Leslie+west

Released by Provogue Records, this album features West alongside a hand-picked line-up of the finest guitar players alive today including Slash, blues-rock guitar superstar Joe Bonamassa, Black Label Society front man and ex-Ozzy guitarist Zakk Wylde, ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons and Toto’s Steve Lukather.
Leslie West isn’t a particularly innovative guitarist, and his style and approach have barely moved an eyelash since he first broke into the public consciousness with Mountain back in the early '70s, but he gets a tone heavier than plutonium on his Les Paul, and when he sings, it’s a gear-shredding roar that would make John Kay proud…

Releasing "all covers" albums can amount to either one of two things. Either the artist doing the covering is buying time between real albums or the artist doing the covering really wants to give some attention back to his musical heroes, who helped shape his playing early on. Over the years, former Mountain singer/guitarist Leslie West has recorded quite a few covers, quite a few of which are featured on a 2005 release (that sported an un-PC title), Guitarded. Focusing on old blues numbers and rock tracks from the late '60s, West proves that he can still let his fingers fly all these years later. Standouts here include a fine, bluesy take of the Beatles' obscure "Old Brown Shoe," as well as West covering an old Mountain tune (which late singer/bassist Felix Pappalardi sang originally), "Theme for an Imaginary Western."

The blues has informed Leslie West's work since the earliest days of Mountain, but Collection, which cherry-picks from his output for the Blues Bureau label (1993-2006), is the most concentrated assemblage yet of the guitarist's covers within the blues idiom. It's easy to imagine West putting plenty of muscle into classics like John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom," Robert Johnson's "Crossroads," and Muddy Waters' "Baby Please Don't Go," and he does. The latter especially burns, with West unreeling a screaming solo and strangled vocals, ably abetted by drummer Aynsley Dunbar, bassist Tim Bogert, and rhythm guitarist Kevin Curry. But some of the most surprising moments occur where you'd least expect them.

Leslie West has gained fame the world over during his 30-plus year career as one of the most innovative and influential musicians in the history of rock music. He is most noted for his role as leader of the explosive hard rock trio, Mountain, which was named by VH-1 as one of the Top 100 Hard Rock Groups of all time.

Originally released in 1989 on IRS' Illegal Records imprint, Leslie West's Alligator seemed then and still seems now, as evidenced by this straight reissue from Voiceprint Records, to be mostly West treading water. He plays some hot guitar here, of course, but then not as much as one might like, and he sings a lot here, too, perhaps more than one might like. It all adds up to a rather ho hum album without a single track that really takes your head off, although the flashy "Hall of the Mountain King/Theme from Exodus" mini-suite sure aims for sonic decapitation, as does the screeching "Whiskey" (featuring bass by Stanley Clarke), and West's cover of Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "I Put a Spell on You" is certainly atmospheric enough, but in the end it all seems more like cage rattling than a substantial musical statement. Stick to the early Mountain records for West at his best.

Considering Mountain stole the show at Woodstock, Leslie West seems very underrated as a guitarist today, which is quite strange, cos guitarists only get better! Just looking through the guest musician's listing, we have Joe Lynn Turner on some vocals, Leo Lyons (Ten Years After) on bass, Bernard Purdie on drums, and Savoy Brown's Kim Simmonds on some of the guitar. Other than this, the songs are excellent and mostly original compositions, and the versions of Otis Redding's Respect and the standard, Stormy Monday, are in a class of their own. With no pun intended, Leslie West is up there with the big boys, and should be mentioned on the same breath as Clapton, Beck, Page, Hendrix et-all.

Frequently classified as the first album by the group Mountain, which was named after it, Leslie West's initial solo album featured bass/keyboard player Felix Pappalardi, who also produced it and co-wrote eight of its 11 songs, and drummer N.D. Smart II. (This trio did, indeed, tour under the name Mountain shortly after the album's release, even performing at Woodstock, though Smart was replaced by Corky Laing and Steve Knight was added as keyboard player for the formal recording debut of the group, Mountain Climbing!, released in February 1970.) Pappalardi had been Cream's producer, and that power trio, as well as the Jimi Hendrix Experience, were the models for this rock set, which was dominated by West's throaty roar of a voice and inventive blues-rock guitar playing. Though West had led the Vagrants for years and cut a handful of singles with them, this was his first album release, and it made for an auspicious debut, instantly establishing him as a guitar hero and setting the style of Mountain's subsequent recordings.

The Vagrants - The Great Lost Album (1965-68) {Retro Disc RDI33007 rel 2006} (feat. Leslie West)
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 171 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 60 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 38 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1965-68, 2006 Arista / Retro Disc International | RDI 33007
Rock / Garage Rock / Psychedelic Rock

Most famous for featuring Leslie West on guitar in his pre-Mountain days, the Vagrants were extremely popular in their home base of Long Island, NY in the mid-'60s, and recorded some decent singles without approaching a national breakout. Like fellow New Yorkers the Rascals, the Vagrants prominently featured a Hammond organ, and often played soul-influenced rock. The Vagrants were far more guitar-based than the Rascals, however, as well as projecting a more garagey, less mature outlook; their later material lands somewhere between the Rascals and Vanilla Fudge.