JOE VIGLIONE INTERVIEW PART 2 The Record Machine Show is a weekly radio podcast hosted by Jimi Holl featuring interviews and music from some of the top talent around the world. Jimi's knowledge of music and his relationship with top artists give him a vantage point unlike most in radio . So click on an episode and give it a spin.
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Film Director, Record Producer, TV Host, Writer, Renaissance Man. To get Joe's Full Bio go to his website.
Episode 147
Website- http://www.joeviglione.com
JH: We are back with Part 2 of the interview with Joe Viglione …let’s pick it up right where we left off.
JV: Did I send you Slapback yet (Michele Gear Cole who worked with producer Jimmy Miller and Jo Jo Laine) Jo Jo Laine was in her band (GEAR in the 1980s,) a phenomenal model/personality We lost Jo Jo in 2006
JH:I’m sorry to hear that
JV: Oh I am too. We just had so much fun! Flying around the country with Jimmy Miller. When we went to Los Angeles (1986) I’d not been to L.A. before …I got dressed in Jo Jo’s clothing. I don’t cross dress…it was just to be a spectacle, right?
JH: Right!
JV: You’ve got Jimmy Miller with the silver hair …about 45 years old. And Jo Jo with the red lips and the red hair and I’m sitting on the back of the convertible I’d rented (sitting up on the back seat, with the top down, almost over the back of the car) looking like Elton John with her fur coat…look out Hollywood, here we come. But it was just fun days, we would do stupid stuff like that. AND everyone just had a blast.
JH: Tell me about the Cantab
JV: I played the Cantab back in 1974…(fast forward to 2020,these days,) when COVID hit and Fitzy sold it, Fitzy is a legendary character on the scene…and then the new regime bought it…it’s a bit corporate, but you can go back in time to Cantones ...which I ran in the '70s. Do you know the comedian Mario Cantone?
JH: Of course
JV: So Mario's grandfather is who I worked for. Eventual comedian Mario (the grandson) must've been about 5 years old (he was actually 20 years of age at the time.) We had some famous acts come in there. I created for Cantones "Kill or Be Killed Slam Dance Nights." Right?
I was putting hardcore in the Paradise, Boston's Best Concert Club. So Mario (the grandfather, club owner) comes in "Joe, Joe, they broke two ceiling tiles."
I said "Mario, ceiling tiles are four bucks; I sold out your club, I had a line around the corner..."
(I use a thick Italian voice on the radio show) "I don't want it, I don't want the hardcore anymore" imitating the owner.
HEAR INTERVIEW PART 2 HERE: https://www.mixcloud.com/therecordmachineshow/joe-viglione-film-director-record-producer-tv-host-and-writer-special-guest-on-1312022-part-2/
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JV: I've got a real funny Mario Cantone story, I wonder if I should say it on the air?
JH: Let's hear it!
JV:ohhhhhh....so the Rathskellar was in Boston, the big club, and Barry and the Remains kind of reopened it, you know that band? Barry Tashian
JH: Yup!
JV:They played the final (1966) Beatles tour, they also backed up Bobby Hebb (on the tour) That's what broke the Remains up! (all the mayhem of a Beatles' tour, especially with the controversy of the John Lennon quote about Jesus)
JH: Sorry to hear
JV: Very powerful man in the Boston scene...so I said "Mario, you know, we're going to have to contend with Henry if we move to Kenmore....next door to his building with that movie theater..."
And Mario said in a thick Italian voice "Don't Worry...we know the Angiulo's ...."
As made men in the Patriarca crime family, they were placed in control of the racketeering throughout Massachusetts,[2] until Irish Mob groups such as the Winter Hill Gang and the Charlestown Mob decided to run the rackets in their own neighborhoods.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angiulo_Brothers
JV: We're going into like Soprano territory here. I'm crazy...what are we doing negotiating like that?
JV: It's the work you're doing, Jimi. (I discuss the importance of getting the story, the interviews)
JV: So we're in George Greif's parking lot, and Jo Jo Laine had this exquisitely expensive gold bracelet from her uncle (famous photographer Ira Kaye who had the travel photo agency near Chet's Last Call and Boston Garden in the 1980s) ...and it flew off of her hand and into the parking lot. We couldn't find it. So we go upstairs to George's office and he was so good to me, all the times that I met him...
