Mountain (band)

Mountain
Corky Laing of Mountain (right) performing with his band in 2016.
Background information
Origin	Long Island, New York, U.S.
Genres	Hard rock blues rock heavy metal
Years active	1969–72 1973–74 1981–85 1992–98 2001–present
Labels	Windfall Columbia Lightyear Recall Big Rack
Associated acts	West, Bruce and Laing Blues Creation
Website	www.mountainrockband.com
Members	Leslie West Corky Laing Rev Jones
Past members	Felix Pappalardi Steve Knight N. D. Smart Allan Schwartzberg Bob Mann David Perry Miller Anderson Mark Clarke Richie Scarlet Randy Coven Noel Redding Elvin Bishop

Mountain is an American hard rock band that formed on Long Island, New York in 1969. Originally comprising vocalist and guitarist Leslie West, bassist/vocalist Felix Pappalardi, keyboardist Steve Knight and drummer N. D. Smart, the band broke up in 1972 and has reunited frequently since 1973, remaining active today. Best known for their cowbell-tinged song "Mississippi Queen", as well as for their performance at the famous in 1969, Mountain is one of many bands to be commonly credited as having influenced the development of heavy metal music in the 1970s. The groups musical style primarily consisted of hard rock, blues rock and heavy metal.

In early 1969 Leslie West, formerly of the Long Island R&B band The Vagrants, put together a band, Leslie West Mountain (a reference to his then-large size), with Norman Landsberg (keyboards, bass) and Ken Janick (drums) and began playing concerts. Right around this time, former Cream collaborator Felix Pappalardi expressed an interest in producing West's work. West, previously disgruntled and unsatisfied with the lack of success he desired in his first project, found Cream to be a great inspiration. He began to feel disillusioned with the R&B and Blues scenes of the 1960s that he previously played in. West immediately dropped the style and envisioned a project that would take on a rawer and much harder style of Rock N' Roll which he had begun to favor. The resulting solo album by Leslie West, Mountain, featured Pappalardi, Landsberg and former Remains drummer N.D. Smart. The album spotlighted West's raw vocals and melodic, bluesy guitar style, and Pappalardi's bass lines were prominent throughout. According to West, when Pappalardi asked what would be next, West suggested the pair go on the road. The group was heavily influenced by seminal British blues-rock band Cream (with which Pappalardi had been a frequent collaborator: he produced Disraeli Gears, Goodbye and Wheels of Fire, also contributing viola, brass, bells and organ to the latter) and also comprised keyboardist Steve Knight, who was added after Landsberg left to form another group, Hammer, with Janick.