A two album replay for a Saturday morning. I’m featuring Super Session, the 1968 album put together by multi-instrumentalist and producer Al Kooper along with guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills, billed on the album as Steve Stills, and Selling England By The Pound by Genesis.

Super Session was originally a Kooper-Bloomfield project, the two having played together on Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited album in 1965, with Bloomfield shortly thereafter joining The Paul Butterfield Blues Band and later forming The Electric Flag. Kooper went on to found Blood, Sweat & Tears, leaving, after disputes about artistic direction, after that band’s debut album, Child Is Father To The Man was released earlier in 1968. Stills came into the Super Session project, hastily recruited by Kooper, after Bloomfield, suffering from insomnia, left after the first of the two days Kooper had booked for the session in a Los Angeles studio. According to Kooper, as related in a 2020 article on guitar.com, “He left a note that said, ‘Couldn’t sleep, bye.’ So I called every guitar player I knew in Los Angeles and San Francisco: Jerry Garcia, Randy California, Steve Stills and I don’t even remember who else. Stills was the one who got it together.”

What resulted was a tale of two sides of the original vinyl; Bloomfield on five tracks on side one and Stills on the four of side two. A terrific listen, as is 1973’s Selling England By The Pound which, hard to pick, is among my favorites from Genesis’s pure progressive rock early period. Song list below.

Mike Bloomfield/Al Kooper/Steve Stills – Super Session

1. Albert’s Shuffle
2. Stop
3. Man’s Temptation
4. His Holy Modal Majesty
5. Really
6. It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
7. Season Of The Witch
8. You Don’t Love Me
9. Harvey’s Tune

Genesis – Selling England By The Pound

1. Dancing With The Moonlit Knight
2. I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)
3. Firth Of Fifth
4. More Fool Me
5. The Battle Of Epping Forest
6. After The Ordeal
7. The Cinema Show
8. Aisle Of Plenty