Blood of the Sun - Remembering Leslie West
I went to the Winterland Auditorium in January of 1972 with Jack Martin, Chris Iverson, Mitch (Jack’s brother who drove us in his van) and one other guy whose name has escaped my memory and perhaps permanently. We were headed to see a West, Bruce and Laing concert. Winterland was legendary. Winterland was in San Francisco, a short 1 hour or so drive from where we lived. We got high on the way.
Mitch’s white Ford van was basically transportation for his band and any band his brother Jack played in. Jack was 16 while Mitch was a high school graduate at 19 living at home taking night classes at Deanza College in Cupertino California where we all lived. All of us except for Mitch played guitar. Mitch was a drummer and a good one at that. Mitch was an old school rudimentary by the book student of percussion that still held his left drum stick traditionally in spite of the rock explosion where drummers held both sticks full frontal. If you are a drummer, you probably know what I’m talking about even though my description might be somewhat …. maladroit.
Jack Martin was a John McLaughlin aficionado and spent most of his spare time imitating him as best he could. Curt Iverson was his best friend growing up and was his most endeared fan even though he himself played guitar also. Curt just didn’t play very well. He was tolerable otherwise. Where Curt lacked in musical talent, he made up with his Zig Zag and/or Top rolling skills.
Smoking weed wasn’t what all Cupertino kids did back in the beginning of the seventies and it certainly wasn’t the worst with respect to where we lived in relation to San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose and in spite of all the Hell’s Angels all over the place. Drugs were everywhere, easy to obtain and became a social staple for just about any age group, social level, sect, what have you and trumping booze next to none. Weed was cheap and sold to the tune of ten dollars an ounce. So, in essence kids did little to obtain small amounts of the herb either by collecting pop bottles, using allowance or hording lunch money as a means of funding the splendorous vice. I am reluctant to admit I and others smoked pot before school every morning. At least my kids didn’t come out deformed as we were all told would happen back in those days.
Before we moved to California, my family lived in Anchorage Alaska where I played in a quartet with the likes of Joe Booth (Mad Loone), Dave Talbot and Norm Jerue. As a band we played Allman Brothers covers as well as Cream and other popular songs. We used to practice in the Talbot’s living room which was upstairs. Downstairs Dave’s brother Mike’s band practiced. They played a song that caught my attention, Blood of the Sun by Mountain. We didn’t bother with Mississippi Queen and neither did Mike’s band. No one could sing it! However, the basement group pulled off Blood very well for as far as basement band standards go. Good stuff. It rocked!
Leslie West was the prominent guitarist in the band called Mountain. Since all three original members including Corky Laing and Felix Pappalardi were from New York State, the Appalachians come to mind. I have no clue where they got the name. Maybe it was Leslie West’s size? To a thin 14 year old, he looked fat. He wasn’t. He was just big and barrel chested.
Leslie West for all intents and purposes was an impressive guitarist and had influenced sparse lots of American and British heavy rock (hard rock). Truly Leslie had a gutsy voice that was full, robust and bluesy. More importantly he had skill. One facet of that skilled talent was a simple act of bending a string a full step and holding a sustained vibrato. Don’t know what I mean? Maybe you should leave now before my explanation daunts you as if I am smacking you profusely about the head and face.
Ordinarily, Slowhand (that’s you and all the other uninitiated), the full step bend and vibrato peters out before the guitarist realizes how lame he will continue to be from that moment forward. You see, West discovered the common use of the vibrato and applied it to his shape and style which made a lasting impression on most rock (and blues) guitar players forward through time. That sustain he produced was phenomenal. Blood was really an arbitrary combination of guitar and bass playing eighth and quarter notes in unison to a heavy rocking beat similar to Led Zeppelin’s “Heart Breaker”. Emphasis of West’s vibrato became more withstanding with “Dreams of Milk and Honey” from “Leslie West – Mountain” (the album). The vibrato in that song and the feel of it closely identifies West’s perception and sound. Mississippi Queen has the same notes voicing the expression with the lead playing on top of and over the tune as well. But you’d see what I mean upon hearing Dreams of Milk and Honey.
