Mountain – Climbing! (1970)
Blues. Di blues si parla pensando a questo disco, ma di blues arcigno, sprezzante, velenoso. Dopo lo scioglimento dei Cream, il loro produttore Felix Pappalardi decide di dar vita ad una nuova band, che si pone idealmente come la continuazione dei Cream stessi. Chiama in studio il mastodontico cantante/chitarrista Leslie West, il batterista N.D. Smart e l’organista Steve Knight e registra alcune demo con sé stesso in veste di bassista e secondo cantante. E’ il 1969, e il festival di Woodstock si avvicina. Quale migliore occasione per una band che suona insieme da appena 2 settimane? Evidentemente grazie agli agganci di Pappalardi il gruppo partecipa a Woodstock e devasta l’etere con un set di blues elettrico pesante e quasi tossico. Tornati in studio, il batterista viene sostituito col mitico Corky Laing, e a questo punto la formazione è al top. Rock, blues, atmosfere malinconiche e quasi da film, oltre che un brano acustico (To My Friend) in cui West mostra tutto il suo talento troppo spesso sottovalutato. Canzone di spicco è sicuramente “Sitting On A Rainbow”, uno dei brani meno conosciuti del combo ma anche l’unico del disco a potersi considerare leggermente heavy metal. Ovviamente la leggendaria “Mississippi Queen” fa sempre un certo gioco nel nostro cuore, soprattutto grazie alla chitarra ruggente di West, e in “Silver Paper” il chitarrista ci supplica di aprire i nostri cuori e lasciare energia positiva entrare senza dubitare di noi. “Never In My Life” invece è una dichiarazione d’amore. Un ottimo disco, questo “Climbing!”, che pero’ non verrà piu’ eguagliato in termini di qualità dalla band. Da tenere conto è anche il fatto che appena un mese prima dell’uscita dell’album, in Inghilterra, un gruppo di nome Black Sabbath aveva rilasciato il proprio disco d’esordio, cambiando per sempre il DNA della storia della musica. Era nato l’heavy metal, e tutti si sarebbero dovuti rapportare al nuovo corso musicale del 20o secolo, anche i Mountain, che condussero una carriera con picchi e cadute fino alla prematura morte del leggendario bassista (e anche produttore, arrangiatore, songwriter e multistrumentista, ricordiamolo) Felix Pappalardi, ucciso dalla moglie Gail Collins tra le mura domestiche con un colpo di pistola, nel 1983.
Elenco tracce testi e samples
01 Mississippi Queen (02:33)
Mississippi Queen, If you know what I mean
Mississippi Queen, She taught me everything
Way down around Vicksburg, Around Louisiana way
Lived a cajun lady, we called her Mississippi Queen
You know she was a dancer
She moved better on wine
While the rest of them dudes were'a gettin' their kicks,
Buddy, beg your pardon, I was getting mine!
Mississippi Queen, If you know what I mean
Mississippi Queen, She taught me everything
This lady she asked me, If I would be her maaan
You know that I told her, I'd do what I can
To keep her looking pretty
Buy her dresses that shine
While the rest of them dudes were making their bread
Buddy, beg your pardon, I was losing mine!
You know she was a dancer
She mooved better on wine
While the rest of them dudes were'a gettin' their kicks,
Brotha, beg your pardon, now I'm getting mine!
Yeeeaaaaah, Mississippi Queen!
