West, Bruce & Laing - Why Dontcha (1972)

The record opens with the powerhouse title track. Pure West, but not quite Mountain, the band barely has the unit going before West belts in screaming, “Why dontcha/come to my place”.  It’s a great number to open the album, but the momentum is brought to a halt with the slowed-down, slightly bluesy psychedelic “Out Into the Fields”. It’s a great song, but its placement between two smokin’ joints is simply wrong. The third track, “The Doctor”, begins with a pounding, driving syncopation reminiscent of Blue Cheer. Switching the order of tracks two and three would allow for a longer high-energy introduction to this band, before dropping down a few notches to think about what was just heard.

“Turn Me Over” is a great piece boosted by the fiery harmonica that opens and carries the tune. The guitar/drum combo provides a tight groove under Bruce’s vocal that could easily be danced to and is similar to some Yardbird tunes. Where “Turn Me Over” is a modern rock and roll blues, “Third Degree” is a pure rhythm & blues blues (if that makes any sense). The band plays the cover song straight and hard, with dead-on delivery. On the record, side one would end here, and it’s a great way to close the side. In this era of compact discs, there is a tendency to forget about or simply never consider “sides” of records.

Keeping that in mind, the uptempo “Shake Ma Thing (Rollin’ Jack)” is less jarring than it would be if it truly did come right after “Third Degree”. Regardless, the song rocks as hard as Cream ever did (but still a bit shy of Mountain’s huge sound). The record’s tempo is shaken (once again) by the placement of sappy ballad “While You Sleep” only to have it raised 10 notches with “Pleasure”. Flow should be highly considered when laying the tracks out for an album, and this is an example of “close, but not close enough.” That said, “Pleasure” is not the record’s heaviest, a title probably reserved for “Why Dontcha” or “The Doctor”, but it’s certainly the fastest, most rocking song on the album and one to play repeatedly.

“Love Is Worth the Blues” is credited to all three members, but conventional wisdom pegs it as a Jack Bruce piece. It is one hell of a heavy, sludgy rock number drenched in the blues. What is interesting about this song is that if you listen to it closely, you might recognize parts of it as the Rolling Stones’ “Play With Fire”. So much so that when West, Bruce & Laing covered “Play with Fire” on their live album, Live ‘n’ Kickin’, they used the Jagger/Richard lyrics with the music to “Love Is Worth the Blues”.

The album has a solid ending with “Pollution Woman”. About the song, critic Joe Viglione wrote that this was the direction the band should have taken for the entire album. He also suggests that keyboards might have stabilized the band. The inclusion of keys via Mountain’s Knight or Blind Faith’s Winwood would have been monumental in establishing a firmer ground upon which to develop the band’s sound. I might have to agree to some degree, though not entirely, because some of these songs are phenomenal as they are. However, I will agree with Viglione regarding the production of the album. There wasn’t as much “oomph” in the production to give it that heavy-ass Mountain sound with the jazzy basslines Bruce’s blues contained. It wasn’t all Johns’ fault, as the band did have a hand in production.

Rather than worry about what it could have been or should have been, we should just embrace this album as a wonderful effort by some amazingly talented musicians. On paper, it looks and sounds amazing: the growling guitars of West, the heavy pounding from Laing, and Bruce’s jazzed-out blues-rock on bass. Cream meets Mountain, you would think. However, it doesn’t quite become that, nor does it necessarily aim to. By the time this album came out, Cream had been disbanded for three years. Sure, fans probably wanted a new Cream album or at least a little taste of something, but is that what the musicians wanted? Cream’s breakup wasn’t sweet, and Mountain exhausted its band members. It’s easy to see them wanting to distance themselves a bit while, at the same time, maintaining that lifeline just in case. Sometimes when I listen to this album, I get the impression that these guys just wanted to rock out a little and make a record for no other reason than to make a record (and maybe make a few bucks, too). Regardless, put it on, and turn it up…loud. (excerpt from classic rock review)