Along with this kind of Professional attitude, Mountain is also permeated with talk of the group and it's support crews as a "family." The conflicts of interest that so often develop between musicians and businessmen are noticeably absent at Windfall. This kind of interpersonal warmth requires a great deal of trust to flourish within the usually tension-packed environs of the music business. Felix Pappalardi has been involved in the business for several years, and he has the wounds to show it. Windfall is Felix' dream and inspiration. From this vantage point, he appears to be on the right track.

Leslie West, whose dimensions undoubtedly inspired the group's name, is smiling these days. As a guitarist for the Vagrants, another of New York City's competent but unsuccessful rock groups, Leslie paid his share of dues. Now on the verge of scoring for the first time, Leslie is mellowing.

"I'd like to get a house, maybe in Mill Valley or in the Canyon, just to know that I can get on a plane and go there. But I know I've gotta live in the city to take care of all this. Because actually this is just part of a step in my life. I'm not enraptured with it, man.

In our conversation, which lasted about a half hour, it soon became obvious that Leslie's new-found stability gives him great joy. An old lady and a hit record can do wonders for the head. The days of all-night jamming are ended for Leslie, who would now rather go home.

As Felix arrived, Leslie was leaving for an appointment at the dentist's. Felix was guarded at first, but he opened up once he'd had some coffee and gotten used to his questioner.

Your wife, Gail, designed the Mountain album covers and cowrote several songs. She has an active part in what you're doing?

"More than just an active part in my work. She's a very important part. All the lyrics that I've ever set to music are hers."

The sound on the second album seems very different. Much more together. I was wondering what musical directions you had in mind for it.

"It's sort of all there, you know? Where we were as a group. The first album was still strictly a solo album - Leslie's solo album. These last two are definitely group albums so it went that way."

Did your function as a producer change?

"No."

Last time you were angry because of the comparison with Cream. I don't think anybody will be saying that anymore. The sound of Leslie's guitar seems a lot different. Is he using different equipment?

"No, the player's different; he and Eric are different. Although I still hear people say that he and Eric (Clapton) are the same, which is just baloney...Unfortunately, the thing is that most people listen superficially. Most people don't really get down inside of it."

I was talking to Bud Prager before about the fact that, as much as you dislike the whole Cream thing, it was probably the primary step in promoting the first album - the fact that you produced Cream, I mean.

"Yeah, right. But I'm still adamant about pulling things out of the press kit that have anything to do with Cream. For instance, some of the early reviews. I just had The New York Times article* permanently removed from the press kit. This guy Mike Jahn wrote something about 'Mountain rises from a little leftover Cream'. Which is fine and it's cute and it's journalistic, but I could do without it. I really feel that the band can stand very much alone."

All the reviews I've seen on the new album have been positive.

"Yeah, in fact they've been incredible. I didn't expect that."

Last time we talked, you told me you had a pretty firm footing in classical music. On this album, I hear a lot of influences; symphonic influences in the use of the mellotron. Were you drawing on your classical background?

"It's not a matter of actively drawing on it, it's there. It's a part of my vocabulary and i use it. But I don't calculatedly get to the part where I say, 'Now I will use my classical influences'. It's all a part of what I feel is natural for me now as a musician. I draw from a blues influence, from ragtime influences, from jazz influences."

But do you overtly specify? On past albums I haven't heard that classical feel as overtly as I do on this one.

Well, that's because this one is mine. So I don't have to stand behind another artist. Everything else I did was sort of leading to this as an eventuality."

It must ne personally satisfying to have a hit album of your own.

"Oh yeah, I've been wanting it for a long time."

I'm interested in the way you use the Organ. It's a structured sound.

"Definitely. Because in rehearsal I structured it so that the organ is serving a coloristic function. Because the basic playing is done by Corky Laing (the drummer), Leslie and myself. The basic improvisation. Steve Knight's function is color, orchestration."

I'd almost call it environment, it's such a rich sound.

"Yeah."

I know of two other groups - Procol Harum and the Allman Brothers - that use the Organ that way. I personally find that kind of sound Irresistable.

"Yeah, I dig it myself."

When you use an organ like that, there isn't anu use for a rhythm guitarist, right?

