The Trailblazing Tone of Leslie West on "Mississippi Queen"

When Mountain flew out to San Francisco for their first gig at Fillmore West in 1969, guitarist/vocalist Leslie West didn't quite get the gear he expected. Instead of a guitar amp, he found himself staring at a Sunn Coliseum P.A. head with four 4 X 12 speaker cabinets. Used to Marshall amps, Leslie doubted that he'd be able to get any good sounds out of what he now had to use -- but he plugged in, cranked it up, and promptly had an epiphany. The tone that came out was so amazing, he made it his own and used it to record Mountain's 1970 debut Climbing! – the album that featured their most successful single of all time, "Mississippi Queen."

In addition to his unusual choice in amp, Leslie's guitar string set-up was equally unconventional. On his 1950s Les Paul Junior guitars, he swapped out the high E strings from his standard packs of La Bella Electric Guitar strings with .010-gauge A banjo strings, and moved the rest of the guitar strings down one slot. They didn't have extra-light string packs in those days, so this was an innovative workaround on Leslie's part. He also never felt the need to play guitars with two or three pickups: "You can get a lot of tones out of a single pickup," he later told Guitar Player magazine. "If you’re in a room filled with gasoline, how many matches do you really need? One good one and a backup!” Another big factor that made his tone stand out was his aggressive right-hand attack; his heavy picking style added extra distortion to his sound.

Leslie West of Mountain (right) playing with Cream bassist Jack Bruce in a side project in 1973.

While recording "Mississippi Queen," Mountain bassist/vocalist Felix Pappalardi insisted the band record lots and lots of takes. This wore down drummer Corky Laing to the point where he started counting off each take with a cowbell. Felix liked the cowbell intro so much that the band decided to keep it in the mix. The cowbell makes brief appearances throughout the song in addition to the intro, making "Mississippi Queen" the other definitive cowbell rock song of all time, second to Blue Öyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper," which followed six years later.

Peaking at number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970, "Mississippi Queen" was honred with covers heavy rock and metal royalty including Ozzy Osbourne, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, and W.A.S.P. With its slow-driving thunderous groove, good old-fashioned I-IV-V chord progression, West's aggressive vocal style, and of course, that trailblazing monster guitar tone, how could it be anything less than a classic?

Leila Abdul-Rauf is a multi-instrumentalist and composer based in Oakland, CA. Leila is guitarist and vocalist for metal bands Vastum, Hammers of Misfortune, and ethereal post-punk band Terebellum. She also composes and produces ambient music under her own name, with electronic trio Ionophore and synth-folk duo Fyrhtu. Leila has toured internationally and is a private guitar and voice teacher in her spare time.

"Leslie West live in 2008" by Wilson Bilkovich is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

"Jack Bruce and Leslie West" by Heinrich Klaffs is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

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