The mountain has fallen.
Leslie West, who drove out towering blockages (with a towering hairstyle) in the classic Mountain rocker foundations, has died at the age of 75, his publicist confirmed for The Post.
West suffered a cardiac arrest at his home near Daytona, Florida, on Monday and was hospitalized without ever regaining consciousness, Rolling Stone reported.
On Tuesday, his brother, Larry West Weinstein, wrote on Facebook that West’s heart stopped and he was put on a fan, according to the LA Times.
He survived his wife Jenni Maurer, whom he married on stage at a 2009 concert commemorating 40 years in Woodstock.
West set up authoritative guitar riffs and gasps in Mountain, a heavily tuned trio complete with Felix Pappalardi on bass and Corky Laing on drums. The band’s contribution to the canon was the archetype “Mississippi Queen”, a growling blues-rock number that contains the bell that reached number 21 on the Billboard’s Hot 100.
West, originally from New York, cut an imposing scene on stage, with his eccentric outfits and a Gibson that looked small in his hands. While the band shared their name with their first solo album, he joked that the trio was nicknamed Mountain “because I was so fat” and later called a solo album “The Great Fatsby”.
One critic even called it “300 pounds dressed in blue velvet, suede and snakeskin” in a concert review, according to Rolling Stone.
The band sang a set at the Woodstock Festival that defined the era, where West “had the most amps in the world,” he recalled Rolling Stone in 1989. Mountain disbanded in 1972, but West continued to play with Laing. , instead of bassist Cream. Jack Bruce for Pappalardi. He re-formed Mountain in 1974 and continued to play with various variations of the band for the next decade, after a blocked solo career (based on “Fatsby” mentioned above).
Like many rockers of his time, West struggled with drugs; his choice was heroin. His weight was also a problem, and in the 1980s he was diagnosed with diabetes and lost the lower half of his right leg due to the disease. Along the way, he added “actor” to his resume, appearing in “Family Honor” in 1973 and “The Money Pit” in 1986 and also became close friends with Howard Stern, noting repeated appearances in the show.
His music also garnered a second surprising act from the hip-hop community with the song “Long Red”, which was rehearsed by De La Soul, The Game, ASAP Rocky, Kanye West and Jay-Z (for more fellow New York rocker song, “99 Problems”).
“There was something in that song that the rappers liked,” West told Blues Blast magazine in 2015. “I have six different platinum albums on my wall from all these guys trying my hand at it.”
West was revered by his musical descendants. Dee Snider, Twistered Sister, posted on Twitter that West was “one of the founding fathers of heavy metal” and Rolling Stone noted that recently deceased guitar hero Eddie Van Halen hailed West as one of his early influences in 2011, calling the man’s guitar tone great “incredible”. And no less a rock authority than Dave Grohl recently covered “Mississippi Queen” for his virtual series “Hanukkah Sessions”.
West, who didn’t really stop his production, releasing albums throughout the 2000s, with his most recent in 2015, remained a fast sage, who was great with a quote in his later years. He told Page Six in 2007 that his new label was called “Big Rack Records” “because my fiancée has a nice, big rack.”
“There are no drugs for me,” he added, comparing 2007 to his glory years. “Most of the things that happened back then I don’t remember.”