Joan Jett’s 1981 anthem I Love Rock ‘n Roll is an electric guitar – and air guitar – classic, and Ricky Byrd says he received some crucial advice from Leslie West before tracking its guitar solo.

The song was originally written by the Arrows' Jake Hooker Alan Merrill in 1975. Jett, who reportedly saw the band perform the track on TV, brought it to the Runaways with the view of covering it. Though the idea was dismissed, she revived it when she went solo at the start of the 1980s.

Speaking in a new interview with Guitar World, Byrd – who served as Joan Jett's guitarist at the time, and helped her track the I Love Rock ‘n Roll record – says he didn’t put much thought into his solos across the album, seeing himself as an “on-the-fly” player. It brings the best out of him.

“I kind of like that panic mode when they hit the record button,” he says, “and you go through things where you do five takes of a solo, and you pick the best one, or maybe you comp it.”

That being said, he confesses to approaching I Love Rock ‘n Roll with a little more pre-planning. For that, blues rock legend Leslie West stepped in to lend a hand.

“At the very beginning of it, I pulled for the version she did on the demo with some of the guys from the Sex Pistols, if I remember correctly,” he explains. “And I do remember asking Leslie West, ‘How should I go about this song?’ He said, ‘Play a melody.’

“I remember that as if it were yesterday. He said, ‘Make sure it’s a melody.’ And if you listen to Mountain’s stuff, it always had a melodic style to it. I think my playing does that, you know?”

Byrd isn’t the only guitarist that West gave some melody-driven advice to. When recording his first solo album, Joe Bonamassa was told he’d be West’s favorite guitar player if he only played fewer notes. Likewise, Jethro Tull guitarist Martin Barre has also recounted how West influenced his playing on one of the prog legend’s most iconic songs.

The full interview with Ricky Byrd will be published in the coming weeks.

Joe Bonamassa says the advice Leslie West gave to him 30 years ago has finally sunk in – and it’s led to him having a guitar solo epiphany.

Speaking to Premier Guitar ahead of the release of his latest solo album, Breakthrough, the besuited electric guitar titan says he met West while he was still a young, inexperienced player. His playing won the Mountain man over, but West had some words of wisdom to share.

“Thirty years ago, his advice was to divide by two,” Bonamassa explains. “He came to the studio in Ithaca, New York, when I was a kid working with [producer] Tom Dowd on what would be my first solo album.

“This was pre-production, and he guested on a track. And he, in that voice, goes: ‘You know, Joe, you’d be my favorite guitar player if you’d just divide by two.’ I’m like, ‘You mean half as many notes?’ He goes, ‘Right. Keep doing what you’re doing and divide by two.’”

West, who left a lasting impression on everyone from Martin Barre to Grace Bowers and Jared James Nichols, was never one to burn a hole in his fretboard. Now, Bonamassa is putting his words into action.

“I’ve noticed a change in my playing,” he reflects. “Especially when I’m touring and we’re playing big venues over here, I’ve been using ‘divide by two.’ That has been paying off. Every once in a while, you break through a frontier you didn’t even know you were gonna break through or didn’t even know existed.”

Another recent revelation came after Bonamassa bought a “museum-grade” 1941 Martin acoustic – which has since been made into a five-figure reissue model – and it’s kicked his vast collection of electric guitars to the curb.

“It was so clean that I couldn’t play it. It’s so preserved,” he adds. “Right after that, I got a 1942 000-18 from my friend Jim Hauer in Dayton, Ohio, at Hauer Music. And once I had the neck set and it came back, I was like, ‘You know what? I get the acoustic.’ I was so focused on electric that acoustics would all sound the same to me.

“I’ve found that my accuracy on the electric has improved by embracing the acoustic. I find, especially in the studio, if I’m producing a record and I’m playing on it, just the changes, my chordal accuracy, is a lot better.

“When I plug a Les Paul into a Marshall or Fender Strat into a black-panel Princeton, the sounds you expect are going to come up, and then it’s up to you to create something,” he concludes. “[With] the acoustic, you’re wide open. I find that I’m coming up with more original ideas just by not playing electric when I’m home.”

Meanwhile, Bonamassa has explained why Fender Strats are “Swiss army guitars,” and offered players heartfelt guitar-buying advice to help quell buyer’s remorse once and for all.

Martin Barre might protest that he is “not and never will be a guitar hero”, but he’s certainly looked and sounded like one at numerous points in his career – and perhaps never more so than on Jethro Tull’s Aqualung.

However, in a recent interview with Guitarist, he explains the song’s tone was influenced by another six-strong icon.

“I’d met Leslie West, and like a lot of guitar players, you couldn’t meet Leslie West and come out unscathed,” he tells Guitarist. “I loved him to bits. I loved his playing, I loved his presence. And I loved Mountain.”

The influence stuck, particularly West’s rehabilitation of the Les Paul Junior as an instrument worthy of a guitar hero. Before Aqualung, Barre played a bootleg Les Paul but it met an unfortunate end on a hot summer’s day.

(“I left it in a car, and when I came back, it was like a banana,” he explains), so having quite literally given that one the backseat, he was in the market for a replacement. Barre immediately recalled his experience touring with Mountain a few years prior.

“Everything about them was a learning curve,” says Barre. “Not just the guitar playing but everything about their arrangements. So, like a lot of people, I bought a Gibson Les Paul Junior because Leslie had one.”

As a result, the Junior became one of the key instrument’s that Barre used throughout the album, including his crowning moment.

“So Aqualung was a ’58 Les Paul Junior and I still had my Hiwatt. And I had a really tasty 58’ Fender Strat. It was simple – no pedals, nothing. Just a guitar into the amp – and off you go.”

Off he went, indeed. For more on his time in Jethro Tull, the Aqualung sessions and recording in front of Jimmy Page, read Martin Barre’s full interview with Guitarist.

Guitar wunderkind Grace Bowers has been the face of the new school of guitarists who have exploded beyond the confines of social media – and well into every nook and cranny of the music industry.

From her recent link-up with Coldplay’s Chris Martin at the Grammys to her never-ending string of TV spots and onstage appearances with the likes of Dolly Parton, Marcus King, Bob Weir & Wolf Bros, and the Allman Betts Family, the guitarist is well and truly securing her future – while, at the same time, paying homage to the past.

Now, in a new interview, she has named her biggest inspiration.

“Leslie West is probably my favorite guitar player of all time,” she tells Guitar Player. As the co-founder, guitarist, and co-lead vocalist of Mountain, West was known for his vibrato with days-long sustain, thick, commanding tone – and of course, his penchant for a P-90 loaded Gibson Les Paul Jr.

“This [referring to Climbing] was Mountain's first-ever record, after they played Woodstock, and it had Theme From an Imaginary Western on it. The solo that Leslie takes on that is one of the most perfectly crafted guitar solos ever. His tone – not even just on this album, his tone in general – was so good. He's one of those players you can recognize right away. It's that distinct.”

As for why Bowers looks up to West so much, her reply is simple: he wasn't just a shredder – what made him stand out was his inventiveness combined with feel.

“He didn't play really fast, but when he did play he meant it. He almost played with, like, punctuation if that makes sense – his phrasing was so unique and original.

“A lot of people try to imitate that now, but I feel like he was the first guy to really play like that. Obviously, he drew from a lot of blues players, but he had his own way of doing it.”

Aside from Bowers, a gamut of guitarists have credited West for influencing their playing, among them Randy Rhoads, who called the Mountain guitarist's style “melodic but mean.”

For this month's column, I’d like to talk about my biggest guitar hero, Leslie West from Mountain. Leslie was the king of heavy, and the king of tone, phrasing and nuance.

There are a ton of things I took directly from Leslie, such as my preference for guitar pickups. Leslie is famously revered for the incredible tone he got from the single bridge-position P90 pickup on his signature guitar, a Gibson Les Paul Junior.

I remember being a kid, looking at the pictures of Leslie’s guitars on Mountain’s Twin Peaks album and realizing there was something different about his guitar as compared to a Les Paul Standard, which is fitted with humbucker pickups.

My friend told me. “No, Leslie uses a Les Paul Junior with a P90 pickup.” I was blown away by his tone, as he was able to make each note sound so big. Years later, when I formed my first trio, I thought about where I wanted the guitar to sit, sonically speaking, and the first place my mind would go was the sound of Leslie West’s guitar.

Leslie is most famously associated with his classic track Mississippi Queen, which is a benchmark for tone and feel. One of the things that influenced me on that track was Leslie’s approach to chords.

Figure 1 shows a series of standard two-note root-5th power chords played on the A and D strings: starting with E5, I then move up three frets to G5 and then alternate between the two chords.

Leslie would fatten the sound of these power chords by octave doubling each note. As shown in Figure 2, the index finger barres the bottom two strings to sound B and E, and the ring finger barres the D and G strings to sound the same two notes an octave higher.

Octave doubling notes in this way serves to make each chord sound huge. The first time I ever heard Leslie’s use of these voicings was on Don’t Look Around, similar to Figure 3.

Another technique I copped from Leslie was his use of volume swells. In a live performance, he would often play unaccompanied solos before the song Dreams of Milk and Honey, as he does on Flowers of Evil.

As demonstrated in Figure 4, with the guitar’s volume turned all the way down, Leslie would hammer onto a note then slowly turn up the volume.

In Figures 5 and 6, the initial note is bent up one and a half steps and then released and vibratoed. The sound produced is akin to that of a bowed note played on a violin or a cello.

Figure 7 demonstrates another way to use swells, as each note is fingerpicked with the volume off and then swelled.

Lastly, Leslie also influenced me to lean on major pentatonic licks along with minor pentatonic licks.

Figure 8 begins with E minor pentatonic (E, G, A, B, D) and then switches to E major pentatonic (E, F#, G#, B, C#). FIGURE 9 offers a longer example of how Leslie might stick with major pentatonic to weave long, beautifully melodic phrases, offering a great, warmer sounding alternative to minor pentatonic-based phrases.

With the Gibson Les Paul Junior celebrating its 70th anniversary in 2024, it’s hard not to immediately think of Leslie West – arguably the most influential Junior player who ever lived. The legendary Mountain co-founder and guitarist wielded his instantly recognizable TV Yellow and Sunburst models throughout his career.

In an excerpt from a 1993 interview, which was published in the latest edition of Guitarist, West reflects on his love affair with the Les Paul Junior, and recalls how he ended up giving one to Pete Townshend.

“Felix [Pappalardi, Mountain's bassist] gave me the first Junior that I used in Mountain,” he says. “It was basically a hunk of wood with a pickup on it, the cheapest guitar that Gibson ever made. But it was all I needed. It had one pickup, a tone control, and a volume control.

“When I started Mountain with Felix I used an SG Junior and the thing would never stay in tune. So he had this old beat-up Junior and he said, ‘Try this thing,’ and I never gave it back.”

West ended up giving the guitar he got via Pappalardi to The Who's Pete Townshend after he was summoned to play on the 1971 record Who's Next.

“I played on Won’t Get Fooled Again, Baby Don’t You Do It, and Behind Blue Eyes. They came over to the States and they were at the Record Plant in New York. Kit Lambert [The Who's record producer and manager at the time] called me up and said, ‘Pete wants to record an album, but he doesn’t want to overdub; he wants you to play lead.’ So we went down and we did it.”

These takes, which are a great example of two guitar legends collaborating, didn’t make the final cut – but were eventually released as part of the deluxe edition. However, West had built a good rapport with Townshend, so much so that he gave him a few trinkets from his collection.

“When I finished the sessions I gave Pete my Junior and an old Tweed Fender Champ and he wrote me a really beautiful letter. I had the greatest time seeing how they recorded because that was a unique group, I’ve got to tell you.”

The Who guitarist wasn’t the only individual West converted into a Les Paul Junior disciple. When Mountain supported Jethro Tull in the States, West, wielding his Junior, caught Martin Barre’s eye, inspiring him to adopt one himself.

“I ended up buying a Les Paul Junior, like everyone else who met him did. I had a really old ropey Fender Strat, but basically Aqualung was all recorded on the Les Paul Junior.”

For more about the history of the Gibson Les Paul Junior, plus new interviews with Marcus King and George Benson, pick up issue 518 of Guitarist at Magazines Direct.

The 1957 Les Paul Junior is a guitar I really love. The most well-known user of this instrument was Mountain guitarist Leslie West, who was universally beloved for having one of the heaviest guitar tones of all time. But there are many different sounds, both ultra-clean and distorted, that this instrument can provide, making it a perfect choice for just about any type of guitar-based music.

I treat the Les Paul Junior like a Fender Esquire, in that you can get a ton of different sounds out of a simple guitar fitted with one pickup, one volume control and one tone control. In the case of the Junior, it is fitted with a P90, which is a large, high-output single coil pickup.