9:50 JV! Yeah! I would've went up there and taken photos of all the master tapes, it would have been amazing. But who knew? Still, George was a nice guy, managed Feliciano, Jimmy Miller...meeting these people, the general public never heard the names.
JV: I last saw her September 1994 buying her book We had met twice before, I met her backstage at a Steve Winwood concert (with Jimmy Miller, @Great Woods, whatever it is called now, XFINITY CENTER http://www.mansfieldamp.com/ )
JH: Definitely
JH: Oh yeah, Lou is great, he does a great show He posts his show on Mixcloud as well.
JV: Doris was lovely, and I reviewed her Rainbow Testament for AMG, Rainbow over in London. And she calls me up and she says "Joe, no one ever acknowledges my Rainbow Concert, but it's so important." It's a Gospel record ...it's Doris Troy, she's such a huge figure in Northern Soul in the U.K.,
Rainbow Testament Review (1972, Polydor)
| (I Wanna) Testify | |
| Games People Play | |
| Everything's Alright | |
| Steal Away | |
| The Nitty Gritty | |
| Put Your Hand In The Hand | |
| My Father's House | |
| Morning Train |
by Joe Viglione
[-] https://www.allmusic.com/album/rainbow-testament-mw0000842564Two years after Doris Troy's critically acclaimed album on Apple, the voice which made records by the Rolling Stones, Sky, Tom Jones, Humble Pie, Carly Simon, and, especially, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, among many, many others, so very extra special, is in full command as Doris Troy & the Gospel Truth perform at the Rainbow Theater in London. Gospel originals like Troy's "Morning Train" and "My Father's House" are electrifying, and the singer's friends Claudia Lennear and Rufus Thomas show up, adding to the fun and festive atmosphere. There's an incredible wall of sound with the combination of horn players, percussion, Hammond organ, piano, singers, and master of ceremonies, Doris Troy, inviting notables like the New Seekers up on-stage. The singer told Allmusic, "I love that album. It was live. We had a really great time. The audience was fantastic." You can feel the high-energy vibe on Gene MacLellan's "Put Your Hand in the Hand," as well as all over the tremendous rendition of Joe South's 1969 hit "Games People Play." It's slowed down and soulful with the simply amazing vocal prowess of Troy creating a definitive version of the multi-format songwriter's chestnut. South had Deep Purple putting the hard rock stamp on "Hush," Lynn Anderson taking "Rose Garden" country, and produced slick pop for Billy Joe Royal, but this performance must have given the veteran songwriter chills when he first heard it. Released in 1972 on Polydor Records in Germany, the album design is very classy, a photo of "Mama Troy" on the cover, a positive message throughout the music and the uplifting poem on the back cover with thoughts like "We believe the world's a friendly place/We believe in all our many blessings...We believe we're helped by hidden powers" bringing the message home. A driving Taylor/Clinton title, "(I Wanna) Testify" opens the album contrasted with the Doris Troy original "Steal Away," voices swelling and Jimmy Helms taking a vocal lead along with the star. Troy arranged and produced this highly collectible album, her work sought after on eBay and at record shows, and justifiably so. A classic performance by an important and multi-talented artist, The Rainbow Testament by Doris Troy & the Gospel Truth deserves to be expanded and re-released.
Live version of Games People Play from studio album
Bass: Klaus Voormann.
Guitar: Eric Clapton, Peter Frampton, Stephen Stills. Percusion: Bonnie & Delaney Bramlett. Drums: Alan White, Ringo Star. Keyboards:Billy Preston, Bobby Whitlock. Piano: Leon Russel.Background vocals: Rita Coolidge.
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Back to the interview:
19:43 JV: (on Doris Troy) Like Bobby we had long chats on the phone. There's a part of my show that I call "The Demo That Got The Deal"
JH: Okay
JV: And I said "What was the Demo That Got The Deal for "Just One Look,"? She goes "that was the demo." I said "You're kidding." She said, "That was what we pitched and they put it out."
