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The Leslie West Sound: Les Paul Jr. and Sunn

BobbyS

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Oct 9, 2001
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The one and only time I saw Mountain (1971) Leslie was playing through a Marshall 100 watt stack. My God what a sound!
 

j45

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Jun 14, 2002
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Is that Junior just signed by Leslie West or was it his? The bridge position and large burst on that one look like a late 55. From what the interview above says, it sounds like he had several.
 

Stumbler

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Jul 29, 2002
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Great clip of LEslie at Woodstock!. I was there!

I've posted this story several times, but here goes:
Spring of '69 and two bands are setting up for our prom - one a top 40 band and the other some band called the Vagrants from Long Island. I had been working on trying to learn EC's Crossroads solo so I was very familiar with the tone and the notes - couldn't play it worth a damn at that point, but was very familar with it. Then ... from the stages where the bands were seetting up, wafting out over the quad was this guitar playing the likes of which I had never heard. Man, is EC in our dining hall? I checked it out. A big hefty guy was sitting on the edge of the stage noodling and getting a sound exactly like EC in Cream, even more amazing because it was live. He had a LP Junior with a P90 playing through two small box 50watt Marshalls and two 4-12 cabs. Best live tone I ever heard. Later that night the Vagrants did their Cream-like show and they did Crossroads. The guitar player played the solos note for note, the vibrato, the tone every detail - perfect. I couldn't believe an LP Jr. could make a sound like that.

Later that summer at Woodstock, out came a new band called Mountain. I told my friend, "Hey John, you remember that big guitar player in the Vagrants that played at our prom? Well, there he is up there playing with Felix Pappalardi" Guitar player was of course Leslie West. Tell me about P90s!!!
 

j45

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Jun 14, 2002
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Yeah, it must be the speakers on the computer I was at. That tone is pretty happening. I thought it was the same clip that is on Youtube, that recording sounds pretty bad. Can anyone post Blood of the Sun from the same concert? You gotta hear his Jr on this one.
 

Nitebob

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Sep 6, 2001
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175
oops,
SUNN 2000S haha

I was just at the Hanpton Beach Casino 6 weeks ago

Nitebob
 

RickN

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Feb 12, 2002
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j45 said:
Yeah, it must be the speakers on the computer I was at. That tone is pretty happening. I thought it was the same clip that is on Youtube, that recording sounds pretty bad. Can anyone post Blood of the Sun from the same concert? You gotta hear his Jr on this one.
'zis what you were lookin' for?

Blood Of The Sun
 

Cream Fan

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May 1, 2003
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I thought the name, Al Romano, was familiar. I remember that article in Guitar Player, too. I was living in Boston back then and I actually wrote a letter to see if there was some way I could travel back and forth to take lessons from him. Never mailed it, as I got busy. I wonder what happened between Romano and Leslie, as in one of the above interviews, it sounds as if there is some bad blood.
 

585960

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Apr 5, 2002
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yeah saw Mountain everytime they came to Detroit. My favorite part of the Woodstock "Blood of the sun", is at the very end of the audience fade out, someone yells, "turn that damn thing off!" Hail Leslie!
 

j45

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'zis what you were lookin' for?
yeah that's the clip. Thanks Rick. That last lick, by himself. That's what I'm talking about. I listen to every guitar player that comes down the pipe, sound clips from every amp builder I can find and that's something I just don't hear. You can tell by the way the notes behave he is in extremely hi-gain, much more than a Marshall but it's almost as if it's clean. The harmonics are scalding and behaves perfect in every part of the fequency range. Then he hits that last 9th chord and the note separation is flawless. This is 1969? It would be hard to find another tone like that in that era or barely even now. He used no pedals that I'm aware of....just guitar chord and amp. The dude also has flawless contact with his instrument.
 

j45

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psigh4 said:
Another forum member posted the link to this site in another thread. There is some good stuff here.

http://tela.sugarmegs.org/sugaree/

Although it doesn't have Blood of the Sun in this audio clip maybe Delawaregold can feel like a teenager for another 50 minutes.

http://tela.sugarmegs.org/sugaree/Mountain1971-06-28ClosingFillmore.wma

This site only allows you to download on nights and weekends.

Wow, that's a 50 minute live show at The Fillmore. What is the name of that song at the 32 minute mark? It's a shame they didn't record with more room sound like Wheels of fire. His amp sound is coming strictly from the close mic so you don't get the huge scale of all those stacks. Killer, nevertheless.
 

RickN

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Feb 12, 2002
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:headbange

If you think the Woodstock stuff sounds fat, you should hear some of the stuff on a couple of Mountain boots that Billy sent to me a couple of years ago... stuff recorded in other gigs. Some of the nights Leslie's tone was just crushing!!!
 

Chip's Music

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Mar 24, 2002
Messages
182
YO on All of this! The first concert that I ever went to was in late May/early June 1970 at the end of 9th grade. It was Jethro Tull with Mountain and a band from Orlando called Rush ( no relation of course to the Canadian band ).Both leslie and Felix had the Sunn cab/head /cab stacks pictured here (4 each) with 2 15's in the bass cabs and offset 4 12's in the guitar cabs. Mississippi Queen was hot on the radio and Leslie had that EXACT fantastic tone live through what looked like 200S heads--no P.A. heads were up there. Later in 1976 with The Leslie West Band he was using a single cut TV Les Paul Special with two Marshall stacks which were new with 6550 tubes and had a less sweet brighter more clear sound . They opened with his version of "Honky Tonk Women" in the key of A-not the Stones G-and also played his version of "House Of The Rising Sun".He was just GREAT. Also, how can one not like Felix P's vocals???????
 

lpnv59

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Jul 15, 2001
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Nitebob said:
oops,
SUNN 2000S haha

I was just at the Hanpton Beach Casino 6 weeks ago

Nitebob

WHo were you there with? Should gave me a heads up! :headbange :headbange
 

delawaregold

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Jun 27, 2005
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1,814
Mountain Tour Dates:

08/03/06 Asser Levy Park Brooklyn NY
08/04/06 Meadowbrook Music Ctr Gilford NH
08/05/06 Suituate Music Days Suituate MA
08/10/06 Finger Lakes PAC Canadaquia NY
08/11/06 Mountain Laural Ctr Bushkill PA
08/12/06 Seven Springs Resort Champion PA
08/13/06 Brookhaven Amphitheater Farningville NY
08/18/06 Andersons Phoenix AZ
08/19/06 Cannery Casino Las Vegas NV
08/24/06 Dexters Riverdale NJ
08/25/06 NE Dodge Music Center Hartford CT
08/27/06 DTE Music Center Clarkston MI
09/22/06 Sherman Theater Stroudsburg PA
09/23/06 GPU Energy Park Lakewood NJ
09/24/06 Sellersville Theater Sellersville PA
10/06/06 State Theater St Petersburg FL
11/11/06 BB Kings NYC NY
 

hanknc

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Mar 5, 2005
Messages
1,119
"When I saw him with Jack Bruce, he was using 2 Marshall stacks with a Les Paul Jr. "

ditto

Leslie has the magic fingers. He'd sound good playing a cardboard box.
 
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