02 Theme for an Imaginary Western (05:08)
(Bruce,Brown)
When the wagons leave the city
Painted wagon of the morning
For the forest and futher on
Dusty roads where they´ve gone
Sometimes travelin´ through the darkness
Foreing faces by the wayside
At the summer comin´ home
Look as if they hadn´t known
And the desert that´s dry
In a country town
Where the map was found
All the sad was in their eyes
Oh the dancing and the singing
Oh the music when they play
Oh the fire that they saw there
Sometimes they found it
On the grave of no return
Sometimes they kept it
Pawnee shadow to possess him
Ofen lost in on the way
Sometimes ride inside of day
Oh the sad was in their eyes
Where the map was found
And the desert that´s dry
In a country town
And the desert that´s dry
Where the wagons boundOh the sad was in their eye
In a country town
03 Never in My Life (03:53)
Never in my life
Could I find a girl like you
Never in my life
Could I find a girl like you
When I wake up in the morning
You make me feel so good
Bringing me the cider whisky
Feel a bit lonely too
For the first time in my life
I finally found someone like you
For the first time in my life
I finally found someone like you
I feel like a bolt of lightning
But it feels so good
Knowin' my baby's waitin'
And of course I do
Hey hey hey
Never in my life
Could I find a girl like you
Never in my life
Could I find a girl like you
When I turned around to wake her
About the way she moves
I don't want to leave her
But I wanta love you too
04 Silver Paper (03:18)
Open your heart and let the sunshine in
Open your heart, let the sunshine in
Sun is shining on my world
Sun is in my shoes
While im passin through this life
This job is spent with you
Wrap my dreams in silver paper
Gonna give them all to you
Use them on some rainy morning
And theyll tell you what to do
Open your heart and let the sunshine in
Open your heart, let the sunshine in
Open your heart and let the sunshine in
Open up your heart and let the sunshine in
Life is what youre reaching through
When your path is spied
Wait until some rainy morning
Youll be satisfied
Gonna wrap up my dreams in silver paper
Give it all to you
Use it on some rainy morning
Itll tell you what to do
Open your heart and let the sunshine in
Open your heart, let the sunshine in
Open your heart and let the sunshine in
Open your heart, let the sunshine in
05 For Yasgur's Farm (03:25)
(Gardos,Laing,Pappalardi-Collins,Ship,Rea) A sad reflection in everyone Who am i but you and the sun Was it me who let you walk away Were you the one Or is it were the same The simple story of a younger life What are we in time going by Happy dreams and somehow through the day We havent come so far to lose our way Look at me, i believe its true Youre a part of me Im a part of you Love is only what we come to knew The walking, breathing and all with you A crystal passing reflected in our eyes Eclipsing all the jealousy and lies Look at me, cant you see its true Im a part of you Youre a part of me Quiet as the voices in a dream Were you the one Without two shadows the things ive seen Remember the evening i let you walk away Or is it were the same Look at me, i believe its true Youre a part of me Im a part of you
06 To My Friend (03:42)
Mountain announce their arrival on the rock scene with a crash and a boom and a bang, so that many regard this as the band's finest hour and one of the Top Three hard rock albums of 1970 (a year pretty rich on HR classics by itself - Live At Leeds, Paranoid, Deep Purple In Rock... need I go on?) I'm pretty fond of it, myself: while Flowers Of Evil is certainly a better introduction to the band's unique sound and a little stronger on a song-for-song basis, Climbing! might easily make it judging by the freshness and the force alone. After all, who needed a wimpy wussy debut album in 1970, the year of hard rock par excellence?
Nobody, and that's why the record crashes into and out of your speakers with the powerful 'Mississippi Queen', the trademark Mountain tune and still the only 'radio classic' in the entire catalog of the band, as far as I know (here's one more chance to remind you that I never listen to the radio). Corky Laing introduces the song with his trusty cowbells, and Leslie breaks out a riff that's completely generic, I admit, but he lashes it out with such tremendous power as if he were pounding his poor guitar with a mallet. It's not 'heavy' in the Tony Iommi sense - which equates 'heavy' with 'low' rather than 'loud', but it's not just stupid loudness, either. It's more like the Hammer of the Gods, you understand: the God of Thunder coming down from the mountains and confessing his love to the Mississippi Queen. A short and verrry convincing confession, indeed. An all-time classic; the only complaint is that the song really overshadowed the rest of Mountain's output and so became a stone round their neck rather than just one of their worthy contributions.
