West, Bruce & Laing - Why Dontcha (1972)

After the split up of Mountain, Leslie West and Corky Laing formed with Jack Bruce the powertrio "West, Bruce & Laing".
This is their debut-album, released in November 1972.

Corky Laing in his own words about the end of "Mountain" and the early days of "West, Bruce & Laing":


"There was a lot of self-abuse. It was the old ladies, it was drugs, and it was greed and ego. Everything the Russians hated about America, we were living it!"

"When Felix wanted to announce a breakup, I never understood why we couldn't have just gone our different ways for a while instead. That made no sense to me. We'd worked really hard to build all of that up."

Laing stayed involved with West.

"Philosophically, we went in different directions, but musically we were on the same page."

The duo went to Island Studios in London to record, originally with the intention of forming a band along with Paul Rodgers (FREE), Mick Ralphs and Overend Watts (MOTT THE HOOPLE). Things were going well until West invited ex-CREAM bassist Jack Bruce to come in for a jam.

"The next time I talked to Leslie, he told me that his dream was to be in a band with Jack Bruce. I thought we already had a good band going, especially with Paul singing, but Leslie said that Jack would sing too, and off it went."

"Our sound was a lot rougher than Mountain's. 'Like Why Dontcha' I wrote in just twenty minutes and we jammed fiercely on it. We were flowing with ideas and actually stayed together longer than Mountain had."

Jack Bruce (bass, vocals, haromica)
Corky Laing (drums)
Leslie West (guitar, vocals)

01. Why Dontacha (West/Bruce/Laing) 3.02
02. Out Into The Fields (Bruce/Brown/West/Laing) 4.40
03. The Doctor (West/Bruce/Laing/Palmer) 4.30
04. Turn Me Over (West/Bruce/Laing) 2.43
05. Third Degree (Boyd) 5.15
06. Shake My Thing (West/Bruce/Laing) 3.14
07. While You Sleep (West/Bruce/Laing) 3.24
08. Pleasure (Bruce/Brown/West/Laing) 4.02
09. Love Is Worth The Blues (West/Bruce/Laing) 4.11
10. Pollution Woman (Bruce/Brown/West/Laing) 4.26

(Artwork included)

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