BECAUSE OF CONTRACTUAL COMMITMENTS, IT MAY BE AWHILE BEFORE WEST, Bruce and Laing release an album . . . but the wait should be worthwhile.
Leslie West (guitar) and Corky Laing (drums) (both from Mountain) got together with Jack Bruce (bass) (formerly of the John Mayall Group and Cream) in January in London.
It was at that time that Mountain’s bass player, Felix Pappalardi, decided that he wanted “to stay off the road and devote more time to outside interests.”
It didn’t take Leslie and Corky long to decide that Jack would fit the bill. West, Bruce and Laing was born.
“It’s the best thing that ever happened for me,” Bruce said. “I’m more excited about this band than I’ve ever been about anything I’ve ever been in . . . including Cream and everything.”
“Usually with these things,” Leslie explained, “it’s a case of management saying they want to put these guys together or those guys together, but there was none of that with this band . . . that’s what makes it so much fun. We were all friends before, and when we got together it just happened, it was so good.”
The trio first assembled at Island studios and recorded an eleven-minute version of the Rolling Stones’ “Play with Fire.” After that, they launched into a jam, which was overheard by the Who. (They were recording in the next studio.)
The Who was so impressed with West, Bruce and Laing, they offered the new group the use of their entire sound system when they go on the road.
Of the three musicians, least has probably been written about Corky Laing. He was born Jan. 28, 1948, in Montreal.
He started playing drums at fifteen, but didn’t get his first set until he was seventeen. He was suspended from his high school band four times because he “set up the percussion instruments like a combo drum set.”
“Nobody would let me into their band,” Corky said, “because I was too weird. So in 1963 I formed my own group called the Starlights.
“We played parties, clubs and made a few local recordings. In 1965, I changed the name of the group to the Souls and made it down to the Peppermint Lounge in N.Y.”
In the summer of 1965, he met Leslie and they became friends. In 1969, Felix Pappalardi formed Mountain, taking Corky from a group called Energy and Leslie from the Vagrants.
Until each of the musicians’ contractual problems is cleared up, we’ll have to settle with listening to old Cream and Mountain LP’s . . . but that’s not too bad.