Like an Esquire, the Junior works well for country-style guitar, as demonstrated by the licks shown in Figure 1. This 14-bar solo begins on beats 1 and 2 with a “country approved” phrase based on the A major pentatonic scale (A, B, C#, E, F#), after which I bring in C natural as a passing tone between C# and B, as well as G, via the open G string. The G note sounds great, as it implies an A7 chord (A, C#, E, G) and lends a bluesy feeling to the lines.

In bar 4, I switch to the A blues scale (A, C, D, Eb, E, G), initiated by partial barres across the high E and B strings, as well as the B and G strings. In bars 7-9, I expand the melodic lines to include F# and F natural.

Bringing in the F# evokes the sound of A Mixolydian (A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G), and, in the phrases played here, I use C natural and F natural as passing tones moving up to C# and F#, respectively.

Bar 13 into 14 is built from a “rolling” descending line that makes use of the open G, D, A and low E strings, as I move quickly between my fret-hand index and ring fingers.

If you turn the guitar up, the sound is perfect for root-5th power chords, as I demonstrate in Figure 2. Leslie created many of Mountain’s most iconic riffs from these simple two-note chords played on a Junior, such as those in Mississippi Queen, Nantucket Sleighride and many others.

If you turn the guitar’s tone knob all the way down, as I demonstrate in Figure 3, you can emulate the “woman tone” Eric Clapton makes use of on Cream songs like I Feel Free and Sunshine of Your Love. These licks are based on A minor pentatonic played up in 12th position, transitioning down to 10th position.

Back in 1957, the instrument was only available in sunburst or “TV yellow,” so named so that you could see it on this new contraption called black and white television.

Gibson and Epiphone both make great reissues of this classic instrument, so no need to break the bank when picking up a Les Paul Junior. Armed with one, you can rule the world.

Footage of Eddie Van Halen jamming with Mountain's Leslie West and Corky Laing at an LA club has found its way online. The nine-minute clip shows Van Halen joining Mountain onstage at the House of Blues in West Hollywood back in August 2002.

The professionally shot footage shows behind-the-scenes clips of the two Mountain members with Eddie Van Halen, an interview with Leslie West, and an onstage rendition of Never In My Life, from the 1970 Mountain album Climbing.

In the interview, West recalls how he and Van Halen became friends. “I was going to rehab in Milwaukee. I stopped playing for six months. So I met Ed and I introduced myself. After I saw him it got me playing again. He was kicking me up a notch,” he says, as transcribed by Louder. 

“So I called Randy Bachman. I said, 'How'd you like a rhythm guitar player for nothing?' I just wanted to get on tour. He said great and I went out on the tour, and Eddie and I played every night in the room afterwards and we became friends.

“He hasn't made any appearances for a long time. He knows how to play [Mountain classic] Never in My Life, one of my songs the right way I forgotten how to play.”

In a 2007 interview with Guitar World contributor Andy Aledort, West revealed how this surprise Van Halen appearance at the House of Blues came about.

“A couple years ago, right after Eddie announced he had tongue cancer, he hadn’t played in a while and I invited him to the House of Blues in LA to come down and play with me. 

“At soundcheck, I invited people to come down and play, like American Idol, and I said if someone played well enough, they could come up and play on the show with us.”

He continued, “So, on stage that night, I said, ‘The winner is…’ and I pulled a piece of paper out of my pocket and said, ‘Edward… uh… Van Halen!’ Eddie came out and played Never In My Life with us.”

“When he plays it, he actually plays the part Felix [Pappalardi, Mountain bassist] played, and when he played the solo, I started laughing, because he is the best – there is nobody better than him. There are guys in that ballpark, but they’re not in Yankee Stadium, you know what I mean?”

Heralded for his history as The Who’s windmilling firebrand and celebrated for his timeless arsenal of riffs and licks, Pete Townshend is considered one of the greatest rock guitarists of all time.

It’s a list Townshend shares with the likes of Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Gary Moore, Eric Clapton and countless others, and an accolade he’s been awarded following decades of knockout electric guitar feats.

Now, speaking in the new issue of Guitarist, Townshend has reflected on his personal playing philosophy – a strategy that has helped him craft his assortment of legendary licks, and won him some high-profile fans over the years.

In fact, according to the Stratocaster loyalist, he once received a particularly notable compliment from Mountain hero Leslie West, who said he preferred Townshend’s licks to Clapton’s.

When asked whether he still views the guitar as a tool for creativity, Townshend explained, “What I’m happy about is that I can do two days of practice and learn some really flashy runs if I want to, though I’m still stuck with the old order, which is trying to make sure that I don’t let my fingers play a series of clichés. 

“I remember Leslie West saying to me about Eric Clapton: ‘I prefer your licks, Pete, to Eric’s, because Eric seems to be playing things that he’s learned, that he’s picked up from other blues players,’” he added. “And I think that is a fair comparison, although I have seen Eric play live, where he really goes sky high.”

That West would be particularly fond of Townshend's playing especially comes as little surprise. After all, the pair had worked together on a cover of Marvin Gaye's Baby, Don't You Do It, and (according to ZigZag magazine via Guitar Player) Townshend had lifted some of West's licks “for the stage”.

In his Guitarist convo, the Who hero then went on to single out what he believed to be one of the biggest intimidating factors facing players today: Instagram guitarists, and the overwhelming urge to copy their fretboard acrobatics, instead of being “willing to take risks” with the instrument themselves.

“I think one of the things that all guitar players of today are intimidated by is these young guys on Instagram that shred to hell and back, or to heaven and back, I should say, who started when they were six,” he offered. “But we are just our fingers.

“So The Who have just done a tour of the UK, and I don’t expect people to go on YouTube and get their minds blown, but I do think that some of the playing, some of the solos, some of the chordwork, some of the surprises, some of the avoiding tricks and being willing to take risks is really what I still feel the guitar is great for.”

During his comprehensive conversation with Guitarist, Townshend didn’t just talk about his playing philosophy – he also discussed his current guitar-buying habits, which recently saw him veer into more progressive territory.

Specifically, the 78-year-old recently bought his first-ever Jackson after deeming it time to try a “heavy metal guitar”, and found it had him playing “three times” faster.

Head over Magazines Direct to pick up the latest issue of Guitarist, which features the full interview with Pete Townshend and an in-depth look at Mark Knopfler’s upcoming guitar auction.

The new issue also includes an interview with Jake Kiszka, in which the Greta Van Fleet member explains why he only used combo amps on the band's last album.

In 1973, at 17, Peter Baron was given the chance to tour beside Leslie West. He grabbed the opportunity by the horns, and has spent a lifetime applying the lessons he learned on tour en route to a stellar career. 

In conversation with Baron, it's immediately apparent that his enthusiasm for the guitar is endless – any mention of a Les Paul or Marshall brings salivatory expressions to his face. So, it shouldn't surprise anyone that Baron's “ultimate guitar rig” is, as it was during his days with Leslie West, “a Les Paul, and a 100-watt Marshall.”

Despite his low-key virtuoso-level chops, Baron prefers to keeps it simple, saying, “To me, there are no secrets – you just do what you do. Do whatever you feel, even if it falls into several genres. But make sure you put your heart and soul into it. That's what makes the magic.”

Baron should know, seeing as he's shared the stage with the likes of Peter Frampton, Clem Clempson, and Joe Lynn Turner. But regardless of who he stands beside, the approach never changes.

“I like to be eclectic,” he continues. “I like to mix fast stuff with slow while also focusing on tone and attack. But my 'fast' isn't fast by today's standards – I hear players today who play so fast that you can't even make out the notes. They sound like mosquitoes buzzing around.”

Though Baron may be seen by some as old-school, there's certainly a place in the world for a player harboring lessons from Leslie West. 

“I've come to appreciate guitarists who really play instead of doing tricks,” he says. “That stuff just sounds like random exercises, you know? I know that Leslie would agree with me if he were still here… it's something we talked about all the time.”

Baron and West became close over the decades – sharing the stage on and off from 1973 until 2020, just before West’s untimely passing from cardiac arrest in December of that year.

Baron wells up when asked to share his memories of his final show alongside West, saying, “I remember it well… he yelled at me! Then again, Leslie always yelled at me. Our last drummer, Bobby Rondinelli, always said he found it funny that he never saw Leslie yell at anyone like he yelled at me.”

Considering why he drew West’s ire so often, Baron explains, “Leslie always looked at me like that cocky little kid he picked up from my taco stand. But he was like a big brother and a mentor to me. I remember someone saying to Leslie once, ‘Leslie West needs Peter Baron like he needs a hole in his head,’ and Leslie said to him, ‘No, that’s not true – I love what Peter brings to the table; I’ve learned from him, too.’ Although, I’m not sure what, save for a few tacos!”

“I’ll never forget his last words to me,” he concludes. “They were, ‘Fuck you.’ He got mad at me because I was playing with Corky Laing again, so I said ‘Fuck you’ back and promised him I wasn’t playing with Corky and that I wouldn’t for as long as I was playing with him. He was fine after that and zipped away in his wheelchair. Talk about two grumpy old children! But that’s how it was – I miss him to this day. So, thank you, Leslie, for the ride, even if you needed me like a hole in the head.”

How did you get hooked up with Leslie West?

“I was 17, in high school. And through high school, I had a taco stand in Greenwich Village [New York City] – and believe it or not, I kept a Marshall half-stack with me, so I could practice. It must have looked odd to see a guy wailing away on a Marshall and a Les Paul at a taco stand, and people would stop and watch. 

“One day, a guy stopped and said, 'I'm a drummer; we should jam,' and we became friends. We decided to book some studio time, and when he called up, Leslie West answered the phone, and he got into a conversation, raving about my playing. So, Leslie said, 'Bring him down,' and he did.”

What was your reaction to Leslie's request?

“When my friend returned to the taco stand, telling me Leslie West wanted to jam, I was like, 'What kind of drugs are you on? I've never even played a club before.' But I knew Mountain's songs as well as anyone, so why not? But I didn't believe Leslie was actually going to be there, but I wasn't taking any chances, either. But sure enough, when we got to the studio, Leslie was sitting at the front desk. And the first thing he said was, 'Play me something.'”

And what did you play?

“I thought he would appreciate me playing his Dream Sequence solo from Flowers of Evil, but Leslie laughed, saying, 'Don't play me that shit; play me something else.' So, I did a fast run up the neck, and he said, 'Come inside.' There was Felix Pappalardi, Corky Laing, Mitch Ryder, and a few others, who I found out Leslie were auditioning for an upcoming tour. I had no idea I was being auditioned – I thought I was there to jam.” 

Is that how you ultimately got the gig?

“Pretty much. So, Leslie kicked the other guy off guitar, told me to plug in, and we ran through some songs. I'm standing there jamming with this guitar, God, doing what turned out to be the set. Leslie nodded for me to play solos, and that was it. 

“I went home with stars in my eyes and thought that was the end. But that night, my mother answered a phone call, saying, 'Some guy named Leslie West is on for you,' and I'm like, 'What?' So, Leslie says, 'Do you want to join my band and go to Japan?' I said, 'Yes,' and off we went.”

What gear defined that first tour?

“Right off the bat, Leslie asked me about equipment. And I was ready to go – I had three Marshall stacks, a '56 Les Paul Jr., and a '57 Black Beauty. The next day, my equipment was picked up, we began rehearsals, and we hit the road two weeks later.” 

I assume Leslie rubbed off on you quickly.

“Yes and no. I was already cocky and had a lot of balls. So, Leslie didn't need to teach me that. But he did teach the magic of slowing down to be more effective. I picked up on his touch and hints about rhythm playing, but I had substantial chops by then. I was only 17, but I'd been playing for 12 years. No-one could hold a note like Leslie West, but he also stole a few tricks from me.”

Such as?

“I won't go too deep, but he stole my Echoplex solo that he had me do. This was a bit after when Mountain reformed. My friends were dying, and kind of mad when they saw it! But one night, Leslie walked off stage and said, 'See, I learned something from you, too.' But don't get me wrong – I took it as a compliment.

“Leslie never acted like he was better and was always complimentary about what I did better than him and vice versa. He told me that I had more talent than him, but I didn't know how to utilize my full potential, and he did.”

What else set Leslie apart? 

“Leslie combined his attack, innate ability, and a lot of melody. He had this way of using the whammy bar to shutter notes and chords – it was incredible. Believe it or not, he got that from watching Porky Pig [Looney Tunes] cartoons. He often imitated him, and he did so with his guitar, too. A lot of Leslie’s rhythm stutter carried from his joking and imitating to his guitar playing. That's something that I'm sure a lot of people don't know.” 

Do you still have any gear you used during those early years with Leslie?

