The Leslie West Sound: Les Paul Jr. and Sunn

[j45]

I've never been a huge Leslie West fan but reflecting back on the impact of records as we bought and devoured them as kids, I find that the tone he got with his Junior and Sunn amps has still not been duplicated since. One of the greatest and most unique Les Paul tones ever. My most rapidly impressionable years, as a young guitarist were 1969 and 70. We had been through the early Hendrix and Cream years and to the group of guys I hung around, Electric Ladyland, Wheels of Fire, and Super session were the cornerstones for jamming and direction our littlle garage band was taking. We also had Quicksilver Messenger service's Happy Trails and a few other of the west coast jam bands as prototypical examples for us to emulate. Then '69 and '70 brought the biggest onslaught of music released as it had been sparse before in comparison.

I clearly recall the day in 1969 my high school bass player and I went to the head shop record store after school let out one afternoon and we picked up about 15 albums that day. The most we'd ever bought. Blues Jam in Chicago was being unpacked and the clerk said he wanted to turn us on to something hip. We left with Goodbye Cream, Vols 1 & 2 of the Fleetwood Mac Chicago Jams, a Shuggie Otis record, Zep 1 & 2, and a stack of others. In those years, we always spent at least three or four days a week after school lying in my friends bedroom hanging on every note with our eyes glued to the ceiling for two or three hours before his dad got home and shut it down.

The next year yielded Live Cream I, Band of Gypsies, Live at Leeds, and although John Barleycorn Must Die and the Blind Faith were not live, these records were what probably influenced the guys I played with the most. It was an incredible three years when the first efforts of all the greats appeared on vinyl. Johnny Winter, Jeff Beck, Free, Alvin Lee, MC5, Santana, Cactus, Humble Pie, and dozens of others seemed to appear like men from outer space... as much as a 15 year old kid with nothing but guitars on the brain with could handle. Just 5 or 6 years before, nothing existed but bubble gum music and the 50's do-wop that preceeded...there was no such thing as a Marshall amplifier.

I say all this to put in perspective where I was in music the day I first heard of Leslie West. There was an overweight kid with long bushy, curly hair at our school and he asked if he could come over one afternoon and jam with us. I didn't know he could play but couldn't think of a reason to say no so I invited him to join us. Looking back I can see that he was already into Leslie. He showed up in a long fringe buckskin jacket with a Melody Maker and an 8 track cassette. He wanted to show us some chords for a jam but first said lets check out this tape. I had never heard of Mountain and the tape was "Climbing". We stuck it in my little Realistic component system which was actually pretty good. I'll never forget the moment I heard the guitar sound on Mississippi Queen for the first time. We were very young but already into gear and knew what amps would do. Going back to 1970, you have to realize how profound this outrageous, scalding, snarling guitar tone sounded to me. It was really like something magic had happened, like the first time I heard the trem bar go up and down on Hanky Panky in 1966. The kid showed us a little riff that sounded more like Sugar Magnolia than the Mountain song and he solo-ed ala Leslie West's opening solo on Miss. Queen, over and over, for about an hour. It was a fun jam, I learned a new little lick and we never really saw the kid much anymore. I bought Climbing, then Nantucket Sleighride, and when Mountain did Blood of The Sun at Woodstock released on "II" it became our jam anthem for several months. If you have a chance to check out that version, just listen to the insane tone he gets.

Does anyone know what model Sunn's he used? Whatever they were, they had very high gain. Also, are there any LW fans that would know anything about his Junior? I got to see him play in 1973 with West, Bruce, and Lang but he was using and Echoplex and the echo signal was easily even with guitar and about 10 repeats. I couldn't hear what he was playing for the echo. I recall four stacks per side and Jack Bruce's bass was heavily overdriven as well. I've become fascinated with that Junior and Sunn tone lately. I would say it really is THE most aggrsessie tone from that era and no one has sounded like that since. If there are any hardcore fans here or anyone with info or memories, I'd love to hear about his Les Paul Junior and amps. There is an awful YouTube video doing a Felix Papillardi song with the amps poorly mic-ed and there is no tone or music worth listening to for that matter. Anyone know of one with Leslie? I've also heard a terrible drug habit led to his near destruction and he never regained his music to any level of quality.

