Mountain - To My Friend (1970)

Before creating this band, Leslie West had been in the Long Island R&B group known as The Vagrants. In 1969, West was approached by ex-Cream collaborator Felix Pappalardi who wanted to help West put out a solo album. With the help of N. D. Smart, West’s album, titled Mountain, came out on July 1969. Soon, West, Pappalardi, and Smart decided to create their own band and named it after the solo album they had all worked on together. One of their first gigs, before having released an album as a band, was playing at Woodstock in late 1969. Unfortunately, there was no video recorded capturing the bands performance, nor was any of their set released on the Woodstock audio albums.

Shortly after their Woodstock performance, N. D. Smart was replaced with Corky Laing, a drummer previously affiliated with the band known as Energy. Filling out their lineup was the keyboardist Steve Knight. Together with West and Pappalardi, the band put out their first album Climbing!, released on March 7, 1970. The song heard below, written by Leslie West, was released as the album’s sixth track. It was entirely overshadowed by the album’s opening track and the band’s most famous hit “Mississippi Queen.”



Mountain - To My Friend (1970)

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Lyrics:

(instrumental)