Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Number 748 - Mountain




Number 748

Mountain

"Mississippi Queen "

(1971)
.
Genre:Rock
One of the "True" Classic songs of Rock. You would probably find this on most radio stations "classic rock" play-list's as a staple diet that one must listen to. Failure to do so means listening to Milli Vanilli "I Cant Stand The Rain" non stop for 72 hours straight. With no sleep. (And you thought GUANTANAMO BAY was hard!)
"Hard rock band Mountain was formed in 1969 by guitarist Leslie West and bassist and former Cream producer Felix Pappalardi. The two met while West was a member of Long Island R&B band the Vagrants, local heroes who never broke nationally; when West left to record the solo album Mountain, Pappalardi produced it for him. The results were satisfying enough for the two to form a partnership, and Mountain's first lineup included drummer N.D. Smart and keyboardist Steve Knight. The group played its fourth live performance ever at Woodstock, after which Smart was replaced by Corky Laing. Their debut album, 1970's Mountain Climbing!, went gold, thanks in part to the hard rock classic "Mississippi Queen." Nantucket Sleighride was equally successful, but the group failed to progress with its next album, and after Mountain Live in 1972, the group broke up.

Pappalardi, whose hearing had been damaged by Mountain's excessive in-concert volume, returned to production, while West and Laing teamed up with ex-Cream bassist Jack Bruce under the name West, Bruce & Laing. A brief reunion featuring West and Pappalardi from the group's original lineup took place in 1974. In subsequent years, West and Laing revived the group for live shows, sometimes joined by Pappalardi; West also performed with his own Leslie West Band. Pappalardi was shot and killed by his wife in 1983. Two years later, West and Laing regrouped with Mark Clarke on bass and recorded an album before once again calling it quits. Laing served as PolyGram's A&R vice president in Canada between 1989 and 1995. In 1996, he reunited with West and Clarke for a new Mountain album, Man's World. West and Laing teamed up again in 2002 for another album as Mountain, Mystic Fire. ~ Steve Huey
For Cream see Number 554

What Rolling Stone Mag think about Mountain....
"About Mountain's third album, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that they have finally recorded a quality set of live rock & roll. The bad news here concerns a type of artsy-fartsy lyricism that pervades the new studio-recorded material."
"What happened, then, when Mountain entered the studio to record side one for Flowers of Evil? All the spirit and energy present in the live set is absent from songs like "Pride and Passion" and "Crossroaders." Is this the same band that recorded "Mississippi Queen" and "Don't Look Around?" Where are those effective marriages of music and verse that graced "My Lady" and "Theme for an Imaginary Western"? No offense to Felix Pappalardi or his wife and lyricist Gail Collins, but wispy stuff like "One Last Cold Kiss" belongs not in Mountain's repertoire. I applaud these efforts to expand the group's stylistic range, but I kinda wish Mountain would stick with that rowdy rock & roll music for a while, they are so much better at it. (RS 106)"~ JOHN KOEGEL
Besides Rolling Stone scathing remarks (Hold breath), I've always wondered where the term "Artsy Fartsy" came from ... now i know.
Rolling Stone Top 500 Songs ranked this song at Number (Mountain? Hell we wouldnt even if it was Everest!) and the Album ranked at Number (They did a whole album?)
This song has a crowbarred rating of 66.4 out of 108
Search Artist here:1-2-3-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z
underlay trademe
Hokitika

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posted by crowbarred at 11:08 pm

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