 

[RickN]

The Woodstock recording is what knocked me over, too. I was amazed when I found out he used a Sunn - I think someone once said it was a Sunn PA head? Billy, was that you?

Here's a clip from the Woodstock gig - this remains one of those moments when I was just stopped dead in my tracks, thinking: "Listen to what his guitar sounds like!!" It wasn't even about what notes he was playing or his vibrato - that appreciation came later. It was the sound. Alternately clear then singing then roaring and raging, all within a few seconds and all in his hands.

Theme From An Imaginary Western

 

[psigh4]

I ran across this interview that may help.

http://www.dinosaurrockguitar.com/interviews/West.shtml

 

[sbklein]

Thanks for that clip. Never heard it before. Terrific playing and great song! Is it available on CD?

 

[JohnnyAquanet]

Did't Leslie West also use a Dan Armstrong see-through plexi glass guitar some times?

 

[j45]

i'm not sure about the Dan Armstrong. I'm sure it's possible. It's pretty easy to tell when he uses the Junior. That clip of Imaginary Western is good but seems thin compared to other live recordings. Sounds like the amp was close mic-ed and didn't get much ambience of the room to capture the size of his sound. I'm also not a fan of Felix Pappalardi's singing. If anyone can post the studio or Woodstock version of Blood of the Sun, you can hear the incredible gain and blistering, fat sound of the Sunns. There is another live version on Twin Peaks I believe but the tone is not good there either and another guitar player on stage is killing the tune. Anyone ever hear what year the Junior was?

 

[lpnv59]

Did't Leslie West also use a Dan Armstrong see-through plexi glass guitar some times?

He used one for open tuned slide songs such as "Animal Trainer & The Toad" & "Crossroader"

 

[bigjimsguitars]

I believe that Leslie used a Sunn Colliseum...

j45:

It's amazing how so many of the albums you mentioned ended up in my collection as well!!!

I was a teenager in the early 70's and helped out at a record store in Hermosa Beach called Rock & Gravel Records and was always getting turned on to the new records as they came in.

My life effectively changed when I was able to con my older brother out of his Sunday pass (6/22/69) for the Newport Pop Festival (Devonshire Downs, Chatsworth. CA) and saw Jimi Hendrix as a impressionable 12 year old.

Jimi played in the middle of the day in a Jam Session for about 90 minutes with a band that included Buddy Miles on Drums, Bonnie Bramlet singing, Eric Burdon, and many others.

Later in the evening a Young Johhny Winter played and I was totally blown away.

I have to agree, that the music from around 1966 to say 1974 was a period that will go down as being very historic in the annals of music I was lucky enough to being there at the right time and to have a couple of older brothers to tag along with to see many of the greatest bands of all time and Mountain was one of them...when I saw Mountain and for the life of me I can't where it was, but I do remember that Felix Papalardi was playing bass along with Corky and Leslie and it was a great show.

I friend of my brother, Wyn Davis was already on to the Single Cut Jr Tone and played his through a 18 Watt Marshall!

It's funny that you mentioned Shuggie Otis as he used to show up and play with his dad's band when the Johhny Otis Review played at the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach and man could he play as a teenager!!!

 

[lpnv59]

The tone from Woodstock thin? OK!

According to some interview, he says he used a Sunn PA head for the recording of "Mississippi Queen". Probably for the rest of Climbing as well. That sound is all over it. When I saw Mountain live in late June '71, he and Felix both were playing thru 200S heads with the matching cabs all stacked up. They were modded for more gain. I saw them later in the year and Leslie switched to 3 Stramp Stacks. He used those on both West Bruce & Laing tours, The Wild West Show w/Mitch Ryder tour, as well as the live in Japan "Twin Peaks" when he and Felix reformed Mountain with another drummer and keyboard player. Then the final studio album "Avalanch" and tour of the reformed Mountain with 2nd guitarist David Perry from Nantucket MA. That ended lasted about a year. All with Stramp Amps which sounded like early 70's non master Marshalls. That became my favorite LW sound. Listen to West Bruce & Laing's "Live & Kickin". His tone with the STramps is great on that. Much better than Twin Peaks. I still love the sound he had with the Sunn Amps as well. BTW, LW used Juniors and a late 60's V set up with a wraparound and a P90 mostly.

