I Stand Alone – AL KOOPER***

Overture/I Stand Alone/Camille/One/Coloured Rain/Soft Landing On The Moon/I Can Love A Woman/Blue Moon Of Kentucky/Toe Hold/Right Now For You/Hey Western Union Man/Song & Dance For The Unborn Frightened Child

I Stand Alone was the appropriately titled first solo album release from influential and versatile musician Al Kooper. Unfortunately, it is considered a somewhat inconsistent effort. (US:54)

“Kooper is a gifted artist, and this first of his solo releases is an eclectic mix of soft,pop blues, and some pop covers, featuring horns and orchestration. But it is also mixed with lots of sound effects, creating a surreal psych atmosphere, which makes overlooking the commercial aspects of the production quite possible.”

“The orchestra is not refined, spoiled with stupid and ridiculous sound effects and the whole of it is mostly overblown and confused. At several moments he uses yelling feminine backing vocals which sounds really ugly. All this stuff sounds pretentious,and forgettable. An average bunch of recycled melodies in different styles.”

“I Stand Alone is an embarrassingly narcissistic retread of the far superior Child Is Father To The Man, chock full of painfully thin, embarrassingly white bread vocals, and production gimmickry for the sake of production gimmickry alone. Even when he hits the mark, as on Blue Moon Of Kentucky, Kooper sabotages himself, adding tons of needless reverb, as if playing with all the knobs in the control room was more important, and more interesting, than the performance.”

“This is not an album with technical finesse, but more of an experiment with sound.But most important, is the quality of songwriting from this true pioneer of rock and roll. One song after another shows his true genius."

“I am amazed at the breadth of musical styles that Kooper handles on this album, and the quality of the arrangements, especially the horns and backup vocals. All this, and good melodies too.”

“How to describe it? Beautiful melody, classical influences and lots of brass, which at the time was a bit non rock & roll. But still an album that you always found yourself humming. Kooper recognized beautiful melody and knew how to rock.”