AL KOOPER figures there are worse things than being an honest dinosaur.

"The music I play is primarily music that has become extinct," said Mr. Kooper, famous first for his legendary organ work with Bob Dylan long, long ago. "I'm not interested in keeping current, I'm the antithesis of that record Carlos Santana did a few years back. If he's happy, God bless him, but I couldn't do that."

At 61, almost no one alive has lived as much rock 'n' roll history as Mr. Kooper in his assorted lives as performer, producer, sideman, songwriter, hustler, author, talent scout, enthusiast, critic and muse. It's a career so rich, convoluted and at times absurd, you want someone to find a way to film a rock version of "Zelig" with Mr. Kooper popping up at almost every bend in the road.

His first big break came at 14 with the Royal Teens, perpetrators of the 50's novelty number, "Short Shorts." He played twist numbers with Paul Simon at Chubby Checker-era debutante parties and wrote "This Diamond Ring," hoping it would be recorded by the Drifters. (He does an improbably terrific bluesy version of it today, which can be found on a career retrospective, "Rare & Well Done.") He bluffed his way, playing an organ he didn't know how to turn on, into the most famous sideman turn in rock history: the Hammond B-3 cascades that helped define Mr. Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" and then "Blonde on Blonde."

He was present at the creation of the New York rock scene with the still beloved Blues Project; concocted perhaps the best rock horn band ever - the original incarnation of Blood, Sweat and Tears - and discovered and recorded Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Southern rock avatars. He played the French horn part at the beginning of the Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and recorded with George Harrison the day after John Lennon died.

Now, after spending much of the 90's semi-retired in Nashville, he is two-thirds blind, a little paunchy but back plugging away, on the Internet, in two part-time virtuoso bands and, rather amazingly, on his first solo record of new material in 30 years, a jolt of primal soul, blues and R&B called "Black Coffee," due out July 12.

It's a little hard to be sure if his story is an uplifting tale of survival in rock's shark pond or a Darwinian parable in which the shark always wins. Yes, Mr. Dylan in his book, "Chronicles Volume One," lamented Mr. Kooper's status in "eternal musical limbo" and suggested he was "the Ike Turner of the white world" and should have teamed up with Janis Joplin. No, his new album will not outsell Coldplay. But he figures it's no small triumph that he has made it back at all.

"My mantra is, if you don't expect anything, you'll never be disappointed," said Mr. Kooper, who has the air of an eccentric English professor, his curly hair thick and gray, his voice given to odd, owlish inflections. "That's what's kept me sane through my 47 years in the music business."

Mr. Kooper's biggest moment came in 1965 when he was invited to watch one of Mr. Dylan's recording sessions by the producer, Tom Wilson. Far too nervy to behave himself, Mr. Kooper arrived early with his guitar and sat down nonchalantly with the other musicians until Mr. Dylan came in out of the rain with a young kid who turned out to be the guitarist Michael Bloomfield. "I never heard anyone play like that, and he was just warming up," he recalled. "So I went back to the booth where I belonged."

But when the organist, Paul Griffin, was moved over to the piano during the recording of "Like a Rolling Stone," Mr. Kooper stole back down to the organ, picking the song up by ear and laying back an eighth note with each chord change to make sure he had it right. His playing became almost as much a part of what may be rock's most famous song as Mr. Dylan's voice. He was 21.

On "Blonde on Blonde," he joined Mr. Dylan in Nashville, rehearsing the band, playing Ping-Pong or watching television for hours while Mr. Dylan furiously scribbled lyrics and then recording all night. ("It was the one time I looked at the music and thought, 'Where my fingers go is going to be forever.' ") That's mostly him doing the nutty Salvation Army Band shouting on "Rainy Day Women No. 12 and 35."

He achieved a significant though not all that remunerative sort of stardom in the 1960's and 70's through his work with Blood, Sweat and Tears and his "Super Session" album with Mr. Bloomfield and Stephen Stills. But he never quite duplicated that success on his own. As a band member, he developed a reputation as something of a musical martinet, so sure of his own ears that he could be hard to live with. So after founding Blood, Sweat and Tears, he was kicked out by the other members, who went on to make what critics have generally called lousier music but much more money after replacing him with David Clayton-Thomas.

"It reminded me of 'Frankenstein,' " he said. "I built this monster, and the monster turned around and killed me for my trouble."

His solo albums never got the critical acclaim the first Blood, Sweat and Tears one did, and even some admirers admit he is limited as a singer, but they also say it doesn't matter.

"You get the feeling he would die for rock 'n' roll," said John Simon, who produced Mr. Kooper, and the first Blood, Sweat and Tears album as well as Janis Joplin, the Band, Simon and Garfunkel and others. He almost did in 2001 when he lost most of his vision and suffered a brain tumor. And there are bittersweet and just plan bitter notes in Mr. Kooper's tale.

"This business is as rotten to its artists at it was 50 years ago," he said. "One of the good things about the Internet is that it has helped to lessen the power of the record companies. So there's a little light at the end of the tunnel - these companies might die, and I hope to be around to attend every funeral."

There's something more than a little eerie about Mr. Kooper, a white boy who tried to channel Ray Charles, now almost blind himself, pursuing the old musical truths like the last practitioner of a dying faith. These days he does radio shows on England's Radio Caroline and runs a spiffy Web site, alkooper .com, where he recommends iTunes downloads and has an annotated 100 Best List, full of succinct rock critic haiku ("Pet Sounds Box Set" No. 1, "Songs for Swingin' Lovers" No. 2, "Phil Spector Box Set" No. 3, "Music of Bulgaria" No. 44) that belongs on anyone's 100 Best List of 100 Best Lists.

Without a string of hits to guarantee bookings, he can't live on performing. But he plays solo and with two bands: the Funky Faculty, made up of professors at the Berklee College of Music, and the Rekooperators, made up of top New York musicians. (He'll be at B.B. King's Blues Club and Grill with the Funky Faculty on July 13.) "Right now, playing before an audience is the greatest thing in the world," he said. "In my 60's, it's finally knocked sex out of No. 1."

And even if it's not likely to make him rich, his new CD offers primal Blood, Sweat and Tears horns, unexpected mandolins, Ray Charles homages, a live version of "Green Onions" with crazed Norwegians shouting along, and a funny, cranky soulful remembrance of things past called "Going, Going, Gone" that's quintessential boomer blues.

"When I started, I was probably 10 percent talent and 90 percent ambition," Mr. Kooper said. "Now I think it's totally reversed. I've learned a lot of wonderful things, but it's hard to get me out of the house."