 

[59_murphy_flame]

I always thought that Leslie West was a great guitar player in his era. Limited in what he could do, but he was very effective in what he did. He pulled great tone from whatever amp/guitar combo's he his. When I saw him with Jack Bruce, he was using 2 Marshall stacks with a Les Paul Jr.

I love the tone from TFIW. He used to call into Howard Sterns show from time to time and play his guitar thru the phone. Even over the radio, he still has great tone and chops.

 

[j45]

I certainly don't think the tone on the Woodstock II album is thin. I've only heard Blood of The Sun. One of the best guitar tones I've ever heard....ever. On the Imaginary Western clip posted above, it doesn't sound as fat as I've him sound. If that is from Woodstock, it's a different feed to whatever recorded it.

Animal Trainer and the Toad was my favorite tone on NS...that and Don't Look Around. I never knew about the Dan Armstrong for slide. I never could get into Twin Peaks and the fact that they leaned away from the other guitar player in the mix made it even more of a hinderance.

Did anyone see the first West, Bruce and Lang tour? I've always wondered if the echoplex was over mixed elsewhere or if it was just that one night. I remember all of us were saying we couldn't hear a damn thing he was playing. Nothing but echo.

I do have to agree that his playing may have been just a bit one dimensional but when you come to play that hard, all it takes is one trick. Still incredibly unique in the big picture of rock and roll.

 

[lpnv59]

The 2 times I saw W,B & L he had an Echoplex off stage thru the PA. He'd signal the sound enginer to turn it on by pointing up to the ceiling. He had no Echoplex the first time I saw Mountain when he was playing thru the Sunns and supporting Nantucket Sleighride. He had his Echoplex next to the Stramps on stage for the show I saw supporting "Flowers Of Evil". Everytime he used echo, it was very natural sounding and not overly loud. And not over used.

 

[dwagar]

Thanks for TFAIM - I haven't heard that in years. Beautiful stuff.

 

[lpnv59]

Got this off a Sunn Amp website.


At the invitation of Al Romano, a New York collector, VG was able to put a full 2000S set through the paces (outdoors of course). Using the late Felix Pappalardi's '63 Thunderbird bass, we filled the Hudson River Valley with a blast of classic licks, amp settings at the requisite 10. The instrument and bass rig have been somewhat reunited, as all the pieces came from the Mountain organization (the head from Felix and the bottoms traced back to Charles Lane Rehearsal Studios, Manhattan, where they reportedly had been sold to pay an outstanding balance).


Numerous features separate this set from a stock model, including the addition of a 120/240V switch for world travelers, a slave output with a mysterious switch allowing a number of heads to be controlled from a single set of controls, and an additional output jack. The handwritten "Sugar" relates to a post-Mountain Pappalardi bassist (Felix had switched to guitar) and the additional pilot light in the middle of the front panel was a Mountain trademark. In an interview for Guitar Player (April '72), Pappalardi refers to the head. "It was souped up some more by our Tom Lyle, but I really don't know what he did. Something to the top, I think. I'm really not into all that electronic thing. As long as I have the bark, the attack that I like, everything's fine."

Like many VG readers, the owner of this set is obviously fanatical about his gear (he also owns a mint Olympic White '65 Strat. "...just like Hendrix's early shows," Ace Frehley's flamey '59 Les Paul Standard, and numerous '60s Marshalls). But when he tried to convince me the amplifier's cabinet says "Mountain" on it, I honestly thought he was bonkers. It seemed no matter which angle we looked at it, I couldn't see it and, of course, he could! He assured me it was there, pulling out lights and illuminating the top surface from all angles. Finally, he took it outside, sprayed water on the top and it magically appeared! Pictures were taken from numerous angles, with the results ranging from blank black to a legible word. Cosmic, dude!


