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Harvey Brooks

Harvey Brooks (born July 4, 1944, New York City as Harvey Goldstein) is an American bassist. He has played in many styles of music (notably jazz and popular music), and was folk rock's first notable bass guitarist.[citation needed]

Brooks came out of a New York music scene that was crackling with activity in the early 1960s. One of the younger players on his instrument, he was a contemporary of Andy Kulberg and other eclectic players in their late teens and early 20s, who saw a way to bridge the styles of folk, blues, rock, and jazz. Columbia Records producer Tom Wilson gave Brooks his first boost to fame when he picked him to play as part of Bob Dylan's backing band on the sessions that yielded the song "Like a Rolling Stone" and the album Highway 61 Revisited �" in contrast to the kind of folkie-electric sound generated by the band on his previous album, Bringing It All Back Home. Wilson and Dylan were looking for a harder, in-your-face electric sound, and Brooks, along with guitarist Michael Bloomfield and organist Al Kooper, provided exactly what was needed on one of the most famous recordings of the 1960s.

Brooks was also part of Dylan's early backing band which performed to great notoriety at Forest Hills, Queens and other venues in 1965. This band also included Robbie Robertson (guitar), Al Kooper (keyboards) and Levon Helm (drums). From the Dylan single and album, which became two of the most widely heard (and, at the time, most controversial) records of the 1960s, Brooks branched out in a multitude of directions, as he went on to play on records by folk artists like Eric Andersen at Vanguard Records, Richie Havens and Jim & Jean at Verve Records (where Wilson had jumped after leaving Columbia), transitional electric folk-rockers such as David Blue (whose producer was looking for a sound similar to that on Highway 61 Revisited), and various blues-rock fusion projects involving Bloomfield and Kooper. Brooks played on Mama Cass's 1968 solo album, and also on some Doors sessions for which Ray Manzarek's keyboard bass was judged inadequate, including the Soft Parade album, and was very visible on the Michael Bloomfield/Al Kooper/Steve Stills Super Session release, one of the iconic records of late 1960s rock music. His song "Harvey's Tune" appeared on this album.

It was through his participation in The Electric Flag, an extension of Michael Bloomfield and Barry Goldberg's interests in blues, that Brooks' career took an unexpected turn. The Flag only lasted in its original line-up for about a year, and much of that time was spent recording a sound track album to the film The Trip starring Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Susan Strasberg & written by Jack Nicholson and "The Electric Flag, An American Music Band. But in the course of this, Brooks became a producer at Columbia Records and connected with fellow producer Teo Macero who led him to Miles Davis.

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The Electric Years Box Set

Read "The Electric Years Box Set" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


In a year that has brought us a true bounty of previously unheard majesty including Evenings at the Village Gate: John Coltrane with Eric Dolphy (Impulse!), and Bill Evans; Treasures: Solo, Trio & Orchestra Recordings from Denmark (1965-1969), (Elemental Music) it is only fitting that Miles Davis get his due. And in a very, very big way. Seared into modern memory, modern art, the music presented on the gloriously massive, eleven LP set Miles Davis: The Electric Years ...

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Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

The Electric Years...

Columbia Records / VMP Anthology
2023

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