"Well, that's always been a question. We may eventually gravitate to Steve playing some rhythm guitar in the band. He's an excellent rhythm guitarist and also a bass player. In time to come, there'll be a lot of switching going on between Steve and myself, because I play rhythm guitar and piano. I played all of the piano on the album, I think."

Was that "Boys In The Band" that started with the piano?

"Yeah."

You're not thinking of increasing to five people, are you?

"No, not right now. Maybe eventually."

What would the fifth piece be?

"Sythesizer."

Have you worked at all with it?

"Yeah, I'm still working on it."

Which seems to be the more valid use for you: as a sound effect or an instrument?

"Both. To me the sound effect is not a thing that anyone should look down on. It's valid. I think using it solely as a sound effect would be a mistake."

What other directions do you have in mind?

I'm just wide open. I want to just see where things are gonna go, you know, and I'll just pick and choose..."

What do you do to amuse yourself when you're on the road?

"Play."

Do you find you can write when you're on the road?

"I wrote 'Boys In The Band" on the road. I wrote 'The Laird' on the road."

I was wondering what the word "laird" means? It sounds Celtic.

"Well, that's the origin of the phrase, but in this case it has to do with a young American who's in political exile."

Your inspiration then for lyrics can be-

"Gail."

Can you talk about the process of writing a lyric?

"Yeah. Sometimes we talk about it a lot. We talk about what we want to say, and then she'll write it. Or like in the case of "The Laird", that was just hers."

Do you write melody and lyrics at the same time?

"Sometimes."

I always ask that question and that's the answer I always get too...There's been a trend recently in rock, from '65 or '66, that seems to be going back to the era where there was a lot of influence from folk music. You're not really going along with that trend. Your album is singular in terms of the stuff that I've heard this year.

"That's good. I'd rather it be that way. we're gonna do what we're gonna do, and hope that it's successful, on that level."

Your voice on this album is different from a typical rock vocal too in that there isn't any particular inflection to it; you sing fairly straight. And it's not like your speaking voice at all.

"No, I don't know where the hell that comes from, to tell you the truth."

Are you still finding that you can be gratified in the role of producer?

"Only in certain instances now. The only one that I've found that I can really say I've had any gratification from is Mountain. I wondered when Cream broke up what I was gonna do productionwise. I mean I was a producer - I was trapped. Then I thought I really wasn't, becaause although I didn't want to go scouring the country for the next group I was gonna do, my production tended very much toward my getting involved in the group I was producing musically - like Cream. I played a lot on the Cream records."

You're talking not only about musical involvement, but interpersonal involvement as well.

"Yeah, but basically - the stepping stone being the music. So it seemed natural to me that this seemed to be the time for me to have my own group. And do it the right way."

There was an album called Jolliver Arkansaw that you did kind of in med stream. What was your purpose in producing that group? Was it a contractual thing?

"Yeah, basically. It was at the time where I felt I was making a rather big mistake in trying to perpetrate my production talents commercially. We were friends for a long, long time - the guys from Jolliver Arkansaw. In fact, that album turned out to be one of the most important ones I've ever made. In the sense that Leslie played a solo. I asked him to come to the session. And that was one of the deciding factors in my forming this group. He played a solo the likes of which I hadn't heard in years. It made a big difference. And it was work, you know - it was in the studio - do it! Which I've always believed is the key to accomplishment."

When you do a certain song, is there a certain structure that comes into your mind for that song, or does the group have "layers", so to speak?

"A lot of it is created, like I said before, right there in the studio. In other words, the basic track of "Boys in the Band" was grand piano and drums. Then I built the record from there."

There's a chronology in every record you do then?

"The way I work, yeah. On the other hand, 'Yasgur's Farm' was done right like that. The only thing that was overdubbed was the vocal and Leslie's solo. But the track is pretty much the way we do it onstage. Except I out two bass tracks on, because I wanted to have a different sound than the first one."

What kind of reception have you gotten live? You've been doing this material for the last few months.

"Yeah, the reception has always been incredible. The people who are coming to see us are able, I think, to relate more to the group than they could before they'd heard our records. It used to be, Wow! What a surprise. Always standing ovations. Almost without exception."

Even in places like Cincinnati?

"Especially in places like Cincinnati."

