According to Publishers Weekly, Steve Katz’s new memoir Blood, Sweat, and My Rock ’n’ Roll Years: Is Steve Katz a Rock Star? has maybe the most spectacular revelation yet of any Rock memoir. Katz was a guitarist with two successful Rock bands in the 1960s, The Blues Project and Blood, Sweat & Tears, and he went on in the 1970s to produce Lou Reed’s classic live album, Rock n Roll Animal. Katz says one of the stereo feeds of the audience track for Reed’s Animal concert at New York’s Academy of Music was lost, so there was only mono sound. That wouldn’t work, so the engineer went through his archives and found an audience track from a concert by the ultra-square John Denver. (Both were RCA recording artists at the time.)
“I said, ‘That’s perfect. Lou would love that,’ ” Katz tells CityBeat (see more from the interview here). “Lou went to his grave not knowing we did that. It’s my ulimate prank on him.
On his current tour, Katz, now 70, is playing acoustic guitar and performing songs from throughout his career. He’s also telling stories and anecdotes from his book, which will be available for sale and signing.
Katz will probably have a few things to say about Al Kooper, who was in The Blues Project and, initially, Blood, Sweat & Tears with him. The innovative, horn-laden Rock band, with Kooper on vocals, released 1968’s well-regarded debut album, Child Is Father to the Man.
When it didn’t sell, Katz and co-founder Bobby Colomby parted ways with Kooper and replaced him with David Clayton-Thomas. That lineup’s first album together, simply called Blood, Sweat & Tears, was a multi-million seller.
STEVE KATZ plays Newport's Southgate House Revival on Friday. Tickets/more info here.
