, Sweat & Tears and the Blues Project. He’s also played organ on recordings by the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan ( " Like a Rolling Stone " ), and he was part of Dylan’s first electric band. He cut six solo albums from 1968 to 1976, and as a producer and A&R man he’s worked with a who’s who that includes Michael Bloomfield, B.B. King, Ray Charles, the Tubes, Green on Red, and Lynyrd Skynyrd, whom he also discovered.

But as Kooper — wearing a rock-appropriate paisley shirt and sitting on a couch in the living room of his comfortable Somerville house — tells it, the story of Black Coffee begins in 1989. " That’s when I quit the music business, because I’d seen a lot of people go past their windows, and I felt embarrassed for them. I didn’t want to be like that. I want to keep my dignity. There are labels that collect acts that were big in the 1960s and ’70s, and I wanted no part of that. So I quit and moved from Los Angeles to Nashville. I didn’t want to make any more solo albums or deal with record labels. And I abhor modern country music, so I knew I wouldn’t be tempted to produce anyone.

" I was there for seven years and it was great. I encountered the highest musicianship level of any city I’ve lived in. But then I couldn’t stand being retired any more. I’d rather be helped onto the stage to play music than helped into the garden to plant.

" I took out this list of things I always wanted to do but never had time for. Teaching came to the forefront. I thought Berklee was the place. I taught from ’97 to 2001, but that’s when I lost two-thirds of my vision [to a stroke], so I had to quit.

" The students knew nothing, which amazed me. So I refined the classes that they had me teach and made them history classes, because these people were in dire need of that information. Knowing history helped me tremendously in my career. For example, in the early ’70s, all that was on the radio was progressive rock: Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Genesis, Yes. While a part of me appreciated this music intellectually, it lacked this [taps his heart] and this [grabs his groin]. I figured if I could find a great three-chord band, I could make a zillion dollars. Ergo, Lynyrd Skynyrd. The reason I knew they would be successful is because of the history of rock and roll. Every time it goes off on a tangent, it always comes back to three-chord rock and roll. And they call it something different every time: the San Francisco Sound, the British Invasion, punk. But it’s always three-chord rock and roll.

" When I moved to Boston, it cut my writing down a little bit. The other thing I’ve noticed is that when you’re younger, you tend to be more experimental and fearless, musically speaking. As you get older, you lose that. Not intentionally, but you just do. So my songs are not anywhere near as musically complex as they used to be. But I’m comfortable with that. "

Kooper’s songs are also decidedly old school, full of the soaring vocal melodies, trim guitar, organ and horn lines, and funky propulsion that defined the classic soul sound.

" Unless you’re attempting, like Santana, to make the Top 10, there’s no point in doing music that doesn’t suit you. In the mid ’60s, I really found the music that suited me, soul music, and I haven’t deviated from that for the rest of my life. With the band I put together of professors from Berklee, the Funky Faculty, I have wonderful players. I’m playing with musicians my own age — which, by the way, when someone reaches past 60, I hate going to see them playing with young kids in the band. It just doesn’t seem right to me. People who’ve lived through what you lived through understand how to play the music that you’re playing.

" The music I chose became nearly extinct, but I’m not going to weep, because it’s me now. It’s what I do, and as each year goes by, I learn how to do it a little better. I’m still learning, I’m not burned out. I learn something new every day. "

Geils bassist goes stonecrazy

There are plenty of blues bands tucked away in the Boston suburbs, but Stonecrazy have an ace in their fold: former J. Geils Band bassist Danny Klein. Actually, two: guitarist Ken Pino played alongside six-string hurricane Johnny Copeland for years, and that accounts for his terse phrasing and distinctive, singing tone as well as the band’s taste for Copeland’s songs. Four appear on their just-released debut, Stonecrazy (Black Rose; www.blackroserecords.net), alongside a handful of durable originals that, like the band, split the difference between Texas and Chicago blues. There’s also " Homework, " an Otis Rush tune that was part of the Geils Band’s repertoire, and there’s Jay Geils himself, who produced and busts out guitar solos on " Homework " and " Woulda Coulda. "

When I caught up with Klein by phone, he was making the final arrangements for the grand reopening last weekend of his Point Breeze restaurant in Webster (he went to the Cambridge School for the Culinary Arts after the J. Geils Band folded), where Stonecrazy will open for Roomful of Blues next Thursday, July 28. He explained that Stonecrazy have been together six years, not counting his 1999 stretch in the J. Geils reunion tour.

" Stonecrazy is more of a hardcore blues band than J. Geils, " he continues, " and we’re a four-piece " — completed by singer/harmonica player Babe Pino and drummer Mark Hylander — " so I might play a little busier than I used to. "

Although Klein and his band mates hope the CD will generate enough interest to warrant national touring, Point Breeze (which he co-owns) is also keeping him busy. " To me, playing music and cooking are both highly creative endeavors. When it’s Saturday night and the restaurant’s bustling and there’s excitement and tension, it has the same kind of energy as playing a gig to me. "

Eli Reed’s new (Silver) Leaf

Roxbury’s Silver Leaf Gospel Singers have been making a joyful noise unto the Lord for well over a half-century. But anyone who’s caught the historically a cappella group live in the past few weeks has noticed something different: the addition of soul-blues up-and-comer Eli " Paperboy " Reed, who won the Phoenix/WFNX Best Music Poll title for best Local Blues/R&B Act last spring.

What’s a 21-year-old Jewish kid from Brookline doing in the area’s most venerable African-American gospel troupe, where the next youngest singer’s at least 50 years his senior? " He’s an all-around man, " says Deacon Randy Green, the Silver Leaf’s 83-year-old leader. " He can play organ and piano and he’s got a voice. He’s got a good ear. We haven’t voted him into the group yet, but I can certainly see him becoming a full-fledged member. We have no prejudice. If someone can prove themselves religious and positive and interested in what we’re doing, and we feel strongly about them . . . well, to us Eli is a beautiful asset. "

Al Kooper and the Funky Faculty | Lowell Summer Music Festival | Boarding House Park, corner of John and French Sts, Lowell | September 3 | 7:30 pm | $10 | www.lowellsummermusic.org | Stonecrazy + Roomful of Blues | Point Breeze Restaurant, 114 Point Breeze Road, Webster | July 28 | 508.943.0159