JH: Amazing
20:00 (show halfway point)
JV: So with The Box Tops. We talked to Gary Talley - guitarist for the Box Tops, in his hotel room, after his show. Box Tops played The Paradise with the J Geils Band (For an 800 seat room) J Geils Band sold out, no one could get in, but I was a former booking agent for the club (1978 to about 1992) ...so a rock critic for Goldmine was with me and says "You're amazing" as we waltz right in and I said "Why? I worked here." What's so amazing about it. So we walk in, Box Tops and J Geils Band, best J Geils show I ever saw. And I used to manage Danny Klein, another guy you need to talk to, the J Geils bassist (was managing him, actually, contemporaneous to the time when this show was!)
JH: Very cool
JV: After the show we go back ...not Alex Chilton, the lead singer, he's gone, and I wish we got to talk to Alex as well (my labelmate on New Rose Records in Paris,) but we got this important Gary Talley interview ...and I said on the recording "What was the Demo that Got the Deal for the Box Tops?" and Gary said, "Joe, that was the demo. The only thing the label put over it was the airplane sounds."
20:55 JV: the record label put the jet airplane sounds at the end of "The Letter" but Gary said the rest of it is the demo!
JH: Wow
JV:With Lou Reed and The Demo That Got The Deal Lou said "Joe, Andy Warhol got us the deal, there was no demo. But if there was a demo I'm sure you'd have a copy."
JH: Nice
JV: Lou knowing I collected everything that he did. To be able to talk to these people, Jimi, and The Demo That Got The Deal is a great question because most times the demos are different takes. It's like a snowflake, no two are the same. Every demo is different, most demos that got the deals are different. Every record deal is different. That's my question that kind of...most artists like it because it's not the same/old same/old "how did you write "Dream On" or "Stairway to Heaven" or whatever...a different avenue that many songwriters never went down before.
21:58 JH: What is your favorite part about this business?
JV: I love it all. I love it all.
JH: Is there anything that you don't like?
JV:Oh yeah, the business people behind it. (Jimmy laughs) There's a lot of situations going on right now I can't talk about ...it's like people do stupid things and I realize like, "wow, I'm crazy. I know I'm crazy, that means I'm sane because they don't know they're crazy."
JH: Right
JV: So me, knowing I'm crazy, I'm the smartest one dealing with these lunatics. They are really out of their minds. There was one band, I'm not working with them anymore, they took advantage of me, and they were really good. I got them an interview with T. Dawn, she's lovely out there in California.
JH: OK
JV: And they're writing like obscenities and stuff and I say "You guys are tattooing your career, do you get it? The lead singer says "I think it's funny." I tell him "No one else is going to get it!" He's 29 or 30. I said "Five years from now you'll regret it. You'll be happy that I had you erase it."
23:00 I took them in the studio, I paid for the studio time back in May of last year (2021) and they totally took advantage of me. They started producing themselves. It's out. It's so bad, Jimmy
JH: So they should have listened to you, then?
JV: Well they had an amazing song, and they had an amazing foursome, and I got them from the Club Bohemia, and they had a draw but they fired two of the guys, who I believe were the biggest draw, and, they were tempered (with the foursome,) they had this lovely R.E.M. kind of sound and now they sound like Mountain (heavy metal.)
23:39 I love Mountain, you know, I've interviewed Mountain, but if I want Mountain I'm going to get Mountain, I don't want a new modern band sounding like Mountain.
23:52 JH: It's funny that you mention that because I had on - a couple of weeks back, I guess during December, I had Rev Jones on, he was the bass player for Leslie West and Mountain
24:00 JH Do you remember them?
JV: Well I saw Mountain, West Bruce and Laing, when Jack Bruce played bass.
JH: I'm talking about the new version.
JV: No, I don't know him.
JH: Leslie West hired Rev Jones to play bass later on in the career. After the people you knew were probably long gone from the band.
JV: West, Bruce and Laing was interesting ...you had the "new Cream," ...Mountain bassist Felix Pappalardi had produced Cream
As a producer, Pappalardi is perhaps best known for his work with Cream, beginning with their second album, Disraeli Gears. He contributed instrumentation for his studio arrangements and he and his wife, Gail Collins, wrote the Cream hit "Strange Brew" with Eric Clapton. He also produced The Youngbloods' first album. WIKIPEDIA
JV: So he was with Leslie West and you had a different kind of Cream; then you add Jack Bruce to the equation. It should have been a monster, they just didn't come out with a "White Room" or something to launch them. They did two or three albums, they might have done a live album too.
