Leslie West - ...and on guitar (1993) R.I.P.

Leslie Weinstein was born on 22 October 1945 in New York City to Jewish parents, and after his parents divorced, he changed his surname to West. His musical career began in 1966 with The Vagrants, an R&B/blue-eyed soul-rock band influenced by the likes of the Rascals, who had two minor hits in the Eastern United States with 'I Can't Make A Friend' in 1966 and a cover of Otis Redding's 'Respect' the following year. Some of The Vagrants' recordings were co-written and produced by Felix Pappalardi, who was also working with Cream on their album 'Disraeli Gears'. In 1969, West and Pappalardi formed the pioneering hard rock act Mountain, which was also the title of West's debut solo album of that year, and which Rolling Stone described as a band who were a "louder version of Cream". With Steve Knight on keyboards and original drummer N. D. Smart, the band's original incarnation saw West and Pappalardi sharing vocal duties and playing guitar and bass, respectively. New drummer Corky Laing joined the band shortly after their appearance on the second day of the Woodstock festival, and they had success with their single 'Mississippi Queen' in 1970, which reached No. 21 on the Billboard charts and No. 4 in Canada, and later with 'Theme For An Imaginary Western' in 1973, which was written by Cream bassist Jack Bruce. After Pappalardi left Mountain to concentrate on various production projects, West and Laing produced two studio albums and a live release with Jack Bruce under the name West, Bruce and Laing. West and keyboard player Al Kooper of Blood, Sweat & Tears recorded with The Who during the March 1971 'Who's Next' sessions laying down a cover of Marvin Gaye's 'Baby Don't You Do It', as well as early versions of 'Love Ain't For Keepin'' and 'Won't Get Fooled Again', as well as adding guitar to albums by Mylon, Bobby Keys and Felix Cavaliere during the early 70's. Mountain reformed in 1973 only to break up again in late 1974, after which West played guitar on 'Bo Diddley Jam' on Bo Diddley's 1976 '20th Anniversary Of Rock 'n' Roll' all-star album. Since 1981, Mountain has continued to reform, tour and record on a regular basis, while in 1991 West teamed up with Deep Purple's Ian Gillan to co-write and play guitar on 'Hang Me Out To Dry' on Gillan's 'ToolBox' album, and in 1993 he played guitar on three tracks from Billy Joel's last studio album 'River Of Dreams'. West suffered a heart attack in his home near Daytona, Florida, on December 20, 2020 and was rushed to hospital in nearby Palm Coast where he never regained consciousness, and died shortly afterwards. He was 75. 

Track listing

01 A Sunny Summer Rain (single by The Vagrants 1967)
02 Hellhound On My Trail (from 'Maverick Child' by David Rea 1969)
03 Gray Afternoon (from 'Home' by Jolliver Arkansaw 1969)
04 Blue Suede Shoes (from 'Over The Influence' by Mylon 1972)
05 Key West (from 'Bobby Keys' by Bobby Keys 1972)
06 Love Ain't For Keeping (recorded 1971, from 'Odds And Sods' reissue by The Who 1999)
07 Hit And Run (from 'Destiny' by Felix Cavaliere 1975)
08 Masquerade (from 'Our Pleasure To Serve You' by Stanky Brown Group 1976)
09 Hey Bo Diddley (from 'The 20th Anniversary Of Rock & Roll' by Bo Diddley 1976)
10 Let Me Out'a Here (from 'Guitar Speak' 1988)
11 Hang Me Out To Dry (from 'ToolBox' by Ian Gillan 1991)
12 No Man's Land (from 'River Of Dreams' by Billy Joel 1993)

Thanks to Fredrick for the suggestion.