What's your major challenge now as a group?

"The music. And the interpersonal relationships of the four cats that have to travel together and live together and play together."

Well, as you said, that comes through in the music.

"That's right. And it shows, the relationships show. To me there's no way to get around it. So that's the challenge, the challenge now is longevity."

Well, we were saying before that most people listen superficially to the music they play, and I was wondering if that can be a challenge, to get people to go beyond that, I think people certainly do with The Beatles simply because they're The Beatles.

"You know, maybe they do with The Beatles, but I don't think The Beatles believe that. I think they're too smart to believe that."

Well, can you educate your audience?

"Sure."

How?

"Ah, by exposure to new things. Like you were saying, you think this album is 'you', you didn't say 'you' but you said singular, different. That's a way."

Yeah, it's one of those things that you can't put in any convenient slot. Which was what impressed me the most about it.

"I think that if there were anything that I would want to have been said about the album and it's completion, it would be that it was just that. Like, you couldn't bag it. That it isn't trendy. You know, 'cause we live in a place where everything is so godawful trendy. I remember ther used to be a time when you'd walk down the street and see a dude with long hair and you could actually go up to him and say, 'How you doing, man?' Now, no more, no kinda way, man, because there are dudes I wouldn't spend 30 seconds with who have long hair and call you brother."

Well, you're backstage at Fillmore East. If you're ever out front before either of the shows, man, it's a really scary scene.

"You oughta try backstage, man. That's one of the things that I don't particularly dig about the Fillmore East, is that whole backstage bit. I'm just not into being a pop star. Ah, I've been told that it's happening to me - that that's the phase that I'm moving into."

Well, that picture on the album with the shades, it looks that way, man.

" Well see, that's just like...I don't know what that's all about, I really don't. That is not the challenge to me. The challenge to me is, I really enjoy...like last night we played Bishop Ford High School in Brooklyn and I was deluged by kids at the end of the concert wanting autographs. I enjoy that, I enjoy that from the point of view of what we were just talking about, which is the possible education of some of these kids who are wide open, and don't want to be blinded, wanna see everything, they're wide open.

"And that I feel is my biggest opportunity, to do something that I've always been interested in doing and that is widening the appreciation of music! I remember, not too long ago, you couldn't hear much baroque music on record, for instance. You couldn't, it wasn't there, and then all of a sudden there was this boom of baroque music, and now you can go out and you can buy the complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach, which was totally unheard of in the '30's, you just couldn't. There were a couple of long old things, like the Pasagalian Fugue, Tocata, and Fugue, but that was it."

Well, I guess the music of the Romantic period has really had a hold on the audience for a long time.

"Sure, because that was the giant put-on era of all time."

Well, the thing that I dislike about that was it's kind of an autocratic music where the conductor is in charge of all these cats and they've gotta do what he says.

"Listen, that was my whole training. I was trained from the time I was 4 years old until the time I finally busted out of school at 22. The whole thing was to train me as a choral conductor, that was the whole thing. Like I conducted Opera in Detroit for two and a half years, I was the conductor of the Opera Association at the University of Michigan. So I've been through that; I've seen it; I know it's autocratic. I know it - ah, the most important thing about it is that it smacks of the museum rather than of that which lives now. Which I'm far more interested in, now."

Yeah, I think the music of today, at least if you talk about the people who are really creative and productive, relates to the Baroque era where people were turning out a lot of stuff and kind of freewheeling. You know, some baroque string quartets and things like that almost sound like jazz. There's that kind of flexibility within the sound.

"Yeah, you're talking about just a little later era - you're talking about like the Classical era."

I'm going into it from a rock perspective because that's how I'm being educated. But I think that's a positive thing because otherwise I wouldn't know about it.

"A lot of things that a lot of people don't understand is because all of Bach's music that we have today is music that he eventually wrote down. That was not his major bit, his major bit was as an improvisor. That was his major talent and that was his major fame - while he was alive - he was an improvisor, as a player, as an organist."

As a musician.

"Yeah, supreme."

I suppose Bach is to music as Shakespeare is to literature.

"Yeah, I would say that. I suppose Bach is to me as God is to probably most of the people I know. When I get bored, I go to him. Which is pretty freaky because the cat's been dead 250 years.