25:00 JH: So Visual Radio, is that still till this day? Are you still doing that show?
JV: Yes, in fact, I have a couple of directors and I'm building a team. We're going to have Bob Hyldburg back. Bob is the N.E. Patriot's Historian
JH: Wow
JV: Johnny Byers was this friend of mine, he passed away, but he was this mad sports fan that called local radio. Sports is huge in Boston, as you can imagine.
JH: Of course
JV: With all the championships. So you have WEEK and 98.5 FM ...as a caller he's known as John from Medford. He got really taken advantage of by the local Medford television station He already had Damon Amendolara (a national sports host now) on his show, and was inviting Bob Kraft and others. Medford's negative (and now defunct) TV station didn't believe he could get them and used his time for a sideman for Tina Turner. Go figure. Even the mayor at the time, they pushed him around. Brilliant at sports, but challenged. Really nice guy I met him through the cable TV wars and didn't know that my family and his family were very close. His father worked at our family business! and his grandma lived next door to my grandma and mom in the 1940s! I was his uncle's personal caddy! But we met years later (2010) and became good friends. How the circle of life is, who knew?
26:00 I take Johnny into Boston to meet the Red Sox management and the Bruins. Johnny interviewed Larry Lucchino and Steve Pagliuca https://youtu.be/AJNbiKjVor8
Johnny finds Bob Hyldburg and introduces us. He's the Patriots stats guy, and we're going to do a series of shows with Bob - author of Total Patriots
27:00 then we are re-launching the show. Because of COVID and everything I just shut it down.
JH: So where can this be seen?
JV:We're going to put it up on YouTube, I'm going to have a streaming YouTube Channel, but also local cable stations.
JH: It's funny that you mention local public access earlier. The first time I ever heard of public access was when the movie Wayne's World came out.
JV:AND IT IS! (as crazy as Wayne's World)
JH: Isn't that funny?
JV: It is. Accurate description of what public access is. It's insane.
JH: Because I never heard of public access before and I'm like...I watch this movie and ...wow...there's actually a thing called public access and these morons can have a TV show? and people watch it and...like...this is pretty cool, you know? But I never thought it would have taken off the way it has taken off. I always wished that I had the technology that I have now when I was younger; I feel maybe I could have done more? But maybe it wasn't right for me to do it then either. I start second guessing, what would have happened if I had interviewed people twenty or thirty years ago?
27:45
JV: You'd have a massive library.
JH: Probably, yeah.
JV: Now here's the key thing about public access. Nik Venet is the great record producer that did the Jimi Hendrix (Band of Gypsys) - Frank Sinatra, he was A & R for Capitol Records. Nik Venet and I met through Harriet Schock ...one of my favorite songwriters. She wrote "Ain't No Way to Treat a Lady," Helen Reddy hit.
JH: Oh yeah, great song.
JV: Berry Gordy's Last Dragon...so she's one of my favorite songwriters of all time and I'm in L.A. and she's doing a concert for me in her house. She started forgetting her words so I started singing them for her and she knew she had a fan. And we were with P.F. Sloan's girlfriend, the guy who wrote "Secret Agent Man" and the Grass Roots songs ...so P.F. Sloan's girlfriend Jamie and I. I met Harriet at a convention May 12, 1991...how's that! My kitty cat (Fuff) died the next day (May 13, 1991) I'm in L.A. and I'm sobbing INCONSOLABLY...later that evening we go to Harriet's house, Jamie and I, and she's playing the Hollywood Town album for me in her living room about 5 feet away from me, it was such a magic thing, we're very dear friends. She started dating Nik Venet ...he produced the Beach Boys, so the whole thing is about public access tv.
Nik passes away (Jan 2, 1998) ...and Harriet writes me, it's the first internet notice of a friend of mine dying on e mail that I got...ever. And I said "Well, I've got to have Nik on TV, how do we do this?" Harriet said "I'll look around." She found a public access TV station that had interviewed Nik Venet and I have the tapes.
