Mountain is an American rock band that formed in Long Island, New York in 1969. Originally comprising vocalist and guitarist Leslie West, bassist/vocalist Felix Pappalardi, keyboardist Steve Knight, and drummer N. D. Smart, the band broke up in 1972 and has reunited frequently since 1973, remaining active today. Best known for their cowbell-tinged song “Mississippi Queen”, as well as for their performance at the famous Woodstock Festival in 1969, Mountain is one of many bands to be commonly credited as having influenced the development of heavy metal music in the 1970’s. (More from Wikipedia)
In early 1969, guitarist Leslie West of the Vagrants started a band called Leslie West Mountain (with “mountain” being a reference to his then-large size); other bandmembers were Norman Landsberg (keyboards, bass) and Ken Janick (drums). Felix Pappalardi expressed interest in producing the band’s work.
The album is called Mountain and was released in July 1969, just five months after Goodbye; Felix Pappalardi produced the album and also performed bass guitar with Leslie West, Norman Landsberg, and drummer N. D. Smart, formerly with the highly regarded Boston garage band the Remains (who are featured on the Nuggets album). The album is often confused as being by the band Mountain; but officially, it is the first solo album by Leslie West.
After Mountain, the solo album by Leslie West was released, the group then went on the road using the band name Mountain, bringing along Steve Knight on keyboards after Norman Landsberg and Ken Janick left to start the band Hammer. Their fourth concert as a working band was at the 1969 Woodstock festival; though they were not included on the first album or the concert film, their performances of “Blood of the Sun” (from the Leslie West solo album, Mountain) and “Theme for an Imaginary Western” (written by Jack Bruce and Pete Brown) were included on the double album Woodstock 2 that came out in 1971.
Shortly after Woodstock, Canadian Corky Laing replaced N. D. Smart on drums, and this line-up of Mountain produced one of my favorite hard rock albums of all time, Climbing!. The album featured the hit song “Mississippi Queen” and also “Theme for an Imaginary Western”, but the whole album cooks. Felix Pappalardi’s wife Gail Collins Pappalardi co-wrote six songs on the album and also contributed artwork for the cover on their first three albums. The album also includes a reflection on Woodstock, called “For Yasgur’s Farm” (Max Yasgur owned the farm where the festival took place).
Mountain released two more albums in quick succession, both quite good, called Nantucket Sleighride and Flowers of Evil, with the third album coming out just 20 months after their first.
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The other member of Cream, Jack Bruce released his debut solo album, Songs for a Tailor in the U.K. at almost the same moment that Mountain was performing one of the songs on the album, “Theme for an Imaginary Western” at Woodstock. All of the songs on the album had music by Jack Bruce and lyrics by Pete Brown; they had co-written several of the Cream songs previously.
Jack Bruce has released many albums since then; the one that I have is an anthology album called At His Best.
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Jack Bruce has rarely performed with a band since Cream; but after Mountain broke up in 1969 when Felix Pappalardi left the group, he hooked up with two of the members of the group, Leslie West and Corky Laing and formed a power trio called West, Bruce and Laing. The group released two studio albums, Why Dontcha and Whatever Turns You On; no hits emerged from the albums, and by the time their live album, Live ’n’ Kickin' came out in 1974, the group had already broken up.
Leslie West and Felix Pappalardi organized a new line-up of Mountain in mid-1973; and, as before, the band had a frenetic existence, releasing in a six-month period the double live album Twin Peaks and a studio album called Avalanche that featured Corky Laing on drums. After playing a final gig at the Forum in L.A. in December 1974, Mountain broke up again.
(May 2014)