The grille on the head has the close-pattern material used on all the Sunn stuff until late-'69, while the bottoms are dressed in the later Fender-style cloth. It seems obvious the speaker cabinets once were in the Mountain camp, as they are numbered on the bottom in large white numbers for inventory and transport and have a small black label stamped over the numbers with references to Windfall, the band's record label.


It's wise to always be skeptical about celebrity instruments, but this would have been too much to bother with in a forgery. Through the rumor mill (a former owner), it was suggested the cabinets were recovered by Sunn before the identifications were added. After talking to Sunn's A&R man from the era and hearing stories about the factory regularly doing makeovers on equipment from their artist loaner pool, it seems possible. They wouldn't have wanted these promotional items to look ratty, as was inevitable in touring situations (particularly on heavy items).

Which brings us to a "Jimi Hendrix slept here" story that immediately sent up the red flags. Could some of the Mountain gear have been leftovers from Hendrix tours? Numerous guitars and amps have reportedly been passed on to musicians from J.H. himself and if the A&R people thought it was going to a good home, they could easily have looked the other way.

In the November '72 Guitar Player, a columnist writes, "The sound system Felix uses is the Sunn equipment he claims was designed for Jimi Hendrix."

This can be taken a number of ways, and since it is a bass rig, it would have been for Redding, not Hendrix (post-Experience bassist Billy Cox's association with Marshall ended the JHE/Sunn collaboration). Having the grille of the earlier models, but the Bass Boost switch and 6550s of the later version, place it early-to-mid '69, so it could have been one of Redding's last Sunns. By then, Hendrix was known to go over Redding's original bass tracks in the studio, so the time frame is right.
Longtime Pappalardi/Windfall employee Richie DeMartino, who was with Mountain on a daily basis, remembers Hendrix giving Pappalardi "...a whole room full of Sunns," including the head discussed here.

So how does it sound? Cranked, it does a certain style amazingly, with endless sustain but a clarity to individual notes, as on the best guitar amps. Romano ran through the complete catalog of Mountain classics (he studied with West as a teenager, see October '80 Guitar Player for a photo) and it seems obvious Felix's lyrical single-note playing would not have been the same with a modern rig. On the other hand, playing any combination of notes sent the amp into power chord heaven, but not like a Fuzztone; magical in its own way, although certainly not for everybody. The bottoms performed confidently and solidly with no rattle.

Sad in a way, very few players can consistently get away with the volume required to bring out the character of this amp's power tube distortion, making it impractical for everyday use. Since the 2000S amps were extremely expensive and used almost exclusively by professionals, they are today quite rare. As for using it for fun, how often and how long can you get away with playing really loud in your backyard? Playing it indoors would rattle the house down and in a soundproof rehearsal room, you'd go deaf! If you owned your own theater and had a really long guitar cord...another tube-powered dinosaur on its way to extinction.

Thanks to all the folks who helped this month; Noel, Mrs. R, Buck, NiteBob, Richie, Conrad, and anybody I've forgotten. All catalogs and photos courtesy of the author

 

[Cussion]

"Missisippi Queen".. thats a hell of a lead sound!
I remember thinking "how did he get that sound" a few years ago, and then I saw pictures of Les using a LP Junior and I couldn't believe it.. I've never played through a Sunn Colisseum amp, but I know that Jeff Beck used 'em as well (live with BBA) and he also had that sort of huge lead tone, pushed by a Colorsound Overdriver.

 

[j45]

Here's a pic of the Hendrix Sunns. I found this pic on the net a few years ago and saved it in my files. A buddy of mine has a bunch of Mountain stage pics and I called him to get him to e-mail some to me. As I recall, the set up dwarfs the Hendrix rigs.


Great Mountain pics above. Felix's EB-1 looks like a late 60's model with the adj. bridge and witch hats. Hard to see Leslie's Junior but looks like the wide p/u/bridge spacing and the big sunburst seems more later 50's.

