The mountain has fallen.
Leslie West, who kicked sky-high jam (with a sky-high haircut) out of the ground in classic rockers Mountain, has passed away at the age of 75, his publicist confirmed to The Post.
West went into cardiac arrest at his home near Daytona, Florida on Monday and was hospitalized but never regained consciousness, Rolling Stone reported.
On Tuesday, his brother, Larry West Weinstein, wrote on Facebook that West’s heart stopped and that he had been put on a ventilator, according to the LA Times.
He is survived by his wife Jenni Maurer, whom he married onstage at a concert in 2009 commemorating Woodstock’s 40th anniversary.
West put down authoritative guitar riffs and busty whine in Mountain, a thunderous power trio rounded out by Felix Pappalardi on bass and Corky Laing on drums. The band’s contribution to the canon was the archetypal ‘Mississippi Queen’, a growling blues rock song with pounding cowbell that went to number 21 on Billboard’s Hot 100.
Born in New York, Burly was an imposing figure on stage, with his eccentric outfits and a Gibson that looked small in his hands. While the group shared its name with its first solo album, he joked that the trio was called Mountain “Because I Was So Fat” and later called a solo record “The Great Fatsby”.
One critic even called him a “300 pounder dressed in blue velvet, suede and snakeskin” in a concert review, Rolling Stone said.
The group played a set at the era-defining Woodstock festival, where West had “the most amps of anybody,” he recalls Rolling Stone in 1989. Mountain broke up in 1972, but West continued to play with Laing and star in Cream bass player. Jack Bruce for Pappalardi. He formed Mountain again in 1974 and continued to play with various variations of the band for the next decade after a stalled solo career (based on the aforementioned “Fatsby”).
Like many rockers of his day, West struggled with drugs; his choice was heroin. His weight was also an issue, and in the 1980s he was diagnosed with diabetes and lost the lower half of his right leg to the disease. Along the way, he added “actor” to his resume, appeared in “Family Honor” in 1973 and “The Money Pit,” in 1986, and also became good friends with Howard Stern, making him appear on the show repeatedly.
His music also garnered a surprise second act from the hip-hop community via the song ‘Long Red’, which was sampled by De La Soul, The Game, ASAP Rocky, Kanye West and Jay-Z (for the most rocking song, “99 Problems” ).
“There was something about that song that appealed to rappers,” West told Blues Blast magazine in 2015. “I have six different platinum albums on my wall from all those different guys sampling my stuff.”
West was revered by his musical descendants. Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider tweeted that West was “ one of the founders of heavy metal, ” and Rolling Stone noted that the recently deceased guitar hero Eddie Van Halen hailed West in 2011 as one of his early influences, calling the great man’s guitar tone “ incredible. ” And no less a rock authority than Dave Grohl recently covered “Mississippi Queen” for his virtual “Hanukkah Sessions” series.
West, never really stopping his output, releasing albums throughout the 2000s, with his most recent in 2015, kept a quick wit that’s been 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 fiancé has a nice, big rack.”
“There are no drugs for me,” he added, comparing 2007 to its glory years. “I don’t remember most of the things that happened then.”