Leslie West
Lyrical guitarist who moved mountains to achieve a distinct blend of blues and metal
WITH HIS mane of frizzy hair, towering height and larger than life presence, Leslie West, one of the earliest instigators of (what would become) heavy metal, dominated the stage. Once described by a critic as a “300-pounder dressed in blue velvet, suede and snakeskin”, his huge physicality was matched by his powerful, full throated vocals and massive guitar sound.
According to Kiss’s Paul Stanley, “Leslie’s tone could stop a rhino in full charge. ” West played with the force (and volume) of a hurricane, as evidenced by his band Mountain’s 1969 appearance at Woodstock. “I think I had the most amplifiers of anybody there,” claimed West in a 1989 Rolling Stone interview. “The sound was so loud and shocking that I got scared. But once I started playing, I just kept going because I was afraid to stop.” It was only their fourth gig, but it provided West with a unique opportunity to expose the band to the half-a-million strong crowd that had come along to see the likes of The Who, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.
Like the ubiquitous Spinal Tap quote, West’s guitar did go all the way to 11 but despite the reputation for his eardrumblasting sound, he was a surprisingly lyrical and melodic player. Dee Snider, lead singer of Twisted Sister, wrote on Twitter: “As a singer, while I respect great players, vocalists spoke to me with their melodies. (West) is the only guitarist who I connected with cause I could sing every one of his solos!”
West enjoyed experimenting with and expanding the typical boundaries of what a guitar could do. “I wanted us to be like a heavy rock orchestra band, so I made my guitar sound like a violin, a viola and a cello.”
A distinctive blending of blues and metal, West’s sound did not emerge by accident. He had long admired the way Eric Clapton had created his own very specific signature tone. When he witnessed Clapton playing live with Cream in 1967, the awestruck West was immediately inspired to up his game. “I wanted to have a sound you could identify like that,” he told the
L.A. Times in 1990.
West was born Leslie Weinstein in New York, 1945. His father Bill ran a rug shampoo company and his mother Rita was a hair model. His first inspiration was witnessing Elvis Presley perform on television, which prompted him to spend his barmitzvah money on a guitar.
A few years later, having changed his surname to West after his parents’ divorce, he started his first band, The Vagrants, a soul outfit, with his bassist brother Larry. They achieved a couple of hits including I Can’t Make a Friend
(1966) and a cover of Otis Redding’s
Respect (1967).
But West was soon searching for new challenges, leaving the band to work on his own solo project, an album produced and co-written by Cream producer Felix Pappalardi. The album was entitled Mountain – a self-deprecating jab at the frontman’s hefty frame. The album ultimately led to the creation of Mountain the band, with Pappalardi joining West on bass.
Following their 1969 Woodstock appearance, the band’s debut album
Mountain Climbing! reached no 17 in the US charts and they gained their biggest hit single with Mississippi
Queen. This rollicking blues rock classic appeared on various film and TV soundtracks. It was also covered by major artists including Ozzy Osbourne, W.A.S.P. and most recently in December 2020 by Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl and Greg Kurstin as part of their Chanukah cover song series dedicated to honouring Jewish artists,
Two studio albums followed, including Nantucket Sleighride (1971), whose eponymous single, a heavy and dark rock ballad, became another Mountain classic, an epic 17 minute version of which was a highlight of their live shows. In 1972 the band split up and West and Corky Laing (Mountain’s drummer) formed a trio with Cream’s Jack Bruce.
In possession of a $1million deal from CBS, things initially looked promising, with the release of three albums and a sell-out concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall, but the band’s destructive drug habits ultimately led to its disintegration a year later.
West launched a new incarnation of Mountain which recorded two further albums, the live Twin Peaks (1973) and the studio set Avalanche (1974). He followed this with another project, the Leslie West Band, recording two more albums, including The Great
Fatsby in 1975 (its title another jokey nod to West’s physique). However his burgeoning addiction to heroin, cocaine and morphine continued to plague him and West withdrew for some time to recover.
Despite this setback, he continued to reform Mountain periodically and their last album Masters of War, a reimagining of 12 Bob Dylan songs, was released in 2007. West was to struggle with other ongoing health battles later in life, including diabetes which led to a leg amputation in 2011, but he continued to record and perform in various guises until well into his 70s.
West collaborated with several renowned artists throughout his career, including Ozzy Osbourne and Deep Purple’s Ian Gillen. Admired by his contemporaries, he was also revered by a newer generation of rock guitarists – -amongst them Slash, Joe Bonamassa and Brian May, all of whom featured on his later recordings between 2011 and 2015. Eddie Van Halen hailed West as one of his greatest inspirations, citing his “incredible tone”.
His influence spread far beyond the rock community. The Woodstock recording of Mountain’s Long Red inspired many hip-hop and rap artists, including Public Enemy, De La Soul and Kanye West, to sample the drum track which had a natural hip hop beat to it, years before that genre was even invented, gaining it recognition as one of the most sampled songs in history.
Yet one cannot help but wonder if West’s influence would have been even greater had his chronic drug addiction not muted a significant slice of his potential.
He married Jenni Maurer in 2009 on stage under a canopy of electric guitars following Mountain’s performance at the Woodstock 40th anniversary concert. He is survived by Jenni, Larry (his brother) and nephew Max.