jtees4
Member
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2010
- Messages
- 209
Old thread, but always relevant! I loved Leslie West ever since my older sister's boyfriend left a copy of his first album...."Mountain", took the place of The Beatles for me, at least back then (still love The Beatles)....and I patterned my playing after him. I learned you didn't have to be fast to be great, and tone was the answer for us slow players. Anyway, in late '76 or early '77 I was in a new band. I had an Earth, nothing wrong with that, but I wanted a Marshall (hey, image matters), anyway I go to Stuyvesant Music aka "we buy guitars" on 48th Street NYC. Les lie west had just traded in a bunch of stuff. I played his Electra MPC guitar (before they made a model for him) and also his Hayman (which he used for slide, pictured on a few imports I have)....man I really wanted to own one of his guitars, but I needed an amp. So I bought a well used Marshall Major head. After I bought it I told the sales guy I really wanted one of Leslie's guitars, and he said.."who's amp do you think this is, he just traded it in", and he showed me the cabs which were stenciled with The Leslie West Band on the back. Unfortunately I could not afford all of it, so I just got his head. I bought other Marshall cabs as I could afford them. So there I was playing all over NYC in SMALL clubs with a full Marshall Major stack the next couple of years. Like I said, image mattered at the time. Today I would do it with a Blues Jr. or similar. One more quick one, during the 90's my sister asked me, "didn't you like that leslie West guy?". I said" still do". A couple of weeks later she brought me a bunch of his newer CD's all signed ....turns out my sister worked with Leslies Brother's wife (Larry, also from The Vagrants)....she told her co-worker about me and Leslie signed and sent those CD's to me. So yeah, he has a bad rep....but he was good to me!