 

[clayville]

Nothing to add other than the usual "this stuff floored me as a kid" uselessness and this:

great friggin thread! Thanks! :jim

 

[lpnv59]

One recollection I should add about Leslies Sunn rig. His cabs were loaded with 12's. They were in the same size cabs as Felix's amps. But there were 4 chrome dust covers, off set for fitment. Felix' cabs had 2-15 most likely. But I remember walking up to the stage after the show and looking at the backline at the Hampton Beach Casino, last week of June '71. There was also a small box 50 watt Marshall head over by keyboard player Steve Knight. Even though his roll is downplayed in Mountain. He added to their sound and i missed that when I saw them last with David Perry. Mountain lost its charm after Flowers Of Evil. The Avalanche tour, Leslie was so high on heroin. You could tell he wasn't there. He was loud but the fire was flickering.

 

[j45]

Great stuff man. Are you going to be in Arlington? I'd love to hear as much about this as I can.

The Steve Knight sound was very unorthodox for what was going on at the time. B-3's were the rock sound.. I don't know what he was playing but it sounded like an ordinary combo organ. That with the lack of a Leslie was always odd to my ears. I always felt that any organ with those perfectly in tune and non tempered tone generators needed the doppler effect of a Leslie to help make them more organic sounding. Even so, it worked with Mountain and like you say, part of the charm. Did he take the mellotron he used on the records on the road?

Anyone have close-ups of Leslie's Junior?

 

[delawaregold]

An interview with Leslie West from Vintage Guitar Magazine


Vintage Guitar: How many Juniors do you have?
Leslie West: Actually, now only two. I used to have more. I gave one to Pete Townsend and I traded about four. I had one of those double-cutaways, which I never liked.

Why do you like the single-cutaways better?
The single-cut guitars were always easier for me to play. I kept buying the double cuts anyway. Every time I bought a double-cut and it didn’t work out, it became a slide guitar.

What was it about the double-cutaway Juniors?
You know why these double-cut guitars are not my favorite? (Strums a chord and bends the neck out of tune).

What made you start playing a Junior?
You know why? To me, it was like a piece of wood and a microphone.

Have you found that some Juniors are better suited to specific types of playing?
I used to use guitars that were good on the first three frets in the studio and then I used ones that I just played solos on. I never had one, except the one Junior I used on stage, that I could use for everything. And it was right down the middle, you know? You see, some have a better tone on the top strings and others have better tone on the bottom strings, some are better on chords.

You never found one Junior that did it all? Lead, chords, woman tone, everything?
The Junior I played on stage, the one I gave to Pete Townsend. The best one I ever had is going to the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame from November to April, as part of a Hard Rock thing with Felix’s bass.

How do you like to have a Junior set up?
When I play a guitar, I like the action at an angle so the top strings are set higher up so I can get under them. A lot of people set the action too low on these guitars. If you leave the strings away from the pickups, you get the air in between, and better sustain. I like the E, B and the G strings to be away from the pickup, so you can get under the strings. Otherwise, it slips right back and it dies. See, the action on this guitar (he holds a ’54 Jr.) is the way I like it. It’s very high and it doesn’t hit the frets. Also, it’s easier to play with the action away from the pickup. You’ve got to have air between the strings and that pickup.

Were there any modifications that you made to your Juniors?
We had to change the gears. That was the first thing I remember at rehearsal. Felix said “...you’d better go buy some Grover gears or this thing will never stay in tune.” Dan Armstrong used to take the tone control totally out. Actually, he took the capacitor out.

What about the theory that says the really great Juniors are the ones that have been really played. That people left the bad ones in the cases.
You’ve got to realize that most of the Juniors that I got, I bought from pawn shops that some old guy played and beat the living **** out of. You couldn’t put new frets on the guitar or it would fall apart.

Did you ever use some of the Epiphones with P-90s?
Never used them.

There is a picture in the Mountain book...
A double cutaway?

Yes.
For that same reason. You can pull on the neck. I pull on that neck and the intonation goes in and out. You can’t pull the single-cutaways out of tune.

So, you’re saying that you like the Juniors with fat necks?
Yeah!

If you want the link.

http://www.vintageguitar.com/brands/details.asp?ID=108