“I still have another '57 Black Beauty I bought at the Music Inn on 4th Street in New York City while on tour with him. It's my all-time favorite guitar. It's rich with tone, smooth and highly versatile. And I still have the same Marshall 100-watt heads, minus one, which is the one that Vito Bratta mentioned using in the '80s. So, Vito has one head, which he spoke about recently, and I have the other two.” 

How did playing with Leslie shape you most?

“I used to throw my guitar across the stage after my solo each night. Looking back, it was daring to throw a '56 Les Paul Junior across the stage, but what did I know? It would drive the crowd crazy and was truly amazing! I saw how an audience can be excited to the point of almost getting out of hand, teaching me about showmanship. Beyond that, I want everyone in the world to be happy. It’s a tall order, but I’ve got to try and make people look on the bright side.

“There's light in the darkness – I'll always keep a soft spot for people lost in it. I’ve always tried to make the world a better place in my own way, and I'm still doing that.”

Through his fretboard heroics with glam metal icons White Lion, Vito Bratta became a legend of the guitar world and a standout player in the age of the Guitar God, wielding any number of ESP models with frightening effect.

On stage, such instruments became synonymous with Bratta, who was also partial to playing a Steinberger GM2S, a '75 Les Paul Custom, and a mid-'70s Ibanez Destroyer.

But, behind the scenes, such gear choices weren’t always the norm in the studio – instead, for White Lion’s 1987 LP, Pride, Bratta swapped out some of his own rig for something else entirely.

In the latest issue of Guitar World, Bratta took a trip down memory lane to discuss and dissect some of his most accomplished White Lion solos, but drew particular attention to the lead effort found in All You Need is Rock ‘n’ Roll – which was, at it turns out, recorded with one of Jimi Hendrix’s Fender Stratocasters.

“If you want to talk about a good solo from Pride, I’d point you toward All You Need is Rock ’n’ Roll,” he said. “I recorded the entire solo for that song with Jimi Hendrix’s black Stratocaster.”

As for how he managed to get his hands on Hendrix’s six-string, Bratta explained, “There’s a keyboard player called Al Kooper, who played with everybody, including Hendrix. Hendrix gave Al Kooper his black Strat somewhere along the way, so he had it. 

“Al was working with us in the studio on Pride and was listening to me practicing the All You Need is Rock ’n’ Roll solo,” he continued “I guess he realized I didn’t have a neck pickup in my Strat, and suddenly, Al goes, 'Hold on, Vito, let me get you something.' 

“He leaves, comes back and pulls out Jimi Hendrix’s guitar. I knew what it was the second I saw it, and again, I’m just a kid, so I’m in awe of this thing. So Al goes, 'Plug it in. Play it, Vito.'

“Long story short, I used Hendrix’s black Stratocaster to record the solo for All You Need is Rock ’n’ Roll. When I listen back to the record, I can hear the classic Hendrix sound all over that song.”

As per the Jimi Hendrix Archives, the Strat in question is most likely to be the one that Hendrix gifted to Kooper in 1968, after the latter helped record some piano overdubs on Electric Ladyland’s Long Hot Summer Night.

In 1997 – around a decade after Bratta used it on Pride – the Strat went up for auction with an estimated sale price of $280,000, though failed to sell following a $160,000 bid that failed to meet its reserve price.

But Hendrix’s Strat wasn’t the only piece of high profile gear that made it onto All You Need is Rock ‘n’ Roll – he also drafted in a guitar amp once played by Mountain’s Leslie West.

“I was plugged into an old Marshall, but it wasn’t the same one from [White Lion’s debut album] Fight to Survive,” he teased. “But Pride was an old 100-watt Marshall, and you’ll never guess whose it was.

“I used Leslie West’s 100-watt Marshall. But not just any old Leslie West Marshall; it was his favorite. This was the same amp he used to record all those classic Mountain songs.”

Naturally, the experience proved to be particularly thrilling for Bratta – even if he was “too young to grasp it fully” – with the White Lion virtuoso going on to reveal he still owns West’s Mountain Marshall.

“So I’m a kid with Jimi Hendrix’s Strat plugged into Leslie West’s Marshall,” he reflected. “I’m proud to say I still own that amp. But it was so crazy that I was almost waiting for Jimmy Page to stroll in and say, 'Hey, do you need any of my gear, too?' It was just crazy.”

Head over to Magazines Direct to pick up the latest issue of Guitar World, which features the full interview with Vito Bratta.

Guitarists owning amps that once belonged to their heroes is a common occurrence in the upper echelons of the guitar world. Last year, John Mayer revealed he was in possession of the Dumble that Stevie Ray Vaughan used to record Texas Flood.

It’s hard to imagine what it must have been like hearing Leslie West tear into his set with Mountain at Woodstock in 1969. The most enduring image today is West playing his Les Paul Junior with a driven tone and sustain – which still sounds great, even at a time when such sounds have become easier to achieve and are relatively mainstream. 

Rolling Stone’s suggestion back then that Mountain were a “louder version of Cream” wasn’t entirely without merit, but Mountain definitely brought their own take on blues and rock to the mix – and played through stacks of Sunn amplifiers modified for higher gain, which was pioneering thinking in itself! 

Of course, Leslie West played several different guitars through a number of different rigs throughout his career, but he always managed to hit a sweet spot with his volume, drive and sustain. He favoured both major and minor pentatonic ideas in his solos, which would contrast with his frequently minor pentatonic riffs or powerchord sequences, which didn’t automatically suggest a major soloing approach. 

I’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating: blues and blues-rock gets so much of its character through the deliberate contrasting of major and minor ideas, whether that’s B.B. King pulling a minor 3rd slightly sharp, or Fats Domino trilling between a major and minor 3rd on the piano to give the illusion of a note somewhere in between.

I can’t pretend I’ve second-guessed exactly what Leslie West would have played over this backing, but it’s certainly been fun to check out a few of his performances over the years and take an educated guess.

As you’ll see, the solo was originally played as one continuous take, but we’ve broken it up into four sections to make it easier to digest.

Example 1. 

This opening phrase heads straight for the major 3rd (G# in this key of E). There’s a stuttering rhythm here before heading to a more conventional pentatonic phrase. 

You could regard this as a shape 5 E major pentatonic or a shape 1 C# minor pentatonic, as they’re exactly the same thing, albeit with a different root note. As you may know, every major key has a relative minor, which can be very useful when you want solos to sound ‘bluesy’ in a major key.

Example 2. 

As we continue, we’re still using the E major/C# minor pentatonic in the 9th position, shortly moving up to the 12th fret for what I like to think of as a shape 1 E minor pentatonic, but acknowledging the major 3rd (G#) by bending all or part of the way to it, as well as playing it outright. This is where all the action is when looking to create that major/minor ambiguity that so characterises the blues.

Example 3. 

Almost immediately, there is another shift upwards, still staying pentatonic. We start with a fairly clear demonstration of a shape 2 in E minor on the highest three strings, then slide up for what is basically a shape 3 of that same scale but bending up to a C# at the 19th fret of the high E. This nails the major 3rd of the A chord underneath – a powerchord with no 3rd but now perceived as major!

Example 4. 

Staying in the same position over the change back to E and incorporating a number of bends into the major 3rd (G#), I still prefer to view this as E minor pentatonic with some bends to G#. 

However, you could also correctly view this as a shape 3 E major pentatonic. Either way, we soon shift/slide down to a clear case of shape 1 E minor pentatonic. Go with whichever way works best for you in the moment.

The guitar-hero-packed Legacy: A Tribute To Leslie West was released on Friday (March 25) and now you can hear Slash’s contribution to the record – a cover of the classic Mountain hit, Mississippi Queen.

Compared to the laid back roll of West’s original recording, the Guns N’ Roses man’s take on the 1970 classic feels more immediate and vicious. In addition, Slash is accompanied by an energetic (and appropriately sleazy) vocal from Marc LaBelle of fast-rising rock band Dirty Honey.

Mississippi Queen was recorded during the sessions for Mountain’s debut album Climbing! It became a breakthrough hit for the band, cemented Leslie West’s place in music history and (perhaps relatedly) is the best use of a cowbell this side of (Don’t Fear) The Reaper.

As such, Slash is not the first megastar to cover the track. Previous versions have been recorded by Bachman-Turner Overdrive, W.A.S.P. and Ozzy Osbourne – who had a hit in 2005 with the song, when it featured on his Under Cover album.

The track follows advance singles from Legacy that included Zakk Wylde’s take on Blood Of The Sun and Charlie Starr of Blackberry Smoke’s soulful interpretation of Silver Paper. 

The album is packed with guitar talent and elsewhere features contributions from Marty Friedman, Martin Barre, Steve Morse, Elliot Easton, Randy Bachman, George Lynch and Yngwie Malmsteen.

Legacy: A Tribute to Leslie West is available to stream now.

The new star-studded Leslie West tribute album, Legacy: A Tribute to Leslie West, arrived in its entirety last Friday (March 25), and as expected the record contains a dizzying array of explosive electric guitar-driven tributes to the late Mountain icon.

Chief among the tracklist is Yngwie Malmsteen’s supercharged cover of West’s 1969 cut Long Red, which sees the Swedish speed demon deck out West’s acoustic cut with his trademark style of dizzying lead work.

Teaming up with Teddy Rondinelli for the effort, Malmsteen totally transforms the original track, swapping out its ethereal keys and calming acoustic guitar progressions for a high octane opening exchange powered by scorching blues bends and, of course, a healthy dose of shred.

Malmsteen’s fretboard fireworks – which take all of three seconds to arrive – continue undisturbed for the first full minute of the cover, before introducing the vocals in a furious, million-miles-per-hour flurry of notes.

It’s a dramatic take on West’s original, which was first released on his debut solo album, Mountain, in 1969. In the latter half of the track, Malmsteen’s unrelenting lead work continues unabated, and helps close the cover out with another solid minute-and-a-half of shredding, sweeping and soloing.

You can hear the effort in the video above.

Malmsteen is joined on the Legacy: A Tribute to Leslie West tracklist by a number of A-list guitar-playing peers, including Slash, who contributed to the record a cover of West’s totemic track, Mississippi Queen.

Joining Slash and Malmsteen on what is perhaps one of the greatest tribute album lineups we’ve ever seen is Zakk Wylde – whose take on West's Blood of the Sun was the record’s lead single – Dee Snider, Steve Morse, Elliot Easton and George Lynch.

Other names on the album include Marty Friedman, Mike Portnoy, Joe Lynn Turner, Martin Barre and Robby Krieger, as well as Randy and Tal Bachman, Eddie Ojeda, Marc Labelle and Rev Jones.

West’s widow, Jenni, said in a statement when the album was announced, “Nobody in this world has ever made me feel loved as much as Leslie, and I feel so honored and grateful that I could give him this gift. 

“He would often say, ‘If it doesn’t make my balls rumble, it’s not right,’” she continued. “And I think there’s some balls-rumbling tones on this record. When you’re listening to it, you might even think it’s Leslie playing – and that’s a good thing. He really believed that adage of imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. 

“Even when some of the players do their own twists on the music, they’re still doing it in a way that’s authentic and respectful, and Leslie would have appreciated that.”

Legacy: A Tribute to Leslie West is available to stream now.

Blackberry Smoke frontman and guitarist Charlie Starr has shared his interpretation of Leslie West song Silver Paper. 

The track is the second we’ve heard from Legacy, a star-studded tribute album to the late West, which arrives later this month (March 25).

Starr and West reportedly became friends before the guitar legend’s death in December 2020. However, far from mournful, Starr’s contribution (taken from Mountain’s 1970 debut album Climbing!) feels like a celebration – both of West as a person and the distinct blend of hefty riffing and soulful lead work inherent in his playing.

“The choice of track was an easy one. I love Silver Paper, and it’s got one of the coolest guitar licks of all time,” reflects the Blackberry Smoke frontman. 

“Leslie played exactly what the song needed; his timing was impeccable. He played way back in the pocket, and it was so nasty and so great – the kind of things that you aspire to. I’m very proud to be part of this project. God bless Leslie West.”

Starr is accompanied on the track by keyboardist Mike DiMeo, plus West’s former bassist Rev Jones and drummer Bobby Rondinelli, the latter of whom co-produced Legacy.

“Growing up as a Mountain fan, then playing with Leslie for the last eight years has been a dream come true,” says Rondinelli. “Silver Paper with Charlie Starr - I think you’ll agree Charlie nailed it, and it was a pleasure to work with. Rev Jones, Mike DiMeo and myself on drums, I think Leslie would approve.”

The single follows the first taster of the album, a cover of Blood Of The Sun by Zakk Wylde and a thunderous version of Theme For An Imaginary Western by Twisted Sister's Dee Snider and Eddie Ojeda, along with Rudy Sarzo and Mike Portnoy.

Elsewhere, Legacy is set to feature Robby Krieger, Slash, Yngwie Malmsteen, Randy Bachman, The Cars’ Elliot Easton, George Lynch, Marty Friedman, Steve Morse and Dirty Honey’s Mark Labelle, among others – the full tracklisting is below.

