West Bruce & Lang - Why Dontcha (full album) (VINYL)

West, Bruce & Lang
Why Dontcha
Columbia Records KC 31929
Released November 1972

Side one
Why Dontcha 0:06
Out into the Fields 3:09
The Doctor 7:47
Turn Me Over 12:15
Third Degree 14:59

Side two
Shake Ma Thing (Rollin' Jack) 19:39
While You Sleep 22:53
Pleasure 26:17
Love Is Worth the Blues 30:17
Pollution Woman 34:28


One of those "supergroups" that were always forming in the 1970s.
Take West and Laing from Mountain, add Jack Bruce from Cream, and there you are -- West, Bruce, & Lang.

The story goes that Columbia wasn't very impressed when this album was turned in, and didn't do much to promote it. The rather cheapo and simplistic packaging supports that conclusion. Still, the album did pretty well, presumably based on the name recognition of Jack Bruce and Leslie West. (Corky Laing wasn't exactly a "name.") According to the Wikipedia article the album reached #26 on the US album chart.

I'm not sure what Columbia was expecting, given the pedigree of W,B&L. Straightforward blues-influenced rock, with heavy doses of West's guitar, Bruce's always-excellent and interesting bass, and Laing's reliable drumming.

The title song leads off and it's a good beginning with some nice riffs. "Out Into The Fields" is an OK ballad that does have some nice, restrained guitar by West. "The Doctor" features Bruce playing almost lead bass, for lack of a better term. West and Bruce don't ever attain Cream-like controlled frenzy but the interplay is very nice.

"Turn Me Over" is a cool little boogie, with Bruce playing harmonica
and acoustic bass. "Third Degree" is a old Willie Dixon/Eddie Boyd tune, Bruce continuing the multi-instrumental flair on piano. (Trivia: The very early pressings of this album (like mine -- see the pix) credit only Boyd for this song, as opposed to Dixon and Boyd. I enjoy West's guitar here, but it never reaches the slow-blues perfection of Billy Gibbons on "Blue Jean Blues" or of Hendrix's "Red House," but then again . . .

"Shake Ma Thing (Rollin' Jack)" is harmless enough. Nice piano by Bruce. "While Yuo Sleep" is another ballad . . . it's fine, with West on dobro, and Laing pitching in on rhythm guitar. "Pleasure" is fast and fun, with more great bass. "Love Is Worth The Blues" is the the sort of drug-addled 1970s blues-rock that gives the genre a good name. Starts off slow then shifts into a frantic Cream-style jam. "Pollution Woman" has at times an almost poppy feel to it -- West with some tasteful guitar and Bruce on synthesizer.

W, B&L didn't last long, and from what I read, the band was heavily using drugs -- heroin especially.

I have to give this album a B+. I hadn't listened to it a long time and
it's better than I remembered.

The visuals are pictures of West, Bruce, and Laing, but none of them AS West, Bruce & Laing (or nearly none). Lots of pix of the band members from the Cream amd Mountain eras obviously, and lots of latter-day ones too.

Jack Bruce is no longer with us, and Leslie West lost a leg (complications from diabetes, I think), but is still out there playing.

Made with . . . Sansui P-D10 turntable, Audacity, BBE preamp, Paint.net, Corel VideoStudio X9 Ultimate, and the IPhone 6 for album pictures.

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