Customer Reviews

Over the Top

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Leslie West, Felix Pappalardi and Corky Laing were a great early 70s hard rock band that pioneered the sound that we now call heavy metal. Along with Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, Mountain was among the first rock bands to take the blues-rock structure of Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience and make it louder and more aggressive. Mountain was a big influence upon much of the hard rock/metal of the following decade, and the classic "Mississippi Queen" was a seminal FM radio hit.

Over The Top is an anthology of Mountain's musical legacy from its beginnings in Leslie West's 1969 debut, Mountain (later taken as the name of the trio) through the successful early 70s LPs to reunions in the 80s and 90s.

It begins on CD 1 with six tracks from Leslie West's Mountain LP, which sounds much the same as the group, Mountain. It's bluesy rock with West's guitar skills on full display. Tracks 7 to 13 cover most of the Climbing album. This is some of the group's best stuff including the classic Mississippi Queen and another excellent rocker, Never In My Life. Next is some live material featuring a very long Stormy Monday, and an extended five-minute guitar solo.

Disc 2 begins with songs from the Nantucket Sleighride and Flowers of Evil albums. This is still prime material from the 1971 - '72 era. Then we have two tracks from the 1974 Avalanche album, where things started to go downhill a bit, followed by two tracks from the 1985 reunion album Go For Your Life, where the group sounds like an 80s metal band. Last there are two tracks that were recorded just for this compilation in 1994 by Leslie West, Corky Laing and former Jimi Hendrix Experience bassist Noel Redding. These tracks are decent, but don't rank with Mountain's classic material.

Overall, Over The Top is a good anthology collection that is far more thorough than the earlier The Best of Mountain collection. I would say that Over The Top is the best purchase for something looking to get into the group's music. It contains all of the group's essential music and is just missing a few album tracks. The best choice, obviously, would be to buy the original albums, but the albums are spotty and short, so it's a much better value to just get this 2-CD set, which has 34 tracks and contains all the best of their music. I just wish they could have sacrificed some of the lesser tracks in favor of presenting the complete Mountain, Climbing and Nantucket Sleighride albums. All three would fit easily on 2 CDs. Still, this is a great compilation and should be all the Mountain that casual fans need.

I was waiting a long time for a good Mountain anthology and this 2 cd remastered release succeeded. When this compilation was released many of the band's original albums were not available domestically. Mountain was a hard blues/rock band based around the influential guitar playing of Leslie West. He began his career in the local New York band the Vagrants. West was a mountain of a man until his recent weight loss. He also was reportly rumored to have auditioned for both the Rolling Stones and Lynyrd Skynyrd. The band was well known for introducing improvisational jamming elements to their songs in concert. The most stable band line-up included Felix Pappalardi on bass and vocals, Corky Laing on drums and Steve Knight on keyboards. Their music sounded like Cream, whom Felix Pappalardi used to work with in the studio, mixed with elements of Grand Funk Railroad and the Rolling Stones. Their most popular songs include the radio favorite "Mississippi Queen", "Theme From An Imaginary Western" written by Jack Bruce from Cream and "Nantucket Sleighride". The music mixes West's inventive guitar playing with Knight's keyboards. Mountain became popular enough to play at the original Woodstock festival and the Fillmores East and West, among other venues. One of the highlights of this set for me was the rare live version of "Stormy Monday". Other favorites include "Crossroader", "Don't Look Around" "For Yasgur's Farm" and "Travelin' In The Dark". Two of songs which I like "Baby I'm Down" and "The Boys In The Band" were left off this compilation though. The last disk contains two newly recorded tracks with West, Laing and Noel Redding the bass player for the Jimi Hendrix Experience replacing Felix Pappalardi who was shot and killed by his songwriting partner/wife. Fans who like hard blues/rock with great guitar playing and live jamming will enjoy this 2 cd set as much as I did.

The Great Fatsby (Leslie West) and his bandmates, including the original producing genius behind Cream (Felix Pappalardi on bass)were introduced to me by a guy in my high school art class. He had a facination with the band that went way beyond their public status. With good reason. This collection shows that, while the band was in many ways derivitive of Cream, the guitar work of West, the drumming of Corkie Laing and the improvisational bass lines of Pappalardi (embelished here and there by keyboardist Steve Knight) is original and creates a tight, rocking sound that's hard to forget. From the acoustic strains of "Because you are My Friend" to the band's electric hit, "Mississippi Queen", this is a collection that anyone interested in the minor acts of the late 1960's and early 70's will want to listen to over and over again. Mountain was featured on "Woodstock II", out-takes from the original festival album, as a subordinate act but the music West and Pappalardi crafted, as highlighted by this retroscpective, is anything but minor league.

Hard, ragged edged, blues influenced Rock. There are few recording collections that can reach the pinacle of defining what Mountain does with this collection. Leslie West, masterfully handels guitar riffs that speak to the depths of a true rockers soul. With Corky Lang and the late Felix Pabliardy<sp> laying down a rock solid foundation with bass and drums. From the overly familer "Mississippi Queen" to other obscure pieces like "You Gotta Believe", Mountain in all it's glory is on these two CD's. Play it loud, it was made that way.

