N. D. Smart (born September 29, 1947) is an American drummer. He replaced Chip Damiani in the Remains in 1966, shortly before their split. He joined Mountain in 1969 and played on their first gigs, before being replaced by Corky Laing in late 1969. He played with Mountain at Woodstock. The live recording of “Long Red” from the Woodstock set was released on a Mountain live album in 1972. The drum break by Smart has been sampled many times by hip hop artists. (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.
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!.
(May 2014)