1. Blood of the Sun (feat. Zakk Wylde)
2. Nantucket Sleighride (To Owen Coffin) (feat. Joe Lynn Turner, Marty Friedman)
3. Theme for an Imaginary Western (feat. Dee Snider, Mike Portnoy)
4. For Yasgur's Farm (feat. Joe Lynn Turner, Martin Barre)
5. Why Dontcha (feat. Steve Morse, Ronnie Romero)
6. Sittin' On a Rainbow (feat. Elliot Easton, Ronnie Romero)
7. Never in My Life (feat. Dee Snider, George Lynch)
8. The Doctor (feat. Robby Krieger, Ronnie Romero)
9. Silver Paper (feat. Charlie Starr)
10. Money (Whatcha Gonna Do)/By the River – medley (feat. Randy Bachman & Tal Bachman)
11. Long Red (feat. Yngwie Malmsteen & Teddy Rondinelli)
12. Mississippi Queen (feat. Slash, Marc Labelle)

Back in November, it was announced that a jaw-dropping group of A-list rockers had come together for Legacy, a tribute album dedicated to Mountain singer and electric guitar player Leslie West.

Two of the big names on that list were Dee Snider and Eddie Ojeda, of Twisted Sister fame. With the help of Quiet Riot bass guitar player Rudy Sarzo and former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, Snider and Ojeda contributed a heroic version of Theme for an Imaginary Western – a Pete Brown/Jack Bruce-penned tune prominently covered by Mountain – to the album, which you can now hear below.

Snider and Ojeda's version of the hard-rock standard is a faithful one, with the latter's soaring solo in particular tipping its cap to West. It follows Legacy's first single, Zakk Wylde's rowdy cover of Mountain's Blood Of The Sun.

“Leslie was a hero, friend, amazing guy and a guitar god," Snider said of West in a statement. "I always wanted to sing this song. It’s my favorite Leslie West guitar solo. It resonates with me, and speaks to me on so many levels. I’m honored to have gotten a chance to do it on this record.”

Snider, Ojeda, Sarzo and Portnoy are joined on Legacy by Zakk Wylde, Slash, Randy and Tal Bachman, Martin Barre, Joe Lynn Turner, Charlie Starr, Elliot Easton, Robby Krieger, George Lynch, Marty Friedman, Steve Morse, Marc Labelle, Yngwie Malmsteen, Bobby Rondinelli, and Rev Jones.

Legacy: A Tribute to Leslie West is set for a March 25 release via Provogue / Mascot Label Group, and can be preordered via Leslie West's website.

You can examine the album's cover art and tracklist below.

“Nobody in this world has ever made me feel loved as much as Leslie, and I feel so honored and grateful that I could give him this gift," said West's widow, Jenni, in a statement. “He would often say, ‘If it doesn’t make my balls rumble, it’s not right.’ And I think there’s some balls-rumbling tones on this record. 

"When you’re listening to it, you might even think it’s Leslie playing – and that’s a good thing. He really believed that adage of imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. Even when some of the players do their own twists on the music, they’re still doing it in a way that’s authentic and respectful, and Leslie would have appreciated that.”

Legacy: A Tribute to Leslie West

1. Blood of the Sun (feat. Zakk Wylde)
2. Nantucket Sleighride (To Owen Coffin) (feat. Joe Lynn Turner, Marty Friedman)
3. Theme for an Imaginary Western (feat. Dee Snider, Mike Portnoy)
4. For Yasgur's Farm (feat. Joe Lynn Turner, Martin Barre)
5. Why Dontcha (feat. Steve Morse, Ronnie Romero)
6. Sittin' On a Rainbow (feat. Elliot Easton, Ronnie Romero)
7. Never in My Life (feat. Dee Snider, George Lynch)
8. The Doctor (feat. Robby Krieger, Ronnie Romero)
9. Silver Paper (feat. Charlie Starr)
10. Money (Whatcha Gonna Do)/By the River – medley (feat. Randy Bachman & Tal Bachman)
11. Long Red (feat. Yngwie Malmsteen & Teddy Rondinelli)
12. Mississippi Queen (feat. Slash, Marc Labelle)

Though not as much of a household name as the likes of Hendrix or Jimmy Page, Leslie West was a towering figure in hard-rock guitar.

His death last December provoked an outpouring of tributes from guitarists across the musical spectrum, a testament to the enormous influence of West's work with 70s hard-rock titans Mountain.

Another testament to West's enduring influence is Legacy, a newly-announced tribute to the guitarist with one of the greatest tribute album lineups we've ever seen.

You can check out a preview of the album, a rabble-rousing cover of Mountain's Blood Of The Sun by Zakk Wylde, below.

About that lineup, though. Aside from Wylde, Legacy features contributions from: Dee Snider, Slash, Randy and Tal Bachman, Martin Barre, Joe Lynn Turner, Charlie Starr, Elliot Easton, Robby Krieger, George Lynch, Marty Friedman, Steve Morse, Eddie Ojeda, Marc Labelle, Yngwie Malmsteen, Mike Portnoy, Bobby Rondinelli, and Rev Jones.

The album is set for a March 25 release via Provogue / Mascot Label Group, and can be preordered via Leslie West's website.

You can examine the album's cover art and tracklist below.

“Nobody in this world has ever made me feel loved as much as Leslie, and I feel so honored and grateful that I could give him this gift," said West's widow, Jenni, in a statement. “He would often say, ‘If it doesn’t make my balls rumble, it’s not right.’ And I think there’s some balls-rumbling tones on this record. 

"When you’re listening to it, you might even think it’s Leslie playing – and that’s a good thing. He really believed that adage of imitation being the sincerest form of flattery.  Even when some of the players do their own twists on the music, they’re still doing it in a way that’s authentic and respectful, and Leslie would have appreciated that.”

Legacy: A Tribute to Leslie West

1. Blood of the Sun (feat. Zakk Wylde)
2. Nantucket Sleighride (To Owen Coffin) (feat. Joe Lynn Turner, Marty Friedman)
3. Theme for an Imaginary Western (feat. Dee Snider, Mike Portnoy)
4. For Yasgur's Farm (feat. Joe Lynn Turner, Martin Barre)
5. Why Dontcha (feat. Steve Morse, Ronnie Romero)
6. Sittin' On a Rainbow (feat. Elliot Easton, Ronnie Romero)
7. Never in My Life (feat. Dee Snider, George Lynch)
8. The Doctor (feat. Robby Krieger, Ronnie Romero)
9. Silver Paper (feat. Charlie Starr)
10. Money (Whatcha Gonna Do)/By the River – medley (feat. Randy Bachman & Tal Bachman)
11. Long Red (feat. Yngwie Malmsteen & Teddy Rondinelli)
12. Mississippi Queen (feat. Slash, Marc Labelle)

An Eddie Van Halen-owned Kramer Striker/Ripley Frankenstrat, which was gifted to Mountain guitarist and electric guitar god Leslie West, has been sold for $50,000 by Heritage Auctions.

The guitar spent the first years of its life in good hands after it was made for EVH by Steve Ripley in 1984, and the axe was purportedly Van Halen’s backup Frankenstrat on the 1984 and 5150 tours in the ‘80s.

Ripley is renowned for his stereo guitars that EVH utilized on tracks like Top Jimmy, and built the Frankenstrat in question from the foundations of a Kramer Striker.

Sometime before 1990, the guitar was gifted to West, who then gave it to “the consignor” – an individual who acted as his private bodyguard between 1989 and 2001, and who “has worked with some of the biggest names in the music and film industries”.

As well as the instantly recognizable, subtly aged hand-sprayed stripes, the guitar sports a Floyd Rose tremolo, single humbucker pickup, locking nut and angled headstock embossed by “Ripley” decal.

The most notable feature is the guitar’s dark rosewood fretboard, which contrasts with the maple fretboards found on most of Van Halen’s Frankenstrats. The Ripley model is one of only a handful of models to sport such a feature. 

For more information, head over to the Frankenstrat's listing page at Heritage Auctions.

The same sale saw the ESP guitar Kirk Hammett used in Metallica's One music video sell for $112,500.

An Eddie Van Halen-owned and -played Kramer Striker/Ripley Frankenstrat, which was originally made in 1984 by Steve Ripley for the late electric guitar god, has gone up for sale at Heritage Auctions.

The guitar has been in the possession of not one, but two guitar heroes, having also been gifted to Mountain guitarist and rock guitar legend Leslie West by Van Halen sometime between 1985 and 1990.

Ripley, renowned for his stereo guitars that Van Halen favored on tracks like Top Jimmy, built the Frankenstrat from a Kramer Striker, and it is believed that the model in question was used by EVH as a backup guitar during the 1984 and 5150 tours from the mid-‘80s.

The instantly recognizable axe was spray-painted and striped by hand, and sports a rosewood fretboard – one of only a handful of Frankenstrats to have been appointed with such a feature, with maple fretboards usually the norm on such models.

A Ripley-embossed headstock, Floyd Rose tremolo and single humbucker pickup complete the model, which has been subtly aged by its time spent on the road with Van Halen.

In 1990, West gave the guitar to "the consignor" – a “noted professional who, for more than 30 years, has worked with some of the biggest names in the music and film industries”, and who operated as Leslie’s personal bodyguard between 1989 and 2001.

Bidding for the guitar currently sits at $10,000, with a minimum next bid of $10,500 required. The auction is set to close in three days time, on April 11.

For more info, head over to Heritage Auctions.

The EVH Frankenstrat isn't the only high-profile axe currently up for sale over at Heritage, with the online auctioneer also listing the guitar Kirk Hammett used in Metallica's One music video.

Leslie West always an unlikely guitar hero. His massive physical presence – he weighed 300 pounds at the dawn of the '70s – defied the longstanding vogue for undernourished-looking, rail-thin rock guitar slingers. 

And he never cultivated dazzling fretboard techniques, relying instead on pure soul, a powerhouse singing voice, and one of the meatiest electric guitar tones ever to burst from a speaker cabinet.     

“I didn’t play fast,” West said in 2011. “I only used the first and third finger on the fingering hand. So I worked on my tone all the time. I wanted to have the greatest, biggest tone, and I wanted vibrato like somebody who plays violin in a hundred piece orchestra.”  

West, who died of a heart attack on December 22, 2020, at age 75, was a key architect of the heavy guitar aesthetic that coalesced in the late '60s/'70s and has been a staple of rock music ever since. 

He was born Leslie Weinstein on October 22, 1945, in Forest Hills, Queens, and grew up in the suburbs of Long Island and New Jersey. He bought his first guitar with money from his bar mitzvah at age 13.

With his brother Larry on bass, he formed the Vagrants in the mid-'60s. The Vagrants were a soul-inflected rock band in very much the same vein as the Young Rascals – major hitmakers in that era – and the Hassles, the band in which Billy Joel started out, playing Hammond B3 organ.

The three groups worked the same club circuit in the metro New York area, and all drew extensively from the soul and R&B repertoire that record labels like Stax and Atlantic had brought to the fore at that time. The Vagrants scored a regional hit in 1967 with their version of the Otis Redding classic Respect.

As a teenager growing up on Long Island in the '60s, this was my first introduction to Leslie West – and the Vagrants’ version of Respect was the one that garage bands like mine emulated. It was more hard-hitting than the Aretha Franklin version, and you didn’t need the legendary Stax horn section that played on Redding’s original.

This was something else again – Long Island garage soul, a kind of regional subgenre that flourished briefly and contained the seeds of greater things to come. Leslie West was destined to play a significant role in rock’s transition from the '60s to the '70s.

The bridge from the Vagrants to Mountain was record producer/songwriter/bassist Felix Pappalardi, who first came to late-'60s prominence through his work with Eric Clapton’s emergent supergroup Cream. Pappalardi produced some tracks for the Vagrants and helped West formulate what was initially to be a solo project called Mountain. The name was a riff on West’s formidable girth.

He was enough of a showman to realize the value of turning what might have seemed like a negative body image (in today’s parlance) into a visual hook. When Mountain morphed from a self-titled 1969 solo record into a band, West said to Pappalardi: “There’s never been a fat and a skinny guy onstage. We can’t miss!”

West’s guitar style had evolved considerably by that point. In an interview with journalist Jeff Tamarkin, West credited American session ace Waddy Wachtel with helping him reach a new level of six-string mastery.

“I started listening to Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix and I said, ‘Whoa, I never heard anybody play the guitar like this,’” West recalled. “A friend of mine, Waddy Wachtel, lived in the same building as me in Forest Hills. He taught me how to play real guitar.” It was also Wachtel who sold West his first Gibson Les Paul Jr., an instrument that would become his signature axe.