OK. So I go out in the fuckin snow and buy Mountain records with my hard earned paper route money so I can stay up all night learning and pretending to be as good as Leslie West. Well….except for the gut anyways. I even started wearing my Fender (racing striped) Mustang low near or below my belt as was the style with hard rockers like West and Page. If you are making fun of me at this point, remember I know where you live and I will kick your ass!
Off to California.
It was an ordinary Cupertino late afternoon. The five of us met at Jack and Mitch’s house where we got high and speculated how cool the concert was going to be. Largely we debated as to why Leslie West and Corky Laing gave Felix Pappalardi his pink slip to be replaced by legendary Jack Bruce. Curt Iverson kept playing Crossroads by Cream (live version) on the stereo over and over trying to figure out if Jack Bruce was saying “ Eric Clapton on the vocals” or…..” Eric Clapton. Uh hah huh”. Did I mention Curt Iverson liked mushrooms a little too much? Piling into the van, Mitch was prudent in explaining the rules of the exclusive travel arrangements of his one and only van that was as precious to his love life as his penis. Mitch dated a lot. And keeping the van clean no matter the circumstances was paramount.
We arrived in San Francisco later that evening. As the brothers argued about parking and other meaningless civilities, I stuck my head out the window to stare in awe at the building that was Winterland. Bill Graham (rest in peace) a nostalgic concert promoter and genius owned the Fillmores east and west as well as Winterland. And Winterland was an old building big enough for rock shows and about 2 or 3 thousand seats. Everyone including Hendrix played at Winterland. I am certain I don’t remember how big it really was. It just looked big to me at the time. Winterland was my 3rd rock concert. Before that was Rare Earth followed by Quicksilver Messenger Service. The world of rock was still very new to me.
A local San Francisco band opened the show. Following them was Crazy Horse without Neil Young. They all sucked and looked like pussies. I was there to see a legend! To my surprise there was more than one. This night was upon us all.
Following the opening acts lights were coming up instantly. You could smell dope for miles. Microphones were being tested along with snare drums. The crowd was sharing flashed breasts and joints. Very beautiful flower girls filled my dreams for weeks on end. A lovely beginning of adolescence and a fitting venue to scorn the established elite. Lust, vice filled behavior and rebellion. We were still getting high. We had no alcohol. Pot was our drug du jour. I can’t remember if Winterland even sold beer. Someone had a joint of “Rocket Fuel” which I was told was laced with ether. Who knows? At last I was a hippie. If only my friends in Alaska could see me now.
The lights came down just as the crowd began moaning, then yelling, then standing. My throat swallowed as I rose and stood along with my peers. This was happening. This was real unlike the pictures in Circus Magazine. This was a rock concert. When the lights go down even today whenever I’m at a concert, I still get that momentary surge of excitement combined with a lump in my throat. I know of no other sensation high or not.
Corky Laing walked out on stage from behind his drum kit, stood and waved at the crowd slowly towards all sides of the arena. A millisecond of a brief hush. Jack Bruce and Leslie West walk out almost simultaneously from opposite sides of the stage. A loud and booming voice from beyond the abyss that could be heard as far away as the Appalachians thundered: “Mr. Leslie West, Mr. Jack Bruce and Mr. Corky Laing”. The crowd was full with pandemonium. Jack Bruce was the most impressive in a satin shining bluish suit with West in a very well lit white suite and Corky Laing shirtless.
They began playing all at once without even so much as a count tapped out by the drummer’s drumsticks. The chords powerful and without senseless noise yet an avalanche of guitar distortion smooth and electric. The drums were saturated in guitar and bass until they began to play Doctor, one of the tracks from West, Bruce and Laing’s first album. Jack Bruce did most of the talking. His English slurred by the unknown and his announcement drowned out by enthusiasm. But when Jack Bruce sang, you knew why you were there. It hadn’t occurred to me Bruce was with Cream. I just stepped over the thought in lieu of seeing West live. Jack Bruce was so real he was somewhat scary to me. He was so fucking famous. I had only seen maybe a few hundred pictures of him on album covers and in rock magazines. Yet, there he was.
