Leslie West – Mountain

It's basically a bootleg. That dot in the corner is a printed cut-out punch hole lol.

Absolutely superb album. Spent ages trying to get a great copy,and won a sealed 1st press copy on ebay from a charity shop!😀😀. Just a top album all round! Listen and enjoy.

update late 2020, i FINALLY found a complete copy of this japan only second pressing of the debut leslie west lp wich was really the first mountain record, I NOW AFTER DECADES HAVE A COPY WITH THE BOOKLET INSERT & CAP OBI i mentioned below about 18 months ago i did not have, this record does indeed show up but in decades of buying records i NEVER see this with the obi , NOW I OWN ONE FINALLY, i can die a fairly happy man......

If you're looking for the best sounding vinyl pressing of this album, this UK press is it. Pressed by EMI, has exceptional dynamics and sweet sounding highs. This is the ultimate IMO

god after so many years of hunting for this lp complete with the cap obi and insert i FINALLY nailed a vg++ copy today, this was with out a doubt the hardest original leslie west/mountain lp to find as it took me years, anyway this comes with a nice thick 60s style sleeve, a beautiful cap obi that runs across the top of the lp sleeve and a standard two page japan insert with lyrics in english and an essay on the other side of the sheet regarding felix & leslie in japanese, this was the FIST japan pressing of this lp way back in 1969 50 years ago already, it took me ages to find this complete, i feel the biggest hole in my mountain japan collection has been filled as this is the first japan pressing of this lp, the second with the gate fold sleeve with that great japan only unique sleeve was a reissue released in 1972........ this original coipy here was released on BELL records japan, a division of CBS records in japan.....

this was a great japan mini lp replica cd that came out back in 08 with the rest of the mountain catlog up to the avalanche record. all japan cds have beautiful original japan lp replication and the discs sound great!!!!!!

i got this unique to japan only lp about 3 decades ago at a record show, i do not have this with the obi as this copy is very hard to get with the cap obi for some reason, regardless this was the record that made mountain ...... mountain!!!!! great record from 50 years ago and a very cool unique shot of leslie on the sleeve...... long red forever!!

This is and is not Mountain. It's actually a Leslie West solo album (fresh out of a New York band called The Vagrants, who apparently didn't have much success outside of New York City), with Felix Pappalrdi participating, and a different drummer, with no Steve Knight. It's a bit strange that it sounds like Mountain and it doesn't at the same time. A couple songs have a more psychedelic bent than what Mountain would do, like the organ-laden "Long Red" and the Mellotron-laden "Look to the Wind" (Felix Pappalardi, as well as Rick Nielsen of Fuse, later of Cheap Trick, were the earliest American owners of the Mellotron, both had to buy in England given the Mellotron wasn't available in the States until around 1972). But the album still has plenty of heavy guitar riffs with a blues-based feel, might not be as heavy as "Mississippi Queen", but then we hadn't quite got there yet. They also take on Bob Dylan & Rick Danko's "This Wheel's On Fire" (unsurprisingly The Band did a version of this off Music From Big Pink, as this was originally from The Basement Tapes, and in the UK Julie Driscoll scored a hit with Brian Auger & The Trinity, and she rerecorded a version in 1992 for the TV show Absolutely Fabulous). Much of the music on this album has a rather bluesy feel, demonstrating quite well how much heavy metal had its roots in the blues. "Southbound Train" has some rather early '70s type of organ to go with that early '70s type of heavy rock (I know, this is 1969). "Because You Are My Friend" is a bit different, a more acoustic folk piece where Leslie West does not use his trademark harsh voice. Honestly I found this album very enjoyable, and certainly you'd probably go for Mountain (the band) first (such as Climbing! and Nantucket Sleighride), this album is where the roots of Mountain came from.