He combined with Sunn Coliseum P.A. heads and cabinets to create his trademark chunky, sustain-rich guitar tone. Many people heard that gigantic sound for the first time at the Woodstock festival in 1969. Mountain were one of three “baby bands” to play at the historic event. The other two were Santana and Quill.

Of the three, only the latter was doomed to obscurity. Woodstock was just the third gig that Mountain had performed anywhere. They didn’t even have a record out at the time. “Ron Carey, who was Jimi Hendrix’s agent, was also our agent,” West told me in 2009. “And if they wanted Hendrix, they had to take us. And we actually got paid!”

From that muddy launch pad, Mountain went on to become a staple of '70s “album rock” radio. Their 1970 debut disc Climbing contained the classic track Mississippi Queen, boasting an iconic guitar riff that ranks up there with Smoke on the Water and Sunshine of Your Love as one of the bulwarks on which heavy metal was built.

The majestic, Jack Bruce-penned Theme for an Imaginary Western came from the same album, which was followed in short order by Nantucket Sleighride (1971), Flowers of Evil (1971) and the posthumous Mountain Live: The Road Goes On Forever, following the group’s disbandment in 1972.

West went on to work with his British hero, former Cream bassist Jack Bruce, and drummer Corky Lang to form the short-lived trio West, Bruce and Lang. This was followed by an equally short-lived Mountain reincarnation. Each of these ventures produced several studio and live recordings before calling it quits.

The problem was drugs – the downfall of many a great rock band. West spent the late-'70s and early-'80s getting sober. But soon thereafter he was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes – a common affliction of the obese. Struggles with weight and health issues would plague him for the rest of his life.

He conquered bladder cancer in the early 2000s, but in 2011 had a portion of his right leg amputated as a result of diabetic complications. By the time I spoke with him in 2009, he was well on his way to becoming a health-conscious family man. We had to wait until after the Passover holiday to do our interview.

Shortly thereafter, onstage at the Woodstock 40th Anniversary festival, he married his second wife, now his widow, Jenni Maurer. Throughout the decades he never stopped making music. There were solo albums, Mountain reunions and collaborations with artists like Bo Diddley, Ian Gillian, Ozzy Osbourne, Peter Frampton, Joe Bonamassa and others.

Frequent guest spots on Howard Stern’s radio show helped keep West in the public eye, and the drum intro to Long Red, a track from West’s 1969 solo album, has been sampled by numerous hip-hop artists, including Public Enemy, Jay-Z and Kendrick Lamar.

In 2006, Leslie West was inducted into the Long Island Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – a tribute to a local hero whose thunderous riffs are still echoing all around the world.

Following yesterday's news that Leslie West has passed away at the age of 75, tributes have come pouring in for the rock guitar icon.

"He was a sweetheart and an extremely funny man - I love you Leslie and will miss you dear friend. RIP," said Peter Frampton. West's close friend and Dean Guitars CEO Evan Rubinson wrote "to a man I loved more than most - the funniest, most honest guy I've ever met."

"Mississippi Queen is one of, if not the, greatest riffs of all time," said Geezer Butler. "He was the funniest guy you would ever meet... and one of the greatest rock guitarists ever," echoed Joe Bonamassa.

Tributes from Joe Satriani, Tom Morello, Dee Snider, Vernon Reid, Todd Kerns, Brian Ray, Slash, Nils Lofgren and more are below.

This interview with Leslie West is from the January 1987 issue of Guitar World, which featured Yngwie Malmsteen on the cover. The original story by Gene Santoro started on page 22 and appeared with the headline, “Leslie West: A Sleeping Giant Comes Alive.”

“You can't get more basic and efficient than this,” croaks Leslie West as he gestures at his brand-new Les Paul Junior. Gibson has given him the first of their re-issued line, in honor of all he did for that model by playing it to death-his earlier ones literally fell apart from use – in Mountain and West, Bruce & Laing.

“It's just a hunk of wood with one pickup and a tone control – ya gotta have a tone control to get that bassier sound Clapton calls The Woman Tone – but that's all you need.”

Kinda like the axman's style itself, his guitar. At the beginnings of the hard rock era, West opted for a leaner approach that combines that fat-beyond-fat distortion, a blues-derived vibrato and a pentatonic sense of melody that could make his solos sing even while they rock-and-raunched.

“I'm no great guitarist technically,” he shrugs. “I only play with these two fingers [index and ring]. But you wanna know why people remember me? If you take a hundred players and put them in a room, 98 or 99 of 'em are gonna sound the same; the one who plays different, has some of his own, that's the one you're gonna remember.”

In Leslie's case that memory reaches back a long way, to a place called Long Island in the early '60s.

“Why'd I pick up the guitar? To get laid,” he laughs. “When? I'll tell you when. My uncle used to write for Jackie Gleason, and my grandmother used to take me to all the tapings. So one summer she took me to see Jackie Gleason's American Scene Magazine, but there was a replacement – Tommy Dorsey and Jimmy Dorsey had the stage show instead. 

“I started crying 'cause I wasn't gonna see Gleason – he was my hero, with the carnation and the sharp suits, the whole bit. But you know who was the guest on the show? Elvis Presley.

“That's when I started playing guitar – saw that son of a bitch come out and go [mimics Elvis], 'Well it's one for the money,' and thought, 'I gotta play this thing.'”

After a couple of ukulele lessons from a cousin studying at Juilliard, West got the ax to play: “A '58 sunburst Strat – I got it with my bar mitzvah money [laughs].” He went right to the sources to learn how to play it, copping licks off records by his favorites: “B.B. King, Albert King, Eric Clapton, man.” Then in 1964 came the Vagrants, a local band formed by West and his bass-playing brother, which built quite a New York-area rep.

“You know what happened with that Strat?” he grins. “When the Vagrants started we all wanted new guitars, so I traded it in for – get this – a Kent, a red Kent with three pickups – it was disgusting, man.”

Equally disgusting were some of the toilet-sized clubs the Vagrants played, though they managed to put out one sorta-semi-local-hit single, a four-piece rock cover of Otis Redding's Respect.

“Our manager was greedy,” is how he tells it, “and he put out the B-side of Respect as a single because he had the publishing rights on it. Then Aretha cut Respect and Jerry Wexler put hers out and it was a hit.”

That became one of the last in a series of setbacks that finally fractured the group: “We'd done two singles with Felix Pappalardi, and we were gonna do an album at the time when Wheels Of Fire [the second Cream LP Pappalardi had produced] was Number One. 

He had two weeks to produce an album for us, and we had no songs; so [laughs] we tried to write some. That's when we broke up. We couldn't record, man; we just couldn't get on tape what we were live.”

Back to the drawing board, and on with the beginnings of a new group: “I'd put Mountain together with an organ player who played bass pedals and a drummer, and called Felix immediately – he'd told me to call him as soon as I had anything going. This was after he did Goodbye by Cream. So I played him some of the stuff: yeah, great, went into the studio with these two guys.

“Well, the drummer wasn't good enough; he threw us out of the studio again [laughs]. So Bud Prager, my manager at the time, said, 'You can't throw Leslie out again – he'll kill himself.' I mean, I'd practiced my ass off for this session. 

“So I conned Felix into playing bass, and that's how we did my album. How'd I con him? I said, 'There's never been a fat and a skinny guy onstage; we can't miss.' I was terrified, but he bought it hook, line and sinker. That's how it all started.”

“It” being the real Mountain, of course, whose short lifespan (1969-73) produced one of the raunchiest tracks ever to clock in at Number One, Mississippi Queen.

That cut, as well as their albums, helped define the riff-based harder rock emerging at the time-a trend that would evolve into heavy metal. West himself sees his role in that transition with typically good-natured candor.

“I just took over where Clapton left off when he quit. To make up for my lack of speed I added in a lot of vibrato from the blues guys like a chef adding ingredients to a stew, you know -- and worked on my squeals and pig grunts,” he laughs, referring to the octave-harmonic scream he used to stab home many a riff and solo.

“You gotta have the Junior to do 'em right, because of the single pickup – see the way the string can bend down when you hit 'em? If there was a neck pickup it'd be in the way. You bury the pick with your thumb and you have all the room you need. 

“And the tone – well, it was fat just like me, right? It was just two Sunn stacks with the Colosseum PA heads. They were Hendrix' old amps, re-tolexed and re-coned. See, the PA heads had those four inputs and a master volume, which started the distortion thing for me: I'd turn the mic volume all the way up and the master all the way up, and overdrive the thing like crazy.”

After a debut gig at the Fillmore East – not a bad venue for a band nobody had seen before – he got to overdrive the thing at one of the biggest gigs ever.

“Woodstock was 17 years ago now – can you believe that?” he muses. “Man, I was so nervous that night. I remember getting in the helicopter – we had to rent our own helicopter to get up there, with the traffic and all – and the helicopter pilot was a wise guy, man; said he wouldn't take all of us at once 'cause I was too heavy [laughs].

“We were getting five grand for it, which was incredible money for your third gig in '69. Our agent was Hendrix' agent too, Ron Terry; they were hiding Hendrix at Woodstock because whoever was seen went on. They told me to hide, and naturally I found where the bagels were – they had bagels, believe it or not, except that Janis Joplin ate 'em all, so there were none left [laughs].

“Anyway, they grabbed us and we went on; Hendrix wound up closing the show and there was nobody there – it was a damn shame, 'cause he played great."

As West got to observe close up on occasion: “I played with him the night before he died. We met at a club called Ungano's, then jumped into his limousine, went to Mountain's loft, got some Marshalls, came back to Ungano's and played until three in the morning. 

“He played bass, and this idiot from the East Village Other [an underground newspaper of the time] who reviewed the thing complained that I played louder than Hendrix – he didn't even see Hendrix was playing bass.

“Next day, I went to Detroit, he went to England; pulled into the Sheraton Cadillac in Detroit and the lady there said, 'Another one of you longhaired freaks kicked the bucket, black guy.' Felix and I looked at each other and knew who it was.

“Y'know, Jimi was working on Band Of Gypsys at the Record Plant when we were finishing Mountain Climbing!, and he was the first guy to hear it mixed. There's a little stop in the beginning of the lick for that tune, like a horn thing, that he really liked. 

“I've thought about it sometimes: with all the locking nuts and tremolo bars now, I don't think he'd be sounding good with 'em, 'cause his whole thing was stretching the damn strings back into tune.”

For the two-and-a-half years or so after Jimi's death, Mountain burned up road and studio alike, until bassist/producer Pappalardi pulled a move of his own. “He told everyone he was deaf,” is how West tells it, “and that he had to go into the hospital, but it was for drug withdrawal, really.

“So he wasn't able to go on the road any more and Corky and I weren't gonna stop; it came down to 'Who am I gonna ask?' I had two choices: I was gonna ask Joe Cocker for a bass player and a keyboard player, or else ask Jack Bruce and have one guy who could do the whole trip. He was the greatest, man.

“I mean, I idolized Cream, and here was a chance to play with one of the best musicians in rock 'n' roll. And one of the best writers, too: Theme From An Imaginary Western is a great song. I'd love to have us do it again and put it out now, as a single, 'cause Mountain never did and should've. 

“You know what it's about Cream going on the road. 'When the wagons leave the city / The sun is in their eyes' – it's all about stardom and the fights and everything. Jack had it written in Cream but Clapton didn't want to do it, said it was too complicated. Now, it's not a regular blues progression, there are a lot of changes in it, but it changed my life.

“Why? Because I found out I could use a relative-minor scale over the changes; it's in the key of A, but when it came time for the solo I went to F-sharp minor and pretended I was playing blues. That's why it sounds so sweet, it's almost like country.”

Life on the endless road grind was not so sweet, however, and claimed West as a casualty. “I've done 17 albums and I don't know how many tours now,” he declares, “between Mountain, West, Bruce & Laing, and myself, but all the stuff with Mountain and West, Bruce & Laing was done over such a short time – four years, man. It seemed like a helluva lot longer than that.

“We worked about 285 jobs a year, one-nighters; it was killin' man, really stupid. I didn't enjoy myself, got too concerned with being famous – and got into drugs."

And so it was that he found himself in Milwaukee in 1977, shedding the heavy junk habit he'd developed and about to change his musical life via a chance contact.

“I'd stopped playing, didn't even want any guitars around,” he says. “But while I was there I went to see two shows. One was because Neal Schon said to me, 'Leslie, you gotta check out this kid who's opening for us; he plays guitar like an organ, like a Bach organ fugue. 

“I was totally taken aback – it was Eddie Van Halen, and he impressed me the way Clapton impressed me. And then the next night I went to see Sammy Hagar. What a co-inky-dink, eh?"

That coincidence brings us up to the present, where it has extended to find West opening for the second leg of Van Halen's current tour. Besides co-writing two songs with the young whammy master – one of them a moving description of life behind bars over a hooky and hard-rock riff, whose lyrics were penned by a group of prisoners – Mr. Mountain has been having a blast offstage as well as on.