Corky Laing had two snares. I wasn’t impressed but I had to hand it to him. Drummers in the audience must have talked about the two snares for years afterwards. I certainly would have. I actually liked Laing’s playing in spite of two steering wheels. A steering wheel steers a car while a snare drum…..oh never mind! Laing wasn’t your average time keeper. He was flamboyant and possessed a certain vibrant showmanship that drummers copied from then on because of him. An example might be raising his right hand high in the air holding his stick pointed skyward for a pause in a song only to resume the powerful beat accordingly. Another was his breaking of drum sticks in large numbers. Now that’s rock and roll!
Leslie West was everything I had pictured and had heard about him and much more. He came out on stage wielding a Gibson Flying V. He looked like a huge man. He really wasn’t. But what mattered most was he played note for note all the true Leslie West guitar licks, sounds and vibratos imaginable. His voice was so powerful, it sounded as though he didn’t need a microphone to bellow out his bluesy voice. He possessed a little (or a lot) of that Little Richard rock and roll voice type sound with the way he sang. How incredible?! How utterly amazing!? Yes I was stoned. But I also stood there and stared for the fact that I felt like I was watching the universe giving birth.
West, Bruce and Laing did NOT play Mississippi Queen nor Sunshine of Your Love much to my relief. They did however finish with one of their 3 encores with Dreams of Milk and Honey only, Jack Bruce sang it! Fucking incredible! These guys shaped rock and roll for all of us. These gentlemen are truly rock stars AND legends. That concert happened only once. I was there and so were my friends whom I have never spoken to since I moved away from California and my family and I moved to Texas that summer. It was truly a fond memory and I feel I was blessed and privileged to have witnessed history.
The crowd remained animated as we all filed out of Winterland. My dad was just as new to San Francisco proper including Cupertino as I was. He worried about me hanging out with the wrong crowd and so forth. But none of my friends were the wrong anything. We were all just American kids. Jack. Mitch, Curt, the other guy and myself turned the corner of the building. My dad had just pulled up in his company car to get out and ask me if I was OK and did I want to ride home with him. I told him I was fine and I was OK riding home with my friends. He drove all the way to San Francisco to check on me. As I said San Francisco was a new place for our family and certainly a lot different than anyplace we had ever lived before. I can’t say that I blamed his evident fearful worries. I fully understand especially now and having had teenagers of my own.
I was fortunate to see this concert and many others that made a lasting impression on my life. I saw Leslie West a second time at Liberty Hall in Houston years later. Leslie West is still alive and probably older than dirt as far as I know. My father passed away some years ago. I only mention this because looking back I wished I would have road home with him more often and of course even after that concert.
Years later I worked at Parker Music in Houston with Larry Weinstein, Leslie West’s brother. (Weinstein is West’s real last name….oops)….. Years following I began to market my own guitar strings called Skull Rockers Guitar Strings. Larry had moved back to New York to run some family member’s restaurant. I had his number and I called him to ask if he felt like Leslie would endorse my guitar strings. He advised me to call his mother and ask her to get in touch with him. I did. She answered the phone. I presented the proposition. She squawked “fat chance!”.
I actually spoke to Leslie West on the phone eventually. It was around 1987. I don’t remember how I finally was able to reach him. All pleasantries ensued in our phone conversation. He asked me a dozen times who I was and how I got his number followed by a polite “no thanks”. So much for Rocket Fuel!
Links:
http://www.mountaintheband.com/leslie/leslie.htm
http://www.myspace.com/lesliewestmountain
Mountain was formed in 1969. The band eventually called it quits in 1972.
Leslie West, Felix Pappalardi and Corky Laing
Songs:
Mississippi Queen, Theme From An Imaginary Western, Nantucket Sleigh Ride, Blood of the Sun
Vince Gutierrez – June 2008
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