30:00 JH: That's amazing
JV: So you see that there are little corners of the world people don't know
JH: Yeah, they don't know
JV: One of them is cable TV, and we need to save this stuff before they throw it away.
JH: Right, public access, all those shows. I don't know if you're familiar with PBS, there's a DJ that always does specials on PBS, his name's T.J.Lubinsky ...he lives near South Jersey and Philly...he does amazing work with all these artists ...from the doo wop eras and things like that.
JV:Well, a friend of mine is the one who launched that for T.J. (Little Walter who passed Feb 5, 2021, a year ago the day I started typing this.) Little Walter DeVenne, do you know Little Walter?
JH: Yeah, yeah.
JV:TJ Lubinsky, I believe, has worked with Marty Balin, whom I've worked with...I'm interviewing Little Walter for Visual Radio (1995 or 96) ...you're going to love this, Little Walter was best friends with Little Richard. He taped around 100 Little Richard concerts he told me, and we're rolling the tape on Visual Radio and he's telling me that he taped Jimi Hendrix and Little Richard and I say "What?" I call up John McDermott of the Jimi Hendrix Estate (Experience Hendrix) ...bring McDermott down to Little Walter's studio in Medford ...where Walter was doing tons of 50's remastering....Little Richard, Fats Domino, he was doing these boxed sets for Bear Records. He had this massive vault of tapes ...unbelievable. He played me the Beach Boys in stereo when the word was they had only made mono records. He pulls out the Jimi Hendrix/Little Richard tape and I'm there with John McDermott and for the first time in 45 years or so we're hearing this concert from Revere Beach and it opens with "I Saw Her Standing There," the Beatles tune ...Richard singing, Hendrix on guitar, and McDermott says "That's Jimi."
JH: Wow
JV: So hopefully the Experience Hendrix will be putting the tape out at some point. There's a tape and it exists, so beyond public access ...you brought up NPR and TJ Lubinsky, I'm noting that Little Walter started those Doo Wop specials for PBS. Perhaps it was Walter with TJ that made it happen. (Wikipedia needs to be updated!) It's all there for generating new content
35:00 JV: And your ideas, Jimmy, you never know what's going to click with the public.
JH: So when is your next show?
JV:We're talking to Bob Hyldburg; I'm in the middle of building a new office. Talking to my director about doing a commercial (streaming) show at my office, because we're not at public access where it can't be commercial, non-commercial like NPR. We'll most likley launch the commercial version with Bob Hyldburg, talk about sports for the first show. We could also rent a public access station if going commercial. I rented a camera for the Marty Balin DVD on MVD. You can rent equipment from these stations or rent time from them. We could go into a station, pay them to rent, and later put it on television or stream on the web. We may do two shows, one commercial and one non-commercial. We're talking to John Kane about his book on Bill Hanley, The Last Seat in the House http://www.thelastseatinthehouse.com/ We have many lined up, as you know, there are plenty of wonderful guests As I said earlier, people off the street are welcome as well, everyone has a story.
JH: of course
JV: Everyone has a story...stories that are pertinent to life, stories that we can learn from
JH: Absolutely. I believe that. I think that we're all connected somehow. The way we meet each other, the way we talk to each other ...stuff like that, I think it's meant for a reason.
JV:There's some kind of electricity, Jimi, there's no doubt in my mind. Why did I contact you? How did I bump into you on the web and make that connection, and you and your wife are watching a Pelloton commercial with Bobby Hebb's "Sunny" playing and I offer you Bobby's daughter Kitoto first!
JH: Right. Going through this whole timeline you sent me we covered a lot here today and you have a lot to be proud of, my friend. You've got quite the career here.
JV: We do it for the love of it. I humbly thank you for the compliment, I do. It's just what we do, Jimi, it's in our blood.
JH: Well, it's my pleasure I love talking to people like yourself. Do you have a website?
JV: www.joeviglione.com Thank you so much for your time, Jimi, you're a gentleman.
JH: Any time. You are a very interesting guy, you have a great story ...I appreciate all the great artists that you've sent me.
JV: and we appreciate you.
