The whole album is great front to back - this one & Pollution Woman are standouts

It's funny that this came up - "Why Doncha" is another disc I've dug up recently in my quest to re-listen to albums I have not heard in a while and / or might have changed my mind on.

Very interesting album. jack Bruce plays his butt off. There are a lot of very enjoyable jams where you get that rolling and tumbling feel that I got from Cream and from vintage Who.

I also like the alternating feel; Leslie leads /sings one song, and Jack does the next, back and forth. Thus you get the very ballsy title track followed by Bruce's epic / dramatic /operatic "Out Into The Fields." That song has a very warm spot in my heart because Bruce played it in the very short-lived jack Bruce/ Mick Taylor band, 1975.

Bruce's career went in many interesting directions. He lined up with plenty of great guitarists in the wake of Cream: Leslie West, Mick Taylor, Robin Trower, Gary Moore, among others.

https://consequenceofsound.net/2010/11/dusting-em-off-west-bruce-laing-why-dontcha/

Dusting ‘Em Off: West, Bruce & Laing – Why Dontcha
BY LEN COMARATTAON NOVEMBER 13, 2010, 8:00AM

After Cream had broken up and Mountain had disbanded for the first time, Jack Bruce, Cream’s bass player, teamed up with Leslie West and Corky Laing, both of Mountain, to form the power trio West, Bruce & Laing. Their debut album, Why Dontcha, continued with the heavy blues and rock templates already familiar to fans of both Cream and Mountain. The combined elements didn’t break new ground or achieve the status of Creamountain, but they did deliver some powerfully rocking blues. And when you consider the numerous connections between band members, it was almost inevitable for this group to have formed.

In the beginning, there was Cream: Ginger Baker, Eric Clapton, and Jack Bruce. The only bit of Cream I will mention is that three of Cream’s albums (Disraeli Gears, Wheels of Fire, and Goodbye) were produced by Felix Pappalardi, who also played some on Goodbye, and it was Clapton’s playing in Cream that changed the way Leslie West perceived the guitar.
However, after Cream broke up, Clapton joined up with Steve Winwood, as Traffic had just disbanded. Baker joined the project that would eventually be the short-lived, yet tremendously hyped, Blind Faith. The band’s only album, Blind Faith, was produced by Jimmy Miller with Andy Johns engineering. After seven months together, Clapton went on to play with Delaney & Bonnie and Derek & the Dominoes, while Baker, Winwood, and drummer Ric Grech carried on as Ginger Baker’s Air Force, which Winwood soon left to start re-booting
Traffic with the album John Barleycorn Must Die.

Leslie West played in an R&B outfit called the Vagrants, who also happened to have some recordings produced by Felix Pappalardi. When West left to pursue a solo project, he asked Pappalardi to come along. West recorded Mountain, and the two decided to form a band along with Steve Knight on keyboards and N.D. Smart from the Remains playing drums. Smart would eventually be replaced by Corky Laing after the band’s appearance at Woodstock. Pappalardi had produced Laing years earlier while he was in a band called Energy, the group he left to join Mountain. While at Woodstock, one of the songs Mountain played was “Theme for an Imaginary Western”, written by Jack Bruce. After a virtually non-stop touring/recording cycle stretching back to 1969, Mountain called it quits in 1971 due to being on the road too long, drug use within the band, and Pappalardi being threatened with hearing loss.

The following year, West, Bruce & Laing was formed. All the songs on Why Dontcha were written by the band with the exception of an Eddie Boyd/ Willie Dixon tune, “Third Degree”. When it came to getting a producer, we can turn back to the Blind Faith sessions. The engineer of those sessions, Andy Johns, came on-board to produce the power trio’s debut; and while he didn’t deliver the goods the way Miller did with his limited time and resources on Blind Faith, Johns didn’t entirely fail to follow in his mentor’s footsteps. The album is relatively solid and upon repeated listens actually gets stronger.

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.

I had Why Dontcha on vinyl back in the day and I remember it was a pretty good record. I'd forgotten about it (damn I am OLD). Might have to pick it up.

I have to be honest though, I saw West, Bruce and Laing at The Hollywood Palladium, 1972. I was extremely underwhelmed. In fact, they were a bit boring. You can't always put three great musicians on a stage together and expect it to work.