Climbing!

Long Island’s Mountain rose from the ashes of The Vagrants and, as leader/guitarist Leslie West said, they wanted their music to sound like Cream’s Disraeli Gears. It didn’t hurt that the album’s producer, classically trained Felix Pappalardi, joined Mountain on bass and produced. So this 1970 debut launched a million dirty rock and boogie bands. The landslide guitars and searing vocals on the classic “Mississippi Queen” and its doppelganger “Never in My Life” are untouchable. The psych of “Sliver Paper” stings, and fetching left turns like “The Laird” and the Cream-esque “Boys in the Band” make Climbing! a classic.