Doo Wop 50 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doo_Wop_50
Doo Wop 50 was a PBS pledge drive special created and produced for PBS member station WQED-TV by TJ Lubinsky, grandson of Herman Lubinsky (founder of Savoy Records). The special was inspired by a 1994 CD box-set of doo wop music produced and sold by Rhino Records,[1] which was also a development and production partner in the special. It aired on December 5, 1999.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Venet
Nick Venet (born Nikolas Kostantinos Venetoulis, 3 December 1936 – 2 January 1998)[1] was an American record producer, who began his career at age 19 with World Pacific Jazz. He is best known for signing The Beach Boys to Capitol Records and producing the band's earlier material including the song "Surfin' Safari".[2][3][4] Brian Wilson has credited Venet with helping him learn the craft of production.[4]
THE CANTAB
Kathi McDonald was one of the friends recruited by Big Brother & the Holding Company to perform on their two post-Joplin releases, Be a Brother and How Hard It Is. David Briggs, producer of the second Alice Cooper album Easy Action and multiple early Neil Young discs is at the helm on Insane Asylum. With arrangements by The Jefferson Starship's Pete Sears, this is a showcase for the chops and musicianship of McDonald. There's a terrific reading of the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody" (which Janis Joplin covered years earlier), and an interesting first track co-written by McDonald and Pete Sears, "Bogart to Bowie," with Nils Lofgren on guitar and Bobbye Hall on percussion. The photos of McDonald on the back cover are chaotic and beautiful, a cartoon caricature of these adorns the cover, the illustration by Seiko Kashihara. With Ronnie Montrose on guitar and Pete Sears on keys for a heavy version of "(Love Is Like A) Heatwave," you basically have Big Brother & the Holding Company/ Montrose/Jefferson Starship covering Martha & the Vandellas. This 1974 recording was a year before Linda Ronstadt repeated Martha's feat of going Top Five with the song. There is something about the record that feels like the band is holding back. That evaporates with what may be the best performance on the disc, "Threw Away My Love," the second Sears/McDonald original. Kathi's great, bluesy vocal fights and Journey's Neil Schon on guitar give the track lots of soul, which is missing in much of the record. Surprising because Briggs is usually intuitive enough to bring out the best in artists. There is an abundance of talent here, creating a nice platform for this important singer. "Freak Lover" features the late Starship violinist Papa John Creach and is appropriately manic for an album about insanity. Willie Dixon's composition, "Insane Asylum," with Pete Sears and Nils Lofgren, is a blues workout deluxe. Neil Schon and Pete Sears accompany Kathi on a Peter Frampton tune, "All I Want to Be." Lofgren and Sears do a heavy cover of Neil Young's "Down to the Wire" for the singer to display her wonderful voice. With such a stellar cast and so much input this record could have been much more. It's still a respectable showcase for the talents of Kathi McDonald.
West Bruce and Laing
Critic Len Comaratta writes:
https://consequence.net/author/len-comaratta/
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.
