I have never been much of a one for the subtleties of life.
I’ve always been much more of a one for a morning star, flail, spiked club or mace than a blade. It’s the act of transferring all that pent up energy in an irresistible, dominant battering, total victory of brawny simplicity. It’s why I always played clerics of half-orc fighters*.
It’s also why I was always happier when the murder weapon was the lead piping in Cluedo; I mean the candlestick and the wrench are all well and good but the lead piping is the true bludgeoneers’ choice.
Dang. If only there was some way to link those preceding paragraphs to West, Bruce & Laing Why Dontcha. Dang it all again, twice.
If there is one LP in the 1537 that makes me want to howl my rarely heard mating call into a thunderstorm, shirtless, on top of a mountain, at night, then Why Dontcha is it. Don’t take my word though, pump up the volume and play this**:
I first heard this when I was 17-ish on big headphones in a friend of the family’s lounge. I just couldn’t believe the raw charge of the thing, I just couldn’t believe the way that bass growled. I still can’t.
Released into the world, like all the best things that have ever, or ever will be, in 1972 Why Dontcha just reeks of man musk and unalloyed sexual potency; it’s why I identify with it, natch. Owning this LP has been scientifically proven^ to make even the most unpromising specimen up to 28% more manly, regardless of gender. True story.
West, Bruce & Laing despite nominatively sounding a little like a down-at-heel firm of backstreet tax attorneys, were kick ass rock, well if not royalty exactly, then princes. Jack Bruce teamed up with guitar monolith Leslie West and the unshirted Corky Laing from Mountain. Wisely not deciding to call their band Creamy Mountain, possibly, they roped in Andrew Johns to produce and cut Why Dontcha.
The resulting platter is loud, crude^* and just intoxicatingly great. Every note was hit like it was the player’s last and when Laing beat a drum, it stayed beaten. Why Dontcha really is that rarest of beasts, that holy grail, a true great ‘lost’ rock LP. Come and drink the Kool-aid, my friends.
The title track kicks down the doors for us straight away and then the momentum is squandered a little with Jack Bruce’s (he plays piano, organ and sings on it) ‘Out In The Fields’ which is an okay track in its’ own right featuring some nice unexpectedly ominous melodic turns, but reeks of unfinished sixties business, rather than the new decade of denim. But that’s okay, we have an appointment.
Don't you send for the doctor 'cause I'm dyin' of the blues I got nothin' to live for and nothin' to lose
‘The Doctor’ may be the very finest moment here, (im)pure blues rock played by men who sound like they’re wearing boxing gloves – nothing fancy, just bison-bollocked heaviness all the way. West excels in the vocals and geetarr here, it careens down the track like the proverbial runaway train powered by that incredible rhythm section. If you don’t love this then you don’t love heavy, or yourself. Roarrrrrr!
I got no excuses ’cause I’m the one to blame
We have plenty of time to get bluesy and downright slippery on ‘Turn Me Over’ and marvel at just how much of a racket these guys make. I’ve construed the lyrics as being filthy, but that’s possibly just me. Jack Bruce plays harmonica here like a metal guitarist. Side 1 slams to a close with a cover of Eddie Floyd’s ‘Third Degree’, a more conventional blues rock workout heavied up to an intense degree, just like a beautifully low-IQ Cream, all the sludge dang doodle you could possibly need.
Side 2 of Why Dontcha starts off strutting its’ bulge right in your face on ‘Shake ma Thing (Rollin Jack)’, which sounds like a heavily concussed Aerosmith. The guitar soloing is especially great, just enough notes played, not a single one more than necessary.
Hell we even get all balladic with ‘While You Sleep’, featuring a dobro, choir vocals and Corky Laing on rhythm guitar. It’s low key and very heartfelt, steeped in man tears, gritty-eyed hangovers and regret.
The Stones-ing ‘Pleasure’ accelerates Chuck Berry-like away from the lights, drooling jerky lust right up in your grid. It’s good but a touch lightweight in this company. Brace yourself for the heavy artillery: Spoiler Alert^^.
Heavy just seems an inadequate term for ‘Love Is Worth The Blues’. It isn’t so much the terrific sludgy, heaviness of the thing, more the sheer density of what these guys were laying down here. As a dispassionate utterly impartial, objective critic I say unto you that THIS IS JUST FUCKING GREAT! The guys spiral on and on forcing the music down and then from nowhere Leslie West just unleashes an awesome violin guitar part allied with some kick-ass soloing all the way down the line. Crushed it.
Just to show they’re human West, Bruce and Laing arse it up on the inconsequential ‘Pollution Woman’ to finish the LP. Shame because there are the makings of yet another great rocker if they’d open the back of it and taken out all the subtlety and, urggh, gentle singing. That’s not why we’re here.
Okay, okay I have gone on a bit longer here than I do and it’s a combo of my usual evangelical enthusiasm for a genuinely great LP and a burning sense of injustice that Why Dontcha never catapulted West, Bruce & Laing into the starry firmament where they belonged. They cut a second LP, on a par at least with Why Dontcha and a live one, but heroin and volatility scuppered their tilt at success. Triple Dang.
So pump up the volume and give this beauty a spin and marvel at the hard-charging hefty horn-headedness of our elders. Brace for impact.
