Mountain are an American rock band mainly active in the early 1970s. The band still tour and have a number of UK and US dates scheduled in 2006.

The band formed when guitarist Leslie West, having left the Long Island R&B band the Vagrants, recorded a solo album with bassist and former Cream producer Felix Pappalardi producing. The album, Mountain, also featured the drummer N D Smart) and keyboard player Steve Knight. West's raw vocals and Pappalardi's heavy and elegant bass lines were the elements of Mountain's distinctive sound.

Mountain played their fourth live gig at the Woodstock Festival but the band did not appear in the film of the event nor was it included on the first album. Soon after, Smart was replaced by Laurence "Corky" Laing. The group's first album, Climbing! was released in 1970 and featured the band's best-known song, Mississippi Queen; the song reached the middle of the top 40 charts and the album reached the top 20 on the US album charts.

The follow-up album Nantucket Sleighride (1971) also reached the top 20 on the US albums chart but failed to yield a hit single. After these early releases the band continued to receive a certain measure of critical acclaim but never achieved great commercial success.

The band were inspired by the power trio Cream, of which Pappalardi was an "unofficial" member: he featured heavily on Cream's third album, Wheels of Fire, contributing organ, viola, trumpet and handbells as well as producing. After Mountain's initial breakup in 1972, West and Laing formed West, Bruce and Laing with Cream bassist Jack Bruce. They released three albums.

In 1974 West and Pappalardi reformed Mountain with Allan Schwartzberg on drums and Robert Mann on keyboards. A tour yielded the live double album Twin Peaks and the studio work Avalanche, with Laing and rhythm guitarist David Perry, who as an African American was also credited for "added color". It was the last heard of from Mountain until the mid 1980s when West, sometimes with and sometimes without Laing, has worked under the name Mountain, New Mountain or the Leslie West Band.

On April 17, 1983 Gail Collins Pappalardi, Felix's wife and songwriting partner, shot him once in the neck in their fifth-floor East Side Manhattan apartment. He was pronounced dead at the scene and Collins was charged with second-degree murder. She was cleared of that charge but convicted of the lesser criminally negligent homicide and sentenced to 16 months to four years in jail. After her release from jail, she vanished into private life.

Collins designed many of the band's album covers.

Richie Scarlet has taken over as bass player on the band's recent tours, including a British tour in the early summer of 2006.

Trivia

• The title track from Nantucket Sleighride was used as the theme tune to the British political and current affairs television programmr Weekend World, which was aired between 1972 and 1986).
• Mountain are ranked number 98 on VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock.

Current Members

• Leslie West guitar and vocals
• Corky Laing drums
• Richie Scarlet bass

Former members

• Felix Pappalardi bass
• N D Smart drums
• Steve Knight piano and organ
• Allan Schwartzberg
• David Perry
• Robert Mann
• Mark Clarke

Discography

• 1970 Climbing!
• 1971 Nantucket Sleighride
• 1971 Flowers of Evil
• 1972 Mountain Live: The Road Goes Ever On
• 1974 Twin Peaks
• 1974 Avalanche

External links

• Official site

American musical groups

Mountain | Mountain (groupe) | マウンテン | Mountain | Mountain | Mountain