Three years after Blind Faith, and two years after the zoo that was Ginger Baker's Air Force -- Denny Laine essentially replacing Eric Clapton in Blind Faith with six more musicians added for good measure -- Jack Bruce mixes the blues of Cream with the hard rock of Mountain while the label gave them maybe a third of the Blind Faith hype. The verdict? West, Bruce & Laing's Why Dontcha has aged gracefully as an authentic signature of what these artists were doing, but it lacks the staying power of Blind Faith, the fault being the choice of material. There is no "Theme from an Imaginary Western" here, there is no "Sea of Joy," just a relentless hard rock assault best exemplified by the track "Shake Ma Thing (Rollin Jack)." Here Leslie West and Jack Bruce share vocals, so you get Mountain-meets-Cream, but where they played "Sunshine of Your Love" in concert, there is no riff that awesome here. And that's all it would have taken, a great riff and tune to carry this project from point A to point B. "While You Sleep" shows this wild bunch as creative and having fun, and it's a great album track, but not the thing to find them a new audience. The title tune, "Why Dontcha," is pure Leslie West, but it doesn't reinvent Mississippi Queen, and these gentlemen had to pull a rabbit or two out of their hats. If anyone doubts Jimmy Miller's ability to make a record album rock, just listen to his protégé Andy Johns fail to follow in his mentor's footsteps. Miller had three days to put Blind Faith together after months of Steve Winwood and Clapton trying not to step on each other's toes, and he came back for part two, the Royal Albert Hall concert that became Ginger Baker's Air Force. Why Dontcha, on the other hand, despite the pluses, falls short because it tries too hard, while not putting the effort where it belonged -- in the songwriting and production. Bet these great talents wish they had this moment in time back. If these were ex-Grand Funk Railroad members Flint, this would be a great record. It falls far short of what Jack Bruce, Corky Laing, and Leslie West were capable of. In an interview with Corky Laing, that legendary quote from Flo & Eddie was brought to his attention -- their opinion that Mountain keyboard player Steve Knight was "the most useless man in rock & roll." Laing quickly came to Knight's defense and said that he played rhythms that were essential to Mountain. A Steve Knight on keyboards, or even better, a Steve Winwood, was what was needed to bring West, Bruce & Laing to another level, maybe even to superstar status. Cream's vocalist brought that hit potential to the table. The sleeper track on the album is "Love Is Worth the Blues," with Leslie West on violin, guitar, and a suitably painful downtrodden vocal, while "Pollution Woman" is, finally, what everyone was waiting for: Cream-meet- Mountain, with Jack Bruce on synthesizer and vocals, Leslie West and Jack Bruce on acoustic guitars, and a brilliantly solid Corky Laing. This was the direction they should have taken, and there just isn't enough of it -- a wildly charging modern sound that elevates the whole, proving it could be greater than the sum of its parts.
Whatever Turns You On
Joe Viglione review West Bruce & Laing
Whatever Turns You On Review
https://www.allmusic.com/album/whatever-turns-you-on-mw0000795961
by Joe Viglione
Adding a bit of Procol Harum's sound to the mix is exactly what the doctor ordered for this superior second outing from the decision by Jack Bruce and Leslie West to merge their talents. "Shifting Sands" and the Peter Brown co-written "November Song" are amazing expressions for these artists, who break out of what people expected from them to create something important. Bruce does his best Neil Young in this "Helpless" takeoff, and West's guitar adds the bite that was not part of Buffalo Springfield, but the album jacket is just plain terrible, like the Guess Who's Road Food taken to an extreme. Had this album found its way into the sublime cover to their first effort, Why Dontcha, they might've been taken more seriously by the critical elite of the day. The underground comic art by Joe Petagno is not the beautiful stuff he has produced since, and is not the eye-catching Robert Crumb work that made Big Brother's Cheap Thrills so inviting. Perhaps you can't tell a book by its cover, but that's what marketing departments are for, and the debacle that is the packaging on Whatever Turns You On disguises the on-target music finally starting to jell. "Rock & Roll Machine" is West finding a groove and, yes, Mountain keyboard player Steve Knight could have improved this very good song and brought it to another level. Andy Johns' production is a bit smoother, but he still lacks the finesse of a Denny Cordell or a George Martin. There's none of the sparkle that the Beatles' "Revolution" contained, an element that made hard rock radio-friendly. Jack Bruce, on the other hand, is delivering solid album tracks -- the Brown/Bruce/West/Laing composition "Scotch Crotch" could've fit nicely on Disraeli Gears or Wheels of Fire, but not as one of those discs' 45 RPMs. And that's the same problem faced by the Why Dontcha album -- great musicians jamming out, but failing to find their way around the maze, failing to write a "Can't Find My Way Home" or a "Tales of Brave Ulysses." "Slow Blues" is a fluid West/Bruce vocal combo with piano and slide guitar -- superb fun for these guys, but not expanding beyond what they've given in the past. And while this album may be superior to the first, there's also a complacency, and maybe a feeling by the band that the world owed these journeymen something. For fans, it is a nice addition to the collection and great to listen to for a change of pace. For their careers, it sounds like men with a lot to give treading water. The nature of the record industry -- executives wanting three million units out of the box and artists wanting to record on their own terms -- wasn't the environment to allow a West, Bruce & Laing five or six more discs to catch a wave. It's too bad, because there was something there.
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