Here’s a tune I did on my own in my fresh install of Ardour 9.2. I recently was doing some Video work on some old concert footage and I came across this song being performed by Mountain at the Midsummer Rock Festival in Cincinnati Ohio in 1970. *NOTE TO READER not only am I old… my taste in music is 20 years older than it should be… it’s my gift, it’s my curse… Anyway, this song was written by Jack Bruce of Cream fame and Eric Clapton allegedly didn’t want to record it so producer/bassist Felix Pappalardi who was the producer of Cream’s Disraeli Gears album recorded it with his band ‘Mountain’. Mountain is immortalized by their only big hit ‘Mississippi Queen’ which is a great slice of seismic blues rock but I always thought their more refined stuff like Theme and Nantucket Sleighride were rare gems that had been overlooked…
The guitars on this song were all recorded directly plugged in to an old Fender Hotrod DeVille that my son found on the cheap. I was pretty annoyed that he brought home such a big loud amp when we already have a few Fender tube amps but then I plugged into it and effortlessly reproduced Leslie West’s trademark delicious squonk… In hindsight this song kind of has that well-worn melodic hard rock power ballad vibe but in truth Mountain was probably one of the first bands to mix heavy bluesy guitars with such a melodic song structure, it’s kind of the prototype for power ballads in a weird way.
Thanks a lot for sharing this! The sound here is really excellent. I especially like how honest and direct the whole recording feels, no unnecessary polish, just the right amount of grit.
The guitar tone is spot on in my opinion. It has that old-school bite and dynamics that works perfectly for a song like this. The mix also leaves plenty of space for the instruments to breathe, which makes the whole thing feel natural and alive.
A lot of things were done really well in the past, in some ways maybe even better. But I still believe that this era will leave behind iconic recordings for future generations too. This could easily be one of those candidates.
And thanks again for sharing it. Productions like this are always inspiring to listen to.
Haha, that is my temporary cover art that I use while I am working on songs. I thought it was good artwork for people like us who record with computers since they can be so frustrating sometimes… For those who don’t know what we’re talking about this is my temp cover art:
I know killed few mouses,worst was throwing the computer, wen the hard disk crashed. Had a backup of the past day,so not total lost.
Aldo i never smashed a screen
Hey Glen, well done! Everything is in the right spot, and I especially like the way the vocals “pops out” of the mix whout being too much upfront. It’s all very compact and still dynamic.
Thank you Glen! To be honest, I happen to play my 5 string quite rarely, but sometimes is just fun.
I’m sure you will make you new bass sound great. As a matter of fact, every bass line I heard in the songs you’ve posted here was just perfect, so keep it up! But if you want me to record something for you I’ll be happy to do it for free…
I’ve listened to it probably 5 times in the past few days. The more I listen to it, the more I love it. It’s a great mix and sounds so authentically 70s. I even hear Ian Gillan a bit I think. lol. Maybe because I also listened to the original JCST LP this weekend.
Haha thanks! No Ian Gillan pipes here unfortunately… As far as the 70’s sound I really take the historical context of songs as seriously as the music itself, you can’t really learn a song fully unless you know at least some of the context of how it was recorded, what instruments were used, what headspace the band or writer was in etc…
With the example of this song I was looking up concert DVD’s of Mountain to see if there were any lost gems I had missed and there is a full Pro Shot concert from 2007 and it’s also on YT. I was really disappointed to see Leslie West the progenitor of one of the most righteous Les-Paul-Junior-plugged-into-a-Sunn-Colosseum guitar sounds playing some modern headless guitar with a shit-ton of thin flanging, chorusing and echo effects… the complete antithesis of what made his sound iconic. It really shows how the whole misguided fame game even makes you lose touch with yourself. Bands like Mountain went out of style, of course they did, and when ‘heavy guitar music’ has a new renaissance echoes of them will return but the whole concept of these classic bands playing their hits 30-40 years later with Guitar Center trend-of-the-month gear and without the iconic equipment that made the music magical in the first place is a repeating pattern that I feel ruins the greatness of the music.
More of an answer than you wanted I’m sure, but your observation that the sounds are authentic really made my day, so thanks again!
As always, I immensely enjoy your songs (covers or own). i was surprised to not find Rated Blue anymore on the usual platforms.
But I have since read your motivations behind that decision!
Thanks @funkster11, I appreciate it and nice to hear from you! Yes, I did pull out of the major streaming services because of the AI training, so far they haven’t begged me to come back but I’m still waiting…
If it is of interest I have a Bandcamp page for our Studio but I haven’t uploaded everything there yet, still much to do. Allegedly Bandcamp has a no AI training policy in place as part of their User Agreement, whether the scraper bots comply or not is unknown…
In hindsight this song kind of has that well-worn melodic hard rock power ballad vibe but in truth Mountain was probably one of the first bands to mix heavy bluesy guitars with such a melodic song structure, it’s kind of the prototype for power ballads in a weird way.