Gotta love this album! Mountain were / is one of those bands you simply can't get enough of. Great songs, great playing and one of the best (although overated) voices in the rock business - ever! Everybody thinks of Leslie West as a guitar player. Period. He truly is one hell of a guitarists and he stands among the best of the best (Clapton, Hendrix, Beck etc.) but as a singer he's in league of his own. There's no one like him. No one comes even close. His singing technique may not be flawless but the emotion he delivers the lyrics with is simply irresistable. However Mountain was more than just Leslie West. Felix Papalardi (bass)and Corky Laing (drums) were just as essential elements of the band. They were both exellent musicians as well and together they formed a rhythm section as tight as the one of Led Zeppelin's while being as groovy as any rhytm section on any James Brown album you can think of. They were such an excellent band. And all their greatest songs can be found on this album. No, not all of them, but the albums gives you a good overview of what the band was / is all about: great songs played honest and simply better than anyone else.

I'll be honest: I always thought Leslie West was a cornball, wildly overrated, although I had a sneaking affection for his first album "Mountain".

More than thirty years later, this music sounds better than ever. There are highs and lows, but you can hear the hard rock of the 60s seguing into the heavy metal of the 70s, with elements of grunge and thrash. At first listen, there's not much range, but it grows on you.

This band was understandably compared to Cream; the bass player not only produced most Cream recordings but played on them and co-wrote several of the songs. However, this is more like Grand Funk Railroad or the early Black Sabbath in its straight-ahead approach. There's nothing pretty about West's singing, but he gets the job done.

If you like hard rock without too much fuss and feathers, you may enjoy this set, although the one-disc "Best of Mountain" is a safer bet for those unfamiliar with the group's sound.

The story of its orgin is wellknown. Felix Pappalardi, the already succesfulf producer of some Cream albums, saw a band called The Venturas and was not impressed by their efforts but the more by its guitarplayer Leslie West ("the fat kid from the Bronx"). They became friends and decided to release a solo-album by West, (given his bodyvolume aptly) titled "Mountain", after which the latterday erected band was named. The potency of Mountain, the band, is already noticeable of this offering with outstanding tracks as "Blood of the Sun" and "Long Red", which became swift livestaples. From that album appear 6 songs. West will always be seen as a great leadguitarplayer, but on this collection you can hear him play also on an acoustic guitar on serval tracks and his fingerplicking style is fluent. Taken with him from Cream the electric blues and rock Pappalardi knew as no other how to assemble a band in the same vein and with the addition of a keyboardplayer Mountain was a fact, with a small string of excellent albums: "Climbing!", from which 7 tracks are presented here, "The Road Goes Ever On", the stunning double live "Twin Peaks" (with half an hour of "Nantucket Sleighride"), the titletrack album by that name, with no less than 8 of its tracks presented here, "Flowers of Evil" and the somewhat lesser "Avalanche". Further is included a truelu awesome 20 minutes live-rendition of "Stormy Monday", which never before appeared on any of the offical Mountain albums. Finally a few songs are presented here from the eighties and nineties, long after Pappalardi was shot dead, a great loss for the world of music. West and drummer Corky Laing have resurected the band(name) several times, having played together under other names as well, among them West, Bruce and Laing with Cream singer/bassplayer Jack Bruce. So the Cream connection is not always far away. This is a must have collection for anyone who held this band in high esteem. If you don't feel for buying all the original albums (some of them are almost integral part of the deal) this is not only a great start but also a great document of where Mountain stood and they were up to.

This is the ultimate cd for Mountain fans. It includes every song that made them such a strong live band. However, to not include the "Dream Sequence" is criminal. I actually emailed SONY Records about the exclusion and naturally got no reply. Still, it's very good, and I recommend it highly.

I was introduced to Mountain at the beginning of the '70's, when the top rated guitarists at that time were all Brits (tragically Hendrix had just moved on to that great gig in the sky) The experience will never be forgotten. Don't Look Around and Travellin' In The Dark changed my view forever. Leslie West IS the Man! The old songs are timeless; the newer stuff on the 2nd disk shows that Leslie can move with the times and still outplay and outwrite the best of the young pretenders trying to muscle in and take over. Mountain were the best show in town when Felix Papalardi and Corky Laing formed as tight a rythm section as you'll get anywhere, whilst Big L and Steve Knight put down some superb melodies. I never subscribed to their being compared to Cream...Mountain were and are Mountain.

The best songs are all captured in what must be 'The Best Of The Best Of'albums. The CD's almost been burnt away as it's compulsive listening.Never mind...when it's done I'll get another one.

Keep knockin' them down, Leslie..We are not worthy!

This double CD is an excellent introduction to Mountain and the roots of hard rock. Guitarist Leslie West is up there with Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix and Tony Iommi as one of the founding fathers of HR/HM, and still going strong in 2007. Mountain took the template created by Hendrix and Cream and turned the volume up to 11! Standout tracks include Mississippi Queen and anything from the classic 1971 Nantucket Sleighride album (present in its entirety bar one track on tracks 1-8 Disc 2). Treat yourself to a bit of rock history. Later imitators may have done it louder and faster, but rarely better.