Leslie West, Mountain Guitarist Who Belted ‘Mississippi Queen,’ Dead at 75
Co-founder of hard-rock group went into cardiac arrest earlier this week
DAVID BROWNE
DECEMBER 23, 2020 4:50PM EST
DENMARK -
Jorgen Angel/Redferns/Getty Images
Leslie West, the towering guitarist who created the hard-rock milestone “Mississippi Queen” with his band Mountain, died Wednesday morning. West’s brother, Larry West Weinstein, confirmed the musician’s death to Rolling Stone. He was 75. The cause of death was cardiac arrest. On Monday, West was rushed to a hospital after suffering cardiac arrest at his home near Daytona, where he never regained consciousness.
Released in 1970 on Mountain’s debut album, Climbing!, “Mississippi Queen” was two and a half minutes of boisterous bliss built around West’s burly yowl and guitar blasts and drummer Corky Laing’s completely unironic cowbell. One of those never-say-die songs of the classic rock era, “Mississippi Queen” has been featured in countless soundtracks, TV shows (The Americans, The Simpsons) and in Guitar Hero III. In an interview with Guitar Player earlier this year, West said the song “has just everything you need to make it a winner. You’ve got the cowbell, the riff is pretty damn good, and it sounds incredible. It feels like it wants to jump out of your car radio. To me, it sounds like a big, thick milkshake. It’s rich and chocolatey. Who doesn’t love that?”
A contemporary of Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix, West was respected for his versatile playing (from fingerpicking to metallic power chords) and was revered by a new generation of guitar players who followed. In 2011, Eddie Van Halen told Rolling Stone that West and Deep Purple’s Ritchie Blackmore were among his biggest influences: “Leslie West has this incredible tone in Mountain,” Van Halen said.
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