An LP as good as Why Dontcha should surely have a far better cover than this appalling watery nonsense. Yup, I get the whole ‘elemental’ power thang, but come on – that wasn’t really trying was it? If It’s any consolation the follow-up, Whatever Turns You On has a superb cartoon cover.
1027 Down.
*note to the uninitiated: you have absolutely no idea of the aphrodisiac affect carrying polyhedral dice to school in your pencil case had on the fairer sex back in the mid 80s. We was players!
**1537 Inc. accept no liability for fines/damages etc arising in readers breaking any local ordinances and bylaws when they start howling shirtlessly in public in sheer unfettered joy.
^under laboratory conditions, by folks wearing lab coats, measuring variables, parsing probabilities, carrying stopwatches, posing hypothesis-es and everything.
^*in the sense of primitive and rudimentary.
^^or should that go first? I’m never sure.
Hand a blue ribbon on this take (There’s already 3 ribbons on West Bruce and Laing). A CB fave. I followed all those Cream guys but Jack was the guy that I played the most. “Some unfinished 60’s business”. Yeah Jack had that side and it worked for me. Maybe everyone just needed a breather before they started back with the jackhammers. Great piece !537 (I might borrow it). Hidden gem, lost album etc. Not with us.
(Dave Edmunds is on the same vibe as you ‘Subtle As A Flying Mallet”. Must have something to do with Wales)
I always wondered about the candlestick. I mean, what are you gonna do? Kill someone with mood lighting? And why, in a house with a perfectly good billiard room, was no one ever offed in a hail of snooker balls? Oh, and Leslie West looks like a member of the women’s institute who’s about to choke on a muffin in an episode of Midsomer Murders. Back to the Astrid Gilberto for me.
We’ll lookee here, looks like we caught ourselves a bossa novan. We don’t get many of your sort around these parts. We’ll, not any more.
Lead piping is still the connoisseurs’ choice. Decent name for a band too.
And leave old Mrs West alone, you know she’s not been right since the change.
By virtue of older brothers and sisters I think our copy of Cluedo came from the 50’s and I’m pretty sure the lead piping really was lead. Bearing in mind it must have been in and out of my mouth from a tender age, I’m surprised I can still remember where I left the car keys. And don’t knock the bossa – my body may belong to the east midlands but my soul is brazilian. As is my bikini line.
Wow, thank you for putting this super group on my radar! I got to give this a spin!
Had not listened to this in a very long time and so pulled it out after reading your post. As in the past, I enjoyed it immensely and immediately started asking myself why it is that I keep forgetting it for years after each reinvigorating listen. Answer: Sooo much music!
Its a real rocket isn’t it? I like the almost total lack of frills and filigree, what an incredible rhythm section too. Deserves to be placed into your annual playlist at least.
PS: may I ask you as a slightly older citizen than me, were Mountain any good? I only know the very obvious track.
In my role as spokesman for the elderly, I am comfortable putting the full weight of our slowly-decaying humanity behind Mountain. ‘Mississippi Queen’ is an awesome, crunchy rocker but actually gives an incomplete picture of the glory of Mountain. They were always heavy, but were capable of adding nuance and atmosphere to their sonic crush as well. While that best-known tune is a hefty pile of early 70s heavy, the Mountain catalogue as a whole carries some late 60s heavy — in a GOOD way. Given your appreciation for Why Dontcha, I have zero doubt that you’d dig Mountain. Highly recommend you start with the album Nantucket Sleighride; there are 3-4 songs on that one that I’d actually rate above ‘Mississippi Queen.’
Many thanks old-timer, it’s appreciated. The second-hand shop has a copy of Nantucket for £10.
When you were 17-ish, it was a very good year!
It was a very good year for dusty vinyl and trying to buy it all. It was a very good year.
I am unaware of this genius and howling music. I need a good howl and so maybe I should give this a listen. Laws be damned about noise ordinances and public indecency.
An awful lot of stuff came later that borrowed from this, I reckon. A real kick in the pants.
I never heard of them but you’ve sold me.
Well worth a bit of interneting. An incredibly good rhythm section.
Probably the best album by the trio, good playing and singing throughout. But in contrast to Cream this was never a “must have” for me.
I prefer WBL’s lack of theatrical frills, they never touch genius the way Cream do in places but I just like the rock and roll head charge of it all.
Can absolutely see how an Acka Dacka man would love this.
Despite Bruce’s bass playing being up to his usual magnificent standard, I culled this some years back. I know, no more Christmas Cards heading my way.
PS. Pirate Cap’n Jack is good, but Leslie spotting a turtle is genius.
PSS. All my polyhedrals every earned me was a condescending shake of the head. True story.
You culled this?!!!! You culled this and kept all your Gently Gigantic Moody Caravan Snow Geeses? for shame Bruce. If you culled this what do you play when you want to howl shirtless at the moon exposing your primal Neanderthal rage to the firmament?
Leslie just looked like a man spotting an unlikely turtle in that pic.
Overcome by primitive rage and cosmic disdain? I’ve been known to loosen my necktie and gently shake a glass of Prosecco at the stars. That’s what you mean, right?
i blame you. Entirely.
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Worth every penny. Just slam The Doctor on the turntable and become the longhaired hedonist you were born to be.