When The Jack Bruce Band disbanded in early 1972, following some increasingly erratic and highly unpredictable behaviour surrounding keyboard player Graham Bond, their end coincided with the temporary demise of innovative US band Mountain. The two events brought together the relatively short lived but legendary West, Bruce, and Laing combination.
Sadly Graham Bond was destined to die under the wheels of a London underground train just two years later. Mountain had formed in 1969 and one of their early influences included bassist Jack Bruce’s ex-band, the legendary Cream. Since then they had forged a path of their own with their highly regarded second album Nantucket Sleighride followed by Flowers Of Evil an album that was half studio and half live. Maybe this early period of Mountains history is best remembered by “Mississippi Queen”, from their first album Climbing, which still gets plenty of airplay today.
When former Mountain members, guitarist and vocalist Leslie West and drummer Corky Laing met with Bruce the foundations were already there to form a new band. There was another connection, that being Felix Peppalardi one time producer for Cream and later bass player with Mountain. He too met a violent death when he was shot dead by his wife in 1983.
The result of the collaboration of West, Bruce and Laing was two studio albums Why Doncha (Columbia/CBS Records) in 1972 and the following years Whatever Turns You On. It was live that the band really carved their reputation, particularly so in the States where they toured relentlessly. By the time the second album was released, the band had all but gone their separate ways. West and Laing reformed Mountain leaving Bruce to complete the album. He says, ‘I ended up finishing off the last studio album by playing guitar and drum overdubs by myself because the other guys had returned to the States’. Ironically, it proved to be more successful than the first and showed what could have been achieved had they stayed together for maybe one more release.
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