CoronaVinyl Day 105 (Woodstock): Climbing! by Mountain

For an explanation of CoronaVinyl, click here.

Before we get to the music, I'd just like to note that, now that the weather is warmer and I am able to avoid staying in my house all day every day, I'm going to be taking the weekends off for CoronaVinyl's sake.  Given the current trajectory of COVID-19 in our country, I am sure I'll still be working from home when the weather turns colder, so perhaps I'll move back to seven days a week then.  For now, though, it will only be the weekdays.

Anywho, today's CoronaVinyl category is Woodstock, and by that, I mean bands or artists that played at the Woodstock music festival in August 1969, not albums by the mute bird from the Peanuts cartoons.  Last summer was Woodstock's 50th anniversary, and I was going through my DVR the other week and noticed several Woodstock documentaries and retrospectives.  It was deemed "3 days of peace and music," although due to some delays, it stretched into the fourth day, and Jimi Hendrix ended up closing things out on a Monday morning with his now-legendary performance.  A half a million people my parents' age got to experience it, and given the unbelievable lineup, it had to be one of those things none of them will ever forget, regardless of the amount of brown acid they might have ingested.  Thank God and music for a dairy farmer named Max Yasgur who allowed his farm to be used for this iconic event, after several other venues and towns backed out.

I would argue that Woodstock's lineup is unrivaled by any festival lineup before or since then.  32 bands or artist performed, and nearly half have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  I have a decent amount of vinyl from bands and artists that performed at Woodstock:  The Band, Blood Sweat & Tears, CCR, CSN(&Y), Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Mountain, Santana, Sly & The Family Stone, The Who.

It was a tough choice -- though I've already featured some of them during CoronaVinyl -- but I decided to go Mountain, a band that was only around in earnest for a couple years and a band that I think is vastly underrated, but which had a big influence on hard rock and heavy metal.  The played only their third show ever at Woodstock, and in early 1970, they released their debut album, Climbing! (Note that the album title has the exclamation mark and I'm not trying to shout that last sentence.)  Led by guitarist/vocalist Leslie West and former Cream collaborator/producer and bassist (and sometimes vocalist) Felix Pappalardi, Mountain was rounded out by drummer Corky Laing and organist Steve Knight for Climbing!

You probably know their most famous song, "Mississippi Queen," a raucous, bawdy guitar rock song that opens up Climbing! and reached #21 on the Billboard Hot 100 (and would be the band's only Top 40 hit).  But the rest of the album is pretty damn good too, and it was a Top 20 album in the U.S., hitting #16 on the Billboard album chart.  It's kind of the bridge between psychedelic blues-based rock and the hard rock and heavy metal that would dominate the '70s.  Pappalardi's work with Cream certainly proves to be an influence.  Some songs are pure psychedelia (like "Theme For An Imaginary Western," "For Yasgur's Farm," and the acoustic instrumental "To My Friend"), while others are pure hard rock and proto-metal (like "Mississippi Queen," "Never In My Life," "Silver Paper," and "Sittin' On a Rainbow").

The band ended up getting a pretty solid spot at the festival, performing on Saturday night from 9-10, in between Canned Heat and The Grateful Dead.  Much of the band's set at Woodstock was from West's 1969 solo album, the aptly named Mountain, but several of the songs that would end up on Climbing! made it into the set.  Since we all know "Mississippi Queen" and since this is a Woodstock category, I'm going to feature songs that were in their set at Woodstock, rather than what are necessarily my favorite songs on each side.  But I urge you to check out the whole album because it's good shit.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "Theme For an Imaginary Western"
Written by Cream bassist/lead singer and longtime Cream songwriting collaborator Pete Brown, the title of this song is about as psychedelic as it gets.  Pappalardi handles lead vocals on this, and it's a plodding, soulful psychedelic rock song.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "For Yasgur's Farm"
The band performed this at Woodstock as "Who Am I But You And The Sun," but changed the name for the album, as an homage to Max Yasgur and his farm that formed the setting for Woodstock.  It's a trippy, slower song during the verses sung by Pappalardi, with forceful choruses sung by West, who also wails on the guitar.  In many ways, this is a microcosm of the album -- straddling that line between psychedelia and hard rock.