"Alfonso Johnson, Carlos Santana, Eddie and me were playing in a hotel room one night for an hour-and-a-half without stopping at all. Man, I had the time of my life with those guys. And I've learned how to write by myself, too; I spent two years, '77-'79, working hard with Corky Laing in that, and he was a terrific help."

Whatever else may have changed, though, his approach to his ax remains pretty much the same as ever: “Felix used to tell me, 'Don't think, just play.' You know, most guys when they pick up a guitar, if they play lead they start playing leads right away.

“I learned that you should think about the song, think about the chords you're playing behind, and so most of my solos come right out of those chords. You play the notes within the chords and try to pick a melody from there. For a solo I'll have a theme in my head to start, 'cause it's like Keith Moon said: 'Your entrance and your exit should be devastating, and everything in the middle is filler.'”

You can hear that fierce attack at work as he plays through the photo shoot at the Collector's Choice studio. West's reissued Junior played through Peden's vintage amps sends scraps of tunes spinning past in that creamy thick tone and wide, warm vibrato: Beat It, Mississippi Queen, Crossroads, I Feel Fine, Outside Woman Blues, Foxy Lady, The Wind Cries Mary, various squalling, screaming blues from the string-bending school of Albert King.

His eyes close, his mouth works in mime to the raunch erupting from his amp, he sways his bulk gently – and Leslie West is back.

Guitar legend Leslie West, one of the most influential and original players to emerge from the late ‘60s rock scene, has died at the age of 75.

The news was confirmed by Dean Guitars – which West endorsed – on Facebook, with Dean CEO Evan Rubinson adding, "To a man that I truly loved more than most – the funniest, most honest guy I’ve met."

West suffered cardiac arrest at his home near Dayton, Florida on December 21, and had been gravely ill, according to his brother, Larry West Weinstein.

On December 21, Weinstein posted on Facebook that West’s heart had stopped and he was placed on a ventilator. “I am asking for all your prayers,” Weinstein wrote. “[His wife] Jenni is by his side in Florida but it’s not looking good. Thanks Jenni, he wouldn’t have made it this far without you.”

“His heart gave out and he’s on a ventilator. May not make it through the night.”

West was best known as the guitarist, songwriter and co-vocalist for Mountain, who rocketed to fame with the indelible Mississippi Queen, powered by West’s massive riffs and honeyed, rounded lead tone.

Mountain, who are also known for classic rock staples like Never in My Life, Nantucket Sleighride and a cover of Jack Bruce’s Theme For an Imaginary Western, broke up and reformed numerous times beginning in the early ‘70s.

West was born Leslie Weinstein in New York City on October 22, 1945. He first gained recognition at 21 with the garage-rock act the Vagrants, who had minor hits in 1966 with I Can't Make a Friend and, the next year, a cover of Otis Redding’s Respect.

As for what inspired him to pick up the guitar, he told Guitar World, “Elvis Presley. My uncle was a TV writer, and Jackie Gleason had a TV show called American Scene Magazine on Saturday night, where he did all these characters – Honeymooners, Joe the Bartender, all these guys. So my grandma took me to see the show and the announcer said that during the summer, Jackie Gleason would be replaced. Tonight's musical guest was Elvis Presley.

“It was the first time Elvis had played on TV. I got to see him as a little kid, and he blew me away. My grandma got my grandpa to get me a four-string guitar. I couldn't play a six-string yet, and I didn't even know they made a four-string guitar.”

The Vagrants had worked with producer Felix Pappalardi, who also produced Cream’s 1967 album, Disraeli Gears. Two years later he produced West’s first solo album, Mountain, which included the classic (and eventually heavily-sampled) Long Red. Shortly after, West and Pappalardi formed a band together, also named Mountain.

Mountain were described by Rolling Stone as “a louder version of Cream,” and to say they made a big splash is an understatement: the group’s third-ever show was played in front of 400,000 people at the Woodstock festival in August, 1969. With the classic lineup of West on guitar and vocals, Pappalardi on bass and vocals, Corky Laing on drums and keyboardist Steve Knight, the band released their debut album, Climbing, in March, 1970.

The album led off with Mississippi Queen, which contained all the hallmarks of West’s style – a thick, heavy and distorted guitar tone, smooth, melodic lead phrasing and a slow, wide vibrato. It’s an approach that future legends like Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhoads, Zakk Wylde and Joe Bonamassa would point to as an influence on their own playing.

Assessing his own guitar work in a 1987 interview with Guitar World, West said, "I just took over where Clapton left off when he quit. To make up for my lack of speed I added in a lot of vibrato from the blues guys like a chef adding ingredients to a stew, you know – and worked on my squeals and pig grunts."

As for his sound, which was characterized by a Les Paul Junior with a P-90 pickup, he continued, “You gotta have the Junior to do 'em right, because of the single pickup – see the way the string can bend down when you hit 'em? lf there was a neck pickup it'd be in the way. You bury the pick with your thumb and you have all the room you need.

“And the tone – well, it was fat just like me, right? It was just two Sunn stacks with the Colisseum PA heads. They were Hendrix' old amps, re-tolexed and re-coned. See, the PA heads had those four inputs and a master volume, which started the distortion thing for me: I'd turn the mic volume all the way up and the master all the way up, and overdrive the thing like crazy."

Throughout the early ‘70s Mountain toured incessantly and released two more records – 1971’s Nantucket Sleighride and the following year’s live/studio effort Flowers of Evil – before disbanding for the first time, with drug abuse and exhaustion cited as factors.

West and Laing joined up with former Cream bassist Jack Bruce in the trio West, Bruce & Laing, and immediately hit the road. They also recorded two studio albums, Why Dontcha and Whatever Turns You On, before drugs and other issues led to that band’s breakup as well.

“All the stuff with Mountain and West, Bruce & Laing was done over such a short time –  four years, man,” West said. “It seemed like a helluva lot longer than that.”

West, of course, remained incredibly active after those four years. He and Pappalardi reformed Mountain (for the first time) in 1973, and he released a series of solo albums as well as played with a variety of artists, including Bo Diddley, Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan and Joe Bonamassa.

In the 2000s he collaborated with hard rockers Clutch, contributed to Ozzy Osbourne’s cover of Mississippi Queen and continued to tour and record both solo and with Mountain. He was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2006.

Over the past decade, West was plagued with health issues. In 2011, his right leg was amputated just above the knee due to complications from diabetes. In the wake of the surgery and rehabilitation (he was fitted with a prosthetic) West was forced to postpone a scheduled 3 Guitar Heroes tour with Michael Schenker and Uli Jon Roth.

That same year, however, he released the album Unusual Suspects, which featured guest appearances from Slash, Billy Gibbons, Zakk Wylde, Steve Lukather and others. And he continued to record and tour.

“You know, when I use a prosthetic, I'm not that good with it yet and I’m a little nervous about wearing it onstage and losing my balance,” he told Guitar World. “Keeping balance is the trickiest part, but I’ll get it. Seems like an alien invaded me when I put that thing on. That was life-changing, but thank god it wasn't one of my arms.”

He continued, “I can still play, but the only difference is I sit in a wheelchair on stage, but I don't have to worry about my balance yet. I want to worry about playing and performing well. I'm really glad that I had Unusual Suspects all mixed and mastered before this happened, because I wouldn't have been in the mood to go record an album when this happened. I'm very lucky.”

West’s most recent album was 2015’s Soundcheck, which featured collaborations with Peter Frampton and Brian May, among others.

“I am really proud of this album because it sounds really good,” he told Blues Rock Review.

“Every album I do, I want to make that much better than the last one or have something about it flow better and I had some really good guests on the album. Usually when you have too many guests, it means you are not good enough to carry yourself. In this case, it was Peter Frampton, Brian May, Jack Bruce, and Bonnie Bramlett. That is a good bunch of people, most of them are going down, but I am really proud of how the album came out.”

Assessing his own playing, he told Guitar World, "I'm no great guitarist technically. I only play with these two fingers [index and ring]. But you wanna know why people remember me? If you take a hundred players and put them in a room, 98 or 99 of 'em are gonna sound the same; the one who plays different, has some of his own, that's the one you're gonna remember."

Though rarely mentioned in the pantheon of great rock guitarists, Mountain’s Leslie West is unquestionably one of the most influential and original players to emerge from the burgeoning late-Sixties rock scene.

West, a native New Yorker, first gained national exposure at the age of 21 via his scorching cover of Otis Redding’s Respect, released in 1966 while a member of the Vagrants.

The band’s producer, Felix Pappalardi, began producing Cream in 1967 (starting with Disraeli Gears) and in 1969 joined forces with West on the guitarist’s breakthrough solo debut, Mountain, which includes the seminal classics, Blood of the Sun, Long Red, Baby I’m Down and the immortal masterpiece, Dreams of Milk and Honey.

Their alliance soon adopted the moniker Mountain as the group’s name, and the classic lineup of West, Pappalardi on bass, drummer Corky Laing and keyboardist Steve Knight were described by Rolling Stone as “a louder version of Cream.” The group’s fourth show ever was in front of 400,000 people at Woodstock on August 16, 1969. The band achieved worldwide success on the release of their breakthrough smash single, Mississippi Queen, in March 1970.

Leslie’s signature soloing style is characterized by smooth, melodic phrasing, an exquisitely slow, wide vibrato and a dense, heavy guitar tone. Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhoads, Warren Haynes, Joe Bonamassa and many other rock guitar gods have hailed West as a primary influence.

Like most blues and rock players, the majority of his improvisations are based on pentatonic scales, and, akin to his influences Albert, B.B. and Freddie King, as well as Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix, West often alternates freely between parallel minor and major pentatonic phrases in his improvised solos.

FIGURE 1 illustrates the E minor pentatonic scale (E G A B D) played in a highly useful extended pattern that begins with the open low E string and moves diagonally up and across the neck. FIGURE 2 shows E major pentatonic (E F# G# B C#) played in a similarly diagonal pattern. Be sure to memorize both shapes, and then try transposing them to different keys and areas of the fretboard.

FIGURE 3 is a 12-bar solo played in Leslie’s style. In bar 1 into the first half of bar 2, the lines are based on E major pentatonic, starting with an oblique bend on the top two strings. On beat two of bar 2, I bring a high G note into the phrase, alluding to E minor pentatonic and stick with this scale through the end of bar 6. In bars 7–9, I utilize notes from both scales, leaning a little more heavily on the E major pentatonic sound, then close out the last three bars with lines firmly based on E minor pentatonic.

When studying this solo, notice the attention paid to melodic phrasing, and strive for proper bend intonation and to produce a wide, even vocal-like vibrato, all essential elements in replicating West’s trademark guitar voice.

Last month’s column was dedicated to the incredible and highly influential playing of Mountain’s Leslie West, whose beautifully melodic phrasing, signature slow, wide vibrato, and rich guitar tone set the standard for blues-rock–style guitar of the highest order in the late Sixties and early Seventies.

West’s many disciples include fellow guitar gods Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhoads, Jethro Tull’s Martin Barre, Pete Townshend, Warren Haynes and Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple. Blackmore has stated that Leslie’s phenomenal playing on “Mississippi Queen” redirected the course of Deep Purple’s music in an instant, ultimately resulting in the brutal power and hard rock intensity displayed on Deep Purple in Rock.

For Barre, Leslie’s gift to him of one of his late-Fifties Gibson Les Paul Junior guitars inspired the writing and playing on Jethro Tull’s most successful album in the band’s history, Aqualung. West was also instrumental in the development of the music recorded for the Who’s masterpiece, Who’s Next.

The band Mountain dominated rock radio in 1970 with their smash debut album, Climbing!, but true Leslie West fans know well that his solo debut, Mountain, preceded Climbing! by eight months, and was for many the introduction to his brilliant singing and guitar playing.

A solid effort throughout, the signature track from Mountain is the album’s side-two opener, “Dreams of Milk and Honey,” a song destined to become the centerpiece of every live Mountain show from 1970–72.

FIGURE 1 presents a 16-bar solo played in the style of “Dreams of Milk and Honey.” Akin to most blues and rock players, Leslie’s improvisations are based primarily on pentatonic scales, specifically alternating between E minor pentatonic (E G A B D) over bars 1–6 and 11–14, and A minor pentatonic (A C D E G) over bars 7-10 and 15–16. While playing his improvisations based on each of these scales, he remains rooted in standard “box” positions for each, using the 12th-position box of E minor pentatonic and the fifth-position box of A minor pentatonic.

My primary goal in crafting this tribute solo was to demonstrate Leslie’s solid melodic sense combined with his effortless but equally aggressive rhythmic drive. The lines all employ a combination of rhythms, featuring phrases formed by starting and ending with sustained notes, with steady 16th-note driven melodies placed in between, or lines that begin with a long stream of 16th notes that then culminate with heavily vibrato-ed quarter notes.