So do not forget that there are eight more songs on the record - not all of them are equally good, of course, and some are even annoying, but anyway, a song never makes an entire album, be it 'Satisfaction' or 'Baby One More Time'. Climbing! does not have such an obvious division of the record into a Leslie part and a Felix part, as on some of the subsequent albums; still, it is evident that some of the songs bear a more psychedelic, hippie flavour, courtesy of Felix, while others lean towards the give-it-yer-all unsophisticated rip-roaring, courtesy of Leslie. Both ideally complement each other, of course. Leslie's contributions on here are mostly in the same vein as 'Queen' and often just as enjoyable: the level of energy on 'Never In My Life' is simply incredible, and don't miss the drumming - Corky Laing bashes like a real powerhouse, and he never misses a beat. Likewise, 'Sittin' On A Rainbow' is another fun riff-fest, with a little charming, almost childish, melody, complemented by the relentless tom-tom-tom-tom of our trusty drummer.
The only West tune I don't really like on here is the silly acoustic instrumental 'To My Friend'. Whatever friend it was, he certainly deserved something better; I take a guess that Leslie just didn't take enough care to write a real tune and shoved these three and a half minutes of acoustic improvisation on the record instead. Near the end he sometimes lets himself get carried away with some fast, engaging rhythms, but mostly he's just playing short flurries of meaningless notes that don't even come close to being 'atmospheric', let alone 'memorable'. And who needs an unatmospheric and an unmelodic instrumental? Not me, mister.
And Felix? I suppose it was his idea to cover Jack Bruce's 'Theme For An Imaginary Western' (although Leslie had been great friends with Bruce as well - he even formed a band with him later on! Didja know that?), and a clever idea it was. While Jack's own performance of it was excellent, Mountain carry it even higher, as the song is, quite contrary to its name, re-arranged as a heavy, droning-and-buzzing rocker with psychedelic lyrics (and vocals: it's quite easy to mistake Felix for Jack himself on that one). Leslie plays an excellent, tear-inducing solo that builds up to a tremendous climax, and anyway, I really needn't be praising the song, as it's obvious that 'Theme...' is Mountain's trademark number two after 'Mississippi Queen'. What a blast: to put the two greatest songs of their career at the very start of their debut album. Heh heh. Talk about overkill.
Other mini-wonders include 'For Yasgur's Farm', a dramatic, ear-shattering number with yet another tear-inducing chorus (I couldn't quite make out the lyrics, but I guess they're easy to guess judging by the song's name), and the pretty ditty 'Silver Paper' whose melody was later reworked for the far more superior 'One Last Cold Kiss'. Again, though, there are problems: the weird acoustic mantra 'The Laird' has never struck me as particularly captivating, as it's neither powerful nor catchy, on the contrary, it's quite annoying in its repetitiveness, and Felix whines on it like a poor little beaten boy. And 'Boys In The Band' sucks; a pretty lame way to close such a terrific album with a messy, uninspired 'rocker' with no interesting riffs at all. They go for a more melancholic, piano-based sound with more emphasis on mood and lyrics than melody, but end up heading nowhere. Me, I'd better hear an 'extended mix' of 'Mississippi Queen'... please?
So I'm not yet ready to praise the album with the highest possible score, you gotta understand me; it's simply not enough consistent for me. I hate it when a record picks me up and kicks me down - a pretty rude way to deal with a listener, let alone a poor honest reviewer. Nevertheless, I wouldn't hold a grudge against the Wimp and the Fat Guy: they did earn enough cherries on that one. The ex-Cream should have been proud.
08 Sittin' on a Rainbow (02:22)
Sitting on a rainbow looking at the world
Standin' by the roadside waiting for my girl
Earning time and let it pay
When the sunshine's on its way
This ie what you'll hear my say
Riding on a jet plane
Higher than a bird
Looking out the window
Don't believe a word
Earning time, earning pay
When the sunshine's on its way
This is what you hear me say
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Di telespallabob
"Mississipi Queen è uno dei classici storici dell'Hard-Rock."
"Climbing! è un disco breve e composto da 9 tracce di buon livello con un bilancio complessivo estremamente positivo."
