With what may be the best performance on the disc, "Threw Away My Love," the second Sears/McDonald original, Kathi's great, bluesy vocal fights and Journey's Neil Schon on guitar give the track tons of soul! "Freak Lover" features the late Starship violinist Papa John Creach and is appropriately manic for an album about insanity. Willie Dixon's composition, "Insane Asylum," with Pete Sears and Nils Lofgren, is a blues workout deluxe. Neil Schon and Pete Sears Kathi on a Peter Frampton tune, "All I Want to Be." Lofgren and Sears do a heavy cover of Neil Young's "Down to the Wire" for the singer to display her wonderful voice. There is an abundance of talent here, creating a nice platform for this important singer. Insane Asylum also featured performances by Tower of Power, the Pointer Sisters, Aynsley Dunbar, John Cippolina.

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Kathi McDonald
Aside from collaborative efforts Kathi has solo projects of her own: Insane Asylum(1974), David Briggs, producer of the second Alice Cooper album Easy Action and multiple early Neil Young discs is at the helm on Insane Asylum. With arrangements by The Jefferson Starship's Pete Sears, whose formal band associations include Hot Tuna this is a showcase for the chops and musicianship of McDonald. There's a terrific reading of the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody" and an interesting first track co-written by McDonald and Pete Sears, "Bogart to Bowie," with Nils Lofgren on guitar and Bobbye Hall on percussion. The photos of McDonald on the back cover are chaotic and beautiful, a cartoon caricature of these adorns the cover, the illustration by Seiko Kashihara. With Ronnie Montrose on guitar and Pete Sears on keys for a heavy version of "(Love Is Like A) Heatwave," you basically have Big Brother & the Holding Company/ Montrose/Jefferson Starship covering Martha & the Vandellas.
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