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John Entwistle - Ox Tales (1971)

While Pete Townsend wrote most of the songs recorded by The Who during their long and illustrious career, there was another songwriter working away in the background, supplying the odd b-side and off-beat album track, and that was John Entwistle. Well-known for his quirky humour and stoic disposition, as well as his strong constitution which earned him the nick-name of The Ox, he produced some fine comic characters in 'Boris The Spider' and 'Silas Stingy', as well as more though-provoking songs such as 'Heaven And Hell' and 'Whiskey Man'. When Townsend was writing 'The Who Sell Out' he offered Entwistle the opportunity to write the jingles that he wanted to intersperse with his songs, and a couple of those are included here. Townsend obviously recognised Entwistle's talent for dark humour, as while writing 'Tommy' he asked him to pen the two songs about child abuse, as he felt unable to do so himself as he'd suffered this in his own childhood. Entwistle duly came up with 'Cousin Kevin' and 'Fiddle About', which helped in no small way to propel 'Tommy' to become the masterpiece that's it's recognised as today. For this collection I've gathered together the songs that Entwistle wrote for The Who between 1965 and 1971 - their classic period - and they fit nicely onto an album that shows he wasn't just one of the best bass-players (and rock french horn players!) ever, but could pen a mean tune as well. 

Track listing

01 Whiskey Man
02 Doctor, Doctor
03 The Ox
04 Boris The Spider
05 Medac
06 Silas Stingy
07 Heaven And Hell
08 When I Was A Boy
09 Cousin Kevin
10 In The City
11 Heinz Baked Beans
12 Fiddle About
13 My Wife
14 Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde
15 Someone's Coming
16 I've Been Away
17 Postcard

I wanted to compile this as a stereo album, but a couple of the songs, such as 'The Ox' and 'Heaven And Hell', are only available in mono, so it ended up as a mixture of the two.

The Who - The Who Sell Out Some More (1968)

On a recent visit to one of my favourite blogs - albumsthatneverwere.blogspot.co.uk - where unreleased albums are lovingly reconstructed from various sources to give us an idea of what was shelved by the bands and record companies if they didn't think they were up to scratch, there was a reconstruction was of The Who's aborted 1968 release 'Who's For Tennis', which was eventually replaced by the 'Direct Hits' album in the UK and the 'Magic Bus - The Who On Tour' album in the US. In the copious notes there were a few song titles mentioned that I had never heard of - and I thought I had almost everything the band had released - but some of these didn't make it onto the album. Oh well, I thought, c'est la vie. At least I have the 'Who's For Tennis' album to listen to.
A couple of weeks later I stumbled across a blog that I hadn't found before, and tucked away at the back was a post which had the raw tapes that the '...Tennis' album had been constructed from, and in there were all the other tracks that were mentioned in those notes. In a matter of minutes (alright, a couple of hours) I had gathered together all the missing songs into a companion-piece to the '... Tennis' album, designed a cover and given it a punning title (as they were mostly out-takes from the 'Sell Out' album).

Track listing

01 Doctor, Doctor (mono)
02 Summertime Blues
03 Jaguar
04 Under My Thumb (mono)
05 Politician
06 Someone's Coming
07 Signal 30 (Sodding About)
08 Goin' Fishin'
09 The Last Time
10 Glittering Girl
11 In The Hall Of The Mountain King
12 That Motherland Feeling / Rael

I left a couple of tracks in there that were already available, but these might be mono versions or different takes, but mostly these are songs that I'd heard rumours about but had always assumed had been wiped, and these include a studio version of the live favourite 'Summertime Blues', covers of 'Under My Thumb' and 'The Last Time', the original 'Rael' suite, and many more. I think it holds together really well as an album in its own right, with only the final track sounding out of place due to the slightly poorer sound quality. I hope that there's something here that even the most fervent Who fan might not have heard before.

If you want to check out the 'Who's For Tennis' album then it's here, http://albumsthatneverwere.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/the-who-whos-for-tennis.html
and take the time to read the notes as they are always fascinating stuff. 

The Who - Rock Is Dead...Long Live Rock (1972)

The Who have recorded more albums that have subsequently been shelved than any other band that I know of. This one should have followed 'Tommy' and 'Who's Next', but come before 'Quadrophenia'. Apparently the original idea was for each member of the band to have one side of the album to themselves, but it didn't quite come off, so this imagining condenses it down to one song each, even though Roger Daltry's song was actually not written by him, but by Leo Sayer and David Courtney. I’m quite pleased with the cover, as having the band in a graveyard seems to suit the album perfectly.

Track listing

01 Long Live Rock
02 Put the Money Down
03 Relay
04 Is It In My Head?
05 Join Together
06 When I Was a Boy 
07 Can't You See I'm Easy 
08 Wasp Man
09 Giving It All Away 
10 Love Reign O'er Me 
11 Long Live Rock (Reprise)