In both cases, be sure to lean into the beat when playing these lines, using a robust fret- and pick-hand attack, along with a heavily distorted guitar tone, in order to best replicate the power Leslie always generates in his solos.

Today, GuitarWorld.com presents the exclusive trailer for rock legend Leslie West's upcoming album, Still Climbing. You can check out the video below.

The album will be released October 28 via Provogue Records.

"You know, when it comes to talent, we don't all move at the same rate of speed," West says.

"Some people start at the top of their game and after 10 or 20 years you wonder what the hell happened to them. I like to joke that the older I get, the better I used to be, but after giving up drugs and smoking, my voice can hit notes that I never could reach before. I'm thankful for that.

“This record is a sequel to Unusual Suspects, where I had friends of mine that include Slash, Zakk Wylde, Steve Lukather, Joe Bonamassa and Billy Gibbons come to the studio and play,” West says. "This time, Jonny Lang, Johnny Winter, Dee Snider and Alter Bridge/Creed’s Mark Tremonti do the honors."

Still Climbing is available for preorder RIGHT HERE.

For more about West and the new album, visit lesliewestofficial.com and his Facebook page.

West will stage two rare in-store appearances that coincide with the release of Still Climbing. He'll be at Vintage Vinyl in Fords, New Jersey, 7 p.m. November 1 and at Looney Tunes in West Babylon, New York, 2 p.m. November 2. West will host a Q&A session and conduct a signing of Still Climbing.

Leslie West will release a new album, Still Climbing, October 29 via Provogue Records/Mascot Label Group.

“This record is a sequel to Unusual Suspects, where I had friends of mine that include Slash, Zakk Wylde, Steve Lukather, Joe Bonamassa and Billy Gibbons come to the studio and play,” West says. This time, Jonny Lang, Johnny Winter, Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider and Alter Bridge/Creed’s Mark Tremonti do the honors.

“What’s different on Still Climbing is that I wanted my guitars to sound as big as I look. So I used four of my Dean signature model guitars with my Mountain of Tone humbucking pickups. I plugged them into my Blackstar amps — no pedals — and turned them up loud and raw, and what you hear is exactly what I did in the studio. These Blackstar amps deliver everything I need without 'confidence' pedals. I played one of the early tracks we recorded for Slash, and he said, ‘That is as heavy as it gets.’"

Still Climbing is co-produced by West and Mike “Metal” Goldberg, who engineered all of the sessions. Songs like “Dyin' Since The Day I Was Born,” “Hatfield or McCoy,” and “Busted, Disgusted or Dead” establish a new litmus test for “heavy.” The latter features West and Winter on dueling slide guitars.

West also gave up smoking cigarettes and pot after a bout with bladder cancer, so it’s no wonder many of Still Climbing’s numbers explore the theme of survival and, ultimately, triumph. To that end, West avows, “Not only am I lucky to be here, but because I stopped smoking my voice is now stronger than it’s ever been — as strong as my guitar playing."

His inclusion of “Feeling Good,” a song by British actor-musician Anthony Newley that was made famous by Steve Winwood’s group Traffic, is a testimonial to all of that. Its lyrics celebrate a “new dawn for me” as West and his longtime buddy Dee Snider trade vocal lines.

"Being in Mountain was one of the most satisfying things I have ever done in my professional life," West says. "I became a musician, not just a guitar player. Being in the group with Felix Pappalardi was an honor, who was so talented as a producer, arranger, bass player, guitar player, and all the things I aspired to be. We had some great years together, and some rocky roads. His wife Gail, who by the way shot and killed Felix, could suck the fun out of a clown. It left a terrible taste in my mouth about working with my wife, Jenni. I did not want to risk going down that path where your wife was involved in every aspect of your musical life. Jenni has become so good at expressing thoughts to paper, she has become my primary collaborator on the lyrical side of my new recordings."

For more about West, visit his Facebook page.

Legendary guitarist Leslie West will perform for three nights -- June 11, 12 and 13 -- at New York City's Iridium Jazz Club at 1650 Broadway.

These will be isolated dates with West headlining and performing 75-minute sets starting at 8 p.m. West will be joined by Bobby Rondinelli on drums and Rev Jones on bass.

"Sometimes I think about where I could have come from," West said. "Then it dawns on me, I am from New York. Then I say, 'Thank God'."

West will travel to and from Iridium in a custom truck given to him by The Vehicle Production Group. The new car company designs, engineers and distributes specialty vehicles; when faced with the challenges of touring following the June 2011 amputation of his right leg above the knee, the MV-1 has enabled West to return to the road.

At age 66, the former Mountain guitarist continues to remain current, as witnessed by the assemblage of legends who joined him on his 2011 album, The Usual Suspects, including Billy Gibbons, Slash, Zakk Wylde, Joe Bonamassa and Steve Lukather.

“These guys don’t show up to play on everybody’s albums," West said. "They’re stars in their own right and fantastic players – everyone with their own sound and style, and about as far from ‘the usual suspects’ as it gets.”

Here's the third and final segment of my recent interview with Leslie West.

You can check out part one right here and part two right here.

GUITAR WORLD: Do you have any new favorite guitar players?

Yeah, if you understand this as being a new favorite, even though I’ve known about him for a while. It's Joe Bonamassa.

Ozzy Osbourne guested on Mountain's Masters of War album in 2007. How did that come to be?

I helped on his version of “Mississippi Queen,” and I had asked him, I said, “I'd love you to sing on one of these Dylan songs we're going to do." At the time, Sony didn't want him singing any more cover songs because he had just done a whole record of covers, so it went back and forth. He didn't have a problem with it; the label did. So I sent him “Masters of War,” and they said he could sing two verses. I picked out two verses and sent it to him, and it sounds like we were in the room together, but it wasn’t. He was at his studio.

I've always heard you were one of Randy Rhoads' favorite guitar players. Did you ever get to meet him or jam with him?

We were on tour with them, and that's where I met Randy and Sharon and we all became friends. All of a sudden, he was gone too quick. I used to think he was prettier than most girls. He played really well; he played a lot of classical lines, and I seem to gravitate toward that, so we hit it off.

What do you think guitar players can walk away learning from your music? What advice would you give?

The first thing would be, tune up. I hear a lot of guys who can shred and play fast, but they are out of tune. And it's hard for me to listen to someone that sounds out of tune. That is so important, and you know I can tell in two seconds. It's so important. And I wish I could tune my guitars. I have somebody who tunes my guitars for me. I'm not really good at doing that, but I can tell when they're not. If you practice, you know, I don't really play fast. It's like guitar: You don't have to play fast.

If you ever watch an Alfred Hitchcock movie, when you hear the music really loud and then all of a sudden it stops, and there's a big hole of nothing -- and that hole sounds louder than if the whole orchestra was playing right through it. So when you play or when I play, anyway, I like to leave space in between my phrases and my licks and so on and so forth.

Here's a question from Chris in Boston: You have one of the most recognizable tones in all of rock. Can you give us any amp dialings or playing tips for guitarists looking for a similar sound?

First, I use the one-pickup guitar, and I try to get the most out of the one-pickup guitar. And when you play a little slower, like I play, you give the notes a chance to use the sound that comes out of an amp. Because the sound of the amp really is movement of air. And I work on the tone a lot. I use full bass on the amp and have the treble set to 5, and I put the mid-range on maybe 2 or 3. Then it's actually the attack of my right hand on whether I want soft or loud, but I play pretty much with my finger on the volume control, rolling it off the back and I’m really happy with it. I really do work on the tone.

From Seitu in Burlington, Mass.: Do you remember what gear you used to get the tones on "Mississippi Queen" and that whole album?

It was a Les Paul Junior, and I was using a Sun Coliseum 100-watt PA head. It had four mic inputs and a master volume. I got them by accident, and I really didn't want them. I was hoping to get Marshalls. At Mountain’s first gig out in San Francisco at the Fillmore, these Suns showed up, and I said, "What am I going to do with this? This is a PA, you know?" There were 4 X 12's in the cabinets into two heads, and I said shit. The Who used it as a PA system. They were like guitar speakers, and it also came with this air-conditioning unit. I guess that was for the highs, the tweeters. I just used the head and the cabinet by plugging the guitar into the mic input, which is the only choice I had. We had to play that night for the first time. I turned it up and got a nice tone out of it and then I turned the master up and I said, “Wow this sounds great,” and it became my amp. Then Sun fucked it up and tried to make a guitar amp. Al they had to do was put the guts of that PA into a box, but they changed it all around.

Keep it simple, right?

Yeah, accidents. There are good accidents and bad accidents. That was a good one.

Do you have any advice for young musicians who want to make it?

Yeah (laughs). If I was starting now, I wouldn’t start. Now it's really difficult. Besides having this app for iPad and iPod, the Leslie West string bender, which is sort of like Guitar Hero, but you can bend the two notes together. I tried to do something a little bit different. That's not going to teach you how to play the guitar, though. It's a game. Guitar Hero teaches you songs, which is great. That's the best part of it. Young kids are listening to our music that would have never had an opportunity to listen to us.

But starting out now, it’s really a tough road. But if you want it bad enough, I guess you go out and get it. And if somebody tells you, “You suck," maybe you do, but don't listen to them.

Here's part 2 of my recent interview with Leslie West. When we left off, Leslie was discussing his leg-amputation surgery and his wife.

"They put me on Propofol, believe it or not, for two days, and she wanted them to wake me up so she could tell me, 'Listen, this is what's going to happen.' " West said. "She didn't want me to all a sudden one day say, “You cut my leg off." I made a joke with her. I said, you know honey, I meant to say, "Pass the salt” and it came out, “You evil bitch, you cut my leg off” (laughs).

Well, thank God you're all right.

Thank you. I was flying down to Mississippi; it was going to be Mountain’s show at the Hard Rock Casino, of all places. On the flight, we had to stop in Memphis and they couldn't go nonstop to Biloxi. It was 10 hours and my leg was hurting me. It was hurting me before that, even. I had five stints on my leg last year and it was doing great, and they opened up the artery and there was circulation and everything. But I guess something happened where they took me off the blood thinner three days before I went down there.

I took Coumadin, and it takes three days for you to notice a difference to see whether it's working or if there's a change in your body. It's not like you take it one day and you can tell. So they told me, and I don't even want to say the doctor's name, but they told me to stop taking it because my blood was too thin. And sure as shit that's what happened. But thank God. It could've been my hand or my arm.

I was really glad this album was done -- mixed and mastered -- before I went. Because right now would not be a time I would feel like going and recording an album. And this one turned out so much better than I thought. I've never had an album received like this. Even in Mountain, people used to always find something wrong with something.

It's a funny thing; there's a bonus track on the album called "Beetlejuice." "Beetlejuice" is from Howard Stern's show. He's a little black dwarf with no teeth, and they got him to sing a couple of lines, and Howard asked me to make a song out of it. One of his writers, Richard Christy, played drums on it. One idiot reviewed the album and said, “Boy, Leslie really sounds terrible on this.” I’m singing background on it, but that's not me. It shows you in the liner notes who's singing on it. The guy's real name is Lester Green, but if you go to jollydwarf.com, you’ll say holy shit. It was a goof, you know? So you know everybody's going to take something and complain.

Everybody's a critic, and usually the people who talk the most smack have never done anything.

Yeah, really. I remember when Wheels of Fire by Cream was reviewed in Rolling Stone; this was a long time ago. And they spent two pages ripping, and I mean destroying the fuck out of the album, and then the last line was, “in spite of all that, this album will be a monster." That was the first fucking platinum double album ever, you know?

Billy Gibbons must've been a trip to work with. How did “Standing on Higher Ground” happen? Do you have any stories about working with him?

ZZ Top’s first tour was when they were opening for Mountain at the Capitol Theater in New Jersey, and my producer, Fabrizio, was working with Billy on some other project, and Fabrizio told Billy he was working with me. Billy said he had this song called “Standing on Higher Ground” that would be great for me. So Billy came in the studio and we finished it and wrote it and played together and sang it together. It's funny because every 20 minutes or so Billy would go out to the lounge in the studio, and he carried a pair of dice with him and he had a pad of real $2 bills from the bank and he would just rip them off like note paper.

And so there's my wife and him and the interns playing fucking dice on the table, and every 20 minutes Billy would go out and grab another beer. And by the end of the day he had like 20 beers. This Mexican beer that he was drinking. But what a piece of work he is. He's just incredible. He wrote a really great quote when they did a full page on me in The Sun in London, which is like the biggest paper in the world.

