Mountain

Can't answer the question, but I have one of my own. Does anybody remember the short-lived late night talk show where Leslie West lead the house band? It was one of the challengers to Letterman (late 80s or early 90s) and it died a quick death. For the life of me, I can't remember the name of the host.

Leslie West is a bona fide guitar god. He has tone and a vibrato to die for.

BTW, the current issue of Mix has a feature article on the "Mississippi Queen" recording session.

Mississippi Queen was a huge top 40 hit when it came out, and was indeed on their debut album "Climbing" (Leslie West had released a self-titled solo album prior to that). Nantucket Sleighride (the song) was the title track from Mountain's 2nd album. The band was enormously popular for many years, and played their first major gig at none other than the original Woodstock festival.

A fair number of albums followed after that (Avalanch, Flowers of Evil, etc.) and the band broke up due to Felix Pappalardi's health and social difficulties with Steve Knight. West went solo after that (West, Bruce, and Laing, with ex-Cream Jack Bruce), and the Leslie West Band, with ex-Spooky Tooth Mick Jones on 2nd guitar, before he started Foreigner.

As to the question, haven't seen any hi-quality audio releases of the discs, though. Pity, 'cause the stuff is good (even though the children just don't get it since they weren't around at the time).

Mountain not only featured Leslie West on vocals and lead guitar (he was formerly with the Vagrants) but the bass player was Felix Pappalardi (sp?) who produced most of the albums for Cream and other major English bands. As far as audiophile recordings, I'm afraid you're climbing up the wrong "mountain."

So the album titles are finally sorted out. This is related to the topic, and I thought I'd share with all you Mountaineers: I saw Little Feat once right before Lowell passed on, and they brought out Leslie West to play along on "Fat Man in the Bathtub"! I couldn't believe what I was seeing and hearing: two of the greatest American guitarists jamming to one of the classic Feat songs.

There is an audiophile Japanese pressing of Mountain's "Flowers of Evil" on sale at "#2 Records" in Frankfurt, Germany right now for about $20, I think. It has a live version of "Mississippi Queen" on it.