MOUNTAIN
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)
“Enough” by Bohemian Vendetta got some local radio play and even had a spot on Dick Clark’s “Rate-a-Record” on American Bandstand. This was, er, enough to get the band some better gigs; they opened for Vanilla Fudge and also another Long Island band the Vagrants. (The Vagrants had a regional hit song with Otis Redding’s “Respect” before Aretha Franklin’s version of “Respect” propelled them from the charts; bandmembers included Leslie West, later a member of the hard rock band Mountain).
(April 2011)
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The band, now redubbed the Magicians, added Allan “Jake” Jacobs (guitar and vocals) and John Townley (guitar and bass) when Mike Appel and Everett Jacobs left the band. The band became better known when they replaced the Lovin’ Spoonful as the house band at the Night Owl nightclub in the Village. At one point, Felix Pappalardi – later of the hard rock band Mountain – was interested in joining up as the bass guitarist, but it didn’t work out. They even managed to score an appearance on a local CBS television show called Eye on New York – quite a coup considering that they did not have a hit song or an album.
(December 2011)
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I certainly don’t know as much going into a monthly post as I probably let on, and despite its thousands, my record collection is not comprehensive. For instance, my post awhile back about the origins of Cream and the many bands that arose in the wake of their break-up germinated from some writings by the music columnist Ricky Flake in our local paper, the Sun Herald. At the time, I had precisely one album by Cream, Disraeli Gears (I still don’t have Goodbye) and only the first Mountain album, Climbing!.
(Year 5 Review)
