Mountain-The Best of Mountain (1973)

 

Artist: Mountain

Title: The Best of Mountain

Label: Columbia/Windfall

Format: LP

Cat #: PC 32079

Year of Release: 1973

Country and Year of Edition Issue: US 1973

Listed Condition: VG+/VG+

Sell Date: 10/23/25

Sell Price: $4.57

Discogs Last Sold: 7/12/25 G+/G+ $3.00

Low: $1.99

Median: $4.79

Average: $7.14

High: $25.84

Current low price: $5.00

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 24

Have/Want: 1245/34

Where Sold: Portola Valley, CA

Time it took to sell: 10 years

Where and When Bought: Worcester, MA That's Entertainment $2.99 handwritten $2.99 sticker still on it early 80's

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: A-

Sad To See It Go: No

I got The Best of Mountain as a used companion to my copy of Climbing! in my early 80's used record collecting.  The story I bought the record at used to handwrite the price on their labels and switched over to the typeface labels around 1984.  This copy still has the handwritten sticker on it.  The cover is weird because the face with the spine on the left has the track listing at the top.  I'm not sure if this was a misprint or because the photo layout has Felix Papalardi in the right corner giving all three band members on the front from left to right with the multi exposure of West & Laing.

In the case of Mountain, I prefer Climbing! to the compilation, but this one is pretty solid as far as comps go if you are going to just buy one thing.  Lately I've been catching up with other records in their catalog on both vinyl and 8-track.  I actually saw Leslie West and Corky Laing's reunited Mountain in Worcester in 1985 opening for Triumph.  I was psyched to get 18th row walkup, which at that time was the closest I ever got to see an arena show.  Although I had bought Thunder Seven by Triumph, I was losing interest in AOR rock by that point and Mountain was my main motivation for attending the concert.  Only Laing lives now and he is still touring at Corky Laing's Mountain.  Leslie West was on the road up until about a year before he died of a heart attack in 2020 and last played NYC in 2017, but I didn't get to go even though it was discussed.

Although the first two albums hit Gold around the time of their release in the early 70's, this 1973 release didn't hit that mark in the US until 1989.  This release compiles tracks from Climbing!, Nantucket Sleighride and Flowers of Evil.  The funny thing is for many, many years I only had Climbing! and this, now I pretty much have everything else but both this and Climbing! have sold in recent years and I currently don't have a copy of either of them.

Such is the life of thereversecollector.