And Slash wrote something too. I met him once at Hollywood High. He went to Hollywood High and I was doing a show for the homeless with Ginger Baker and Edgar Winter. Miles Copeland, Sting’s manager and the manager for The Police, put it together. At the time, and don't laugh, I said, “How the fuck are the homeless going to afford to buy these tickets?” I took me a bit to realize it was for the homeless (laughs). So Billy wrote a great quote; I've got it somewhere. In it he wrote standing on higher ground, you know, and I had just lost my leg and how much fun we had in the studio. Billy didn’t realize I could sing like I do. He knew from the old days, but I'm telling you, stopping the smoking and giving up drugs -- what a difference it made.

What about Zakk Wylde? How did those sessions go?

My son, you're talking about? He calls me dad (laughs). We have the same manager, Bob Ringe. But this guy, for somebody who doesn't do drugs and doesn't drink anymore, he is such a pisser. Some of the shit that comes out of his mouth ... he was talking about politics; we were playing the Westbury Music Theater and he came to see me, and he started talking about politics, and I said, “What the fuck are you talking about?” He’s saying how he would change the world with this, that ...

I have a DVD called The Sound and the Stories that was produced by Dan Tremonti, Mark Tremonti’s brother from Creed. They really did a great job. It's a high-grade film; it's not videotape like some of these stupid instructional videos. But there's one section in there called “Leslie West's Guitar School for the Not-So-Bright,” and I'm down in the basement in the Chicago Theater. I went out to see Zakk, and I was going to play with Zakk. So they set up a little fake guitar school downstairs in the basement, and I say, “Can you send in the next student,” and you hear Zakk yell, “Student? How about your son?" And he pretends he's my son. I say I want DNA, and it goes on for about 15 minutes. Then we go into the guitar shit.

But it's so funny, I realized a long time ago when I was in regular school, teachers were asking me questions that they already knew the answers to. Give me the answers -- that would've been a big help. So I realized in order to get me to learn something, you’ve got to get my attention first. So with Zakk and me screwing around first before we started talking about guitars and playing, he's just great that way. Maybe he is my son. Who knows?

Kenny Aronoff is a monster drummer. What was it like working with him on this album? Did he come in and just bang it out in a couple of takes?

Oh god, Kenny. He did the whole album in two days. And he wrote out the charts. I mean this guy -- I know why everybody wants to work with him. He's out with Chickenfoot now. He knows how to take one section of the song into another, and he knows what to play. I remember reading a quote by Dustin Hoffman talking about the definition of the word genius; he said the definition of the word genius is “knowing how much to say without saying too much.” So I apply that to the guitar: knowing how much to play without playing too much.

Kenny knows exactly how much to play without playing too much. It's like you know some of these speed-freak shredders. I don't know what a shredder is, but to me it's like pornography. I couldn't explain it to you, but if I saw it I can say, "Oh yeah, that's pornography." It's like a shredder. When I see a guy going a million notes an hour, it's like, where's the downbeat in here? I can recognize it, but Jesus, I just play with two fingers so I can’t play that fast. But it's almost like a speed freak talking, and he doesn't leave any room for commas or anything. So yeah, I was just thrilled with the way Kenny played. I didn't have to tell him anything.

What can you tell me about your Dean guitars?

I played a Les Paul Junior my entire career and when the opportunity came up for Dean to do a guitar, I knew what I wanted. So we worked on the body for some time but it's got a nice, beautiful cutaway on the top, and you can rest your thumb if you ever wanted to finger pick. We worked on the pickups too. I wanted a Leslie West pickup out, and with the Junior, it was always a single coil and it made a lot of noise.

So we tried to get this pickup to have all the facilities of the P90 within a humbucker, and I think we came pretty close. I'm really happy with the pickup. The volume knobs go to 11 on the USA Custom. I think Eddie Trunk, the guy that does the heavy metal show, he was interviewing me on the web and he goes, “Does the guitar really go to 11?” and I say, “Yeah there's an extra notch that really gives you that extra boost,” and he's looking at me with this stupid face and I say Eddie, “Go fuck yourself."

But I'm telling you the pickup just feels like it has that extra bit. You know if you turn it to 8 you get a really great sound, but if you really let it go to 11, it just moves and jumps. It's like putting a gearshift through a Ferrari and you hit that last gear and you just take off like a rocket. There's only one pickup in it and there is no three-way switch on it. I just roll off the tone knob, which is basically what I do, and I used to always get more tone out of the Junior then I could out of a three-pickup guitar.

I do have a couple of two-pickup Dean Leslie West guitars, just for certain songs where I like to use the neck pickup. We just came out with the Mississippi Queen model and it's great. I play all of them, from the most expensive to the least expensive. They're all great guitars; they play great and they have my pickups in them. And the Mississippi Queen one -- the graphics on it are fantastic. These guitars, when I started out, I didn't have to play them, but at the time the worst guitars in the world were Japanese guitars. Now they're pretty good. But I wish I could have gotten a guitar like this for the money that this guitar sells for back then. The street value on the Mississippi Queen is only $600, and it plays just like a $5,000 USA Leslie West model. It's a different wood, that's all. One's mahogany and maple and one's a laminate. But the sound of it and the way it looks is fantastic. I think it's on the Dean website. You can see it there.

How did you get into playing in the first place? What made you start?

I started on the ukulele. My grandmother's brother was a famous playwright. He wrote a show called “Mr. Wonderful” with Sammy Davis Jr on Broadway, and he also wrote TV shows like “Car 54” and “McHale’s Navy.” He also used to write on Jackie Gleason. Gleason used to have a show called “The American Scene Magazine,” which was on Saturday nights, and it was an hour-long show. He did all of his characters -- the Honeymooners, Reginald Van Gleason the third and so on. So my grandmother took me to see my uncle, and we get into the theater and I don't know if I was 8 or 9, but the announcer said, “due to the summer, Jackie Gleason will be replaced by Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey's orchestra." So I got real upset.

Then they said, “Tonight's guest is Elvis Presley." So I got to see Elvis Presley -- and that's all I needed.

Leslie West's new album, Unusual Suspects, hits stores today, and you can check out a clip of one of the songs below. The track is called "Mudflap Mama," and features the talents of none other than former Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash.

Unusual Suspects sees West calling upon a group of friends and fellow guitarists for contributions, including Slash, Zakk Wylde, Joe Bonamassa, Steve Lukather and Billy Gibbons.

Kenny Aronoff -- who you may know as the new fill-in drummer for Chickenfoot -- handled drum duties for the album.

Leslie West, Uli Jon Roth and Michael Schenker will be joining forces for what's being called the 3 Guitar Heroes Tour this fall. The tour will included individual sets by each guitarist, plus a jam with all three afterwards. The three will also be joined by special guests on most dates of the tour.

On the touring plans, Leslie West said: "I am honored to be a part of the '3 Guitar Heroes' tour with Uli Roth and Michael Schenker. My manager Bob and I have been discussing a run like this for ages, and when the opportunity came up I hopped on board. That's right - the guy who just had his leg amputated. These guys are monster players and this should be a lot of fun."

Michael Schenker added: "It is very exciting to be part of a tour that has very deeply rooted connections with two guitarists that have been at their best since the start of their careers. When I was around 14 years-old, I saw a guy on stage playing amazing guitar. It was Uli, and he was around my age. Three years later while with the Scorpions, I chose to join UFO and found the best possible replacement in Uli. I knew my brother Rudolf and Klaus were in good hands.

When I was 16 years old, Leslie West was one of my favorite guitarists. He had just recorded 'Theme For An Imaginary Western' with MOUNTAIN, a song featuring one of my all-time favorite lead-breaks on it. Looking back, Leslie is the last guitarist I ever copied seeing that from when I was 17 on, I went completely my own way.

So, here we are after all these years on stage together, celebrating the phenomenon - rock guitar."

3 Guitar Heroes Tour Dates:

• October
• 6 - Norfolk, CT Infinity Music Hall & Bistro
• 8 - Ridgefield, CT The Ridgefield Playhouse
• 9 - Plymouth, NH The Flying Monkey
• 12 - Foxborough, MA Showcase Live
• 13 - Asbury Park, NJ Stone Pony
• 14 - New York, NY Irving Plaza
• 15 - Philadelphia, PA Theatre of Living Arts
• 16 - Westbury, NY NYCB Theatre At Westbury
• 19 - Baltimore, MD Sound Stage
• 20 - Cleveland, OH House of Blues
• 21 - Cincinnati, OH Bogart's
• 22 - Indianapolis, IN Egyptian Room
• 26 - Milwaukee, WI The Pabst Theater
• 27 - Chicago, IL House of Blues

November
4 - Dallas, TX House of Blues
5 - Houston, TX House of Blues
11 - Las Vegas, NV Boulder Station Hotel & Casino

More dates will be announced shortly.

Guitarist Leslie West of Mountain will be releasing a new solo album, Unusual Suspects, in Europe on Sept. 19 via Provogue Records.

The album, the follow-up to 2006's Blue Me, features several guest appearances by big-name guitarists, including Slash, Joe Bonamassa, Zakk Wylde, Billy Gibbons and Steve Lukather. One track, "Turn Out The Lights," features both Slash and Wylde.

The full track listing is below.

As we previously reported, West, a long-time sufferer of type 2 Diabetes, underwent leg-amputation surgery last month while he was in Mississippi. He was on a flight when his leg began to swell, but upon landing, he was rushed to the emergency room. The decision to proceed with the operation was made by his wife, Jenni.

Unusual Suspects track listing:

• 01. One More Drink For The Road (ft. Steve Lukather)
• 02. Mudflap Mama (ft. Slash)
• 03. To The Moon
• 04. Standing On A Higher Ground (ft. Billy F. Gibbons)
• 05. Third Degree (ft. Joe Bonamassa)
• 06. Legend
• 07. Nothing's Changed (ft. Zakk Wylde)
• 08. I Feel Fine
• 09. Love You Forever
• 10. You & Me
• 11. Turn Out The Lights (ft. Slash & Zakk Wylde)
• 12. Beetle "I Don't Know" (bonus track)

Here's a video of an interesting conversation between West and Wylde:

Guitarist Leslie West, 65, is recovering from leg-amputation surgery in Biloxi, Mississippi.

West, who is best known as the guitarist for Mountain, had flown in to Mississippi to perform at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino with Mountain. On Saturday, his leg began to swell, and West, a diabetic, was rushed to the emergency room. It was decided that an amputation was required in order to save his life.

The surgery was considered a success, and the procedure removed his limb up to the knee.

West, who faces extensive rehabilitation, is expected to fully recover. His family has requested that the public and media respect his privacy while he comes to terms with this life-changing transition.

West continues to remain current, as witnessed by the assemblage of legends joining him on his next album, which includes Billy Gibbons, Slash, Zakk Wylde, Joe Bonamassa and Steve Lukather, alongside Kenny Aronoff.

“These guys don’t show up to play on everybody’s albums," West said recently. "They’re stars in their own right and fantastic players, everyone with their own sound and style, and about as far from ‘the usual suspects’ as it gets.”

The release date for the new album, titled The Unusual Suspects, will be announced soon.

The concept of taking 12 celebrated numbers from the Zeppelin songbook and reworking them sans vocals works wonders on Get The Led Out! - Led Zeppelin Salute. Renowned for his great ears and studio expertise, producer guitarist Brian Tarquin assembled a sweeping array of classic Zeppelin covers as performed by some of rock’s cutting edge guitar stars. Leslie West and Randy Coven visited Tarquin’s New York Jungle Room Studios to lay down parts on a new “Moby Dick” while James Ryan cut an instrumental “Black Dog” at his studio in Australia. Martin Winch recorded his version of “Kashmir” in New Zealand while Hal Lindes recorded “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” at his Venice Beach studio. Such is the international appeal of Led Zeppelin.

In addition, Get The Led Out! adds in four vintage bonus cuts--three from 1970 with Jimmy Page, Daniel Edwards, John Bonham and singer David “Lord” Sutch and one from ‘68 with John Paul Jones and singer Keith de Groot--presenting an interesting twist to this classic CD tribute.

For more information, visit Bohemianproductions.net.

• TRACK LISTING:
• 1. Whole Lotta Love - Chris Mahoney
• 2. Moby Dick - Randy Coven featuring Leslie West
• 3. Four Sticks - Howard Hart
• 4. Dazed & Confused - Brian Tarquin
• 5. Immigrant Song - Greg Rapaport
• 6. Kashmir - Martin Winch
• 7. The Battle Of Evermore - Steve Bingham
• 8. Black Dog - James Ryan
• 9. D'yer Mak'er - Larry Van Fleet
• 10. Babe I'm Gonna Leave You - Hal Lindes
• 11. Friends - Steve Booke
• 12. All My Love - Doug Doppler

BONUS TRACKS:
13. Thumping Beat - Jimmy Page
14. ‘Cause I Love You - Jimmy Page
15. Wailing Sounds - Jimmy Page
16. Burn Up - Jimmy Page