Night Music: Mountain, “Theme For An Imaginary Western”

This song was written by Jack Bruce, with words by Pete Brown, for Bruce’s solo Songs for a Tailor album. My grandfather was a tailor and I found this picture of him and my grandmother in his shop on Fifth Avenue, probably in the 60s.

grandparents-inthetailorshopMaybe it was in this room that my grandfather made me a Nehru jacket, which was tres sharp.

In any case, Felix Pappalardi, who produced Songs for a Tailor, brought the song to Leslie West, and Mountain recorded it for their classic and great album, Climbing. They also played the song at Woodstock and it is on the Woodstock 2 album, but this is the studio version.

Bruce subsequently joined Mountain’s Leslie West and Corky Laing in West Bruce and Laing, something of a supergroup that didn’t make that much of a splash, though my friends and I were enthusiastic fans.

Jack Bruce died this week, and he was a huge star because of his work with Cream, but he also created a substantial body of work that didn’t have that much to do with Cream. We still have that, too, and shouldn’t forget it.

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