People that don't dig baroque music tell me they don't like it because it sounds kind of mechanical and they don't get a good feeling from it.

"That's too bad; I feel sorry for them.

I got an album by mistake from a Connoisseur - Brazilian cat named Jao Carlos Martins and he plays the first eight preludes and fuges from the Well-tempered Clavier and there's a lot of feeling in that.

"Oh yeah, there's a lot of feeling. The feeling mostly, the lack of feeling - let me put it this way - mostly comes from the interpretation. Most people that play Bach don't have any feeling, and that's why it comes out, you see. The man's dead - there's nothing he can do about it. But he put it down and it's there, and if you got soul and if you have feeling you're gonna play it as such. And if you don't, you're gonna play it with a total lack of feeling and it's gonna come out like Bach didn't have any feeling and that's not where it's at."

Yeah, that's a good point. There have been some experiments, several as a matter of fact, in performing baroque with amplified instruments, you know, aside from the synthesizer thing - to put it in a rock setting. Do you think that's legitimate; would you try something like that?

"No, I haven't got time to try anyrhing like that. You know, why do it? It's not exciting at all. I've heard some of those pieces better in my head than I'm ever gonna hear played by anyone else. Agaun, the vocabilary of music in Western Civilization -"

In other words, you couldn't enhance it?

"No, I don't think so. Not terribly. Anyway, I would rather write something new, than spend my time perfecting that both as a composition and as a record or in performance. I'd rather spend my time on "Boys in the Band" than on a new interpretation of Air for the G string."

Yes, but that makes sense in that in "Boys in the Band" is a part of you that has listened to baroque music for a long time.

"That's right, the vocabulary is there. A lot of the changes in that, God only knows where they came from. I've listened, I've been exposed to music, and then one night I sit down with my old lady - I sit down and out comes 'Boys in the Band.' I wouldn't even attempt an analysis of where it comes from. But I know it's not - it ain't B.B. King. However, the solo over it originated most very definitely with Albert and B.B. and T-Bone Walker. That's what's exciting me about this band. That's what I love about being with this band."

The guitar line on that is almost like a voice, in the same way that really good blues players have managed to do it.

"For me that seperates Leslie from the bulk of blues-oriented guitarists in the world. It's thathe's playing over changes that are alien to blues, to the emulation of blues. And yet the solo he plays over the first eight bars of 'Boys in the Band' is breathtaking blues. There's no junk in there, no wasted notes - it's blues. He's playin' the blues. But he's playin' them over changesthat sort of amalgamate blues with something very white and very Western."

I've heard that done once before on Procol Harun's first album - a thing called Repent, Walpurgis. It's built around a piano run in the First Prelude.

"Which is a directgrab. As opposed to 'Boys in the Band'. The difference in what I'm trying to do is not take any recognizable set of changes from any prior work. I try to make something.

We do a lot of things that other touring bands don't do. Like if we have a job in Cincinnati and we're coming from Denver, rather than leave at noon or one o'clock and get there in time for the performance, we'll get up at 6:30 AM, take an eight o'clock plane, get there at two so that we can have a four o'clock sound check. With full equipment so that we can fine tune the sound as much a possible to the room. We have to, man, we play so loud. And in order to play that loud, and be that controlled, you have to work at it. It's no accident."

I walked into a store yeaterday where a friend of mine was playing 'Boys in the Band' with the volume all the way up.And KrrrrrhhhhHHHHHHHHHH!

"That's where it's at."

And I thought, my god, if they do this live it's gonna blow everybody's mind if they can get close to this sound.

"We haven't even attempted to do it live."

Do you use a Mellotron in live performance?

No. Carrying it around is too much of a hassle."

You can get close to that with the big Hammond. Is that a B-3 you use?

"Yeah."

Do you think you will?

"Eventually, yeah. I think we'll probably use that and we'll probably use the synthesizer as well."

Have you done any more writing since the last album?

"Yeah, I've got some sets of changes worked out."

Are they similar to what you've been doing? Is your head going in any direction that you can describe in words?

"No. Wherever it's been goin', it's goin'."

The 'Boys in the Band' is the song you've been referring to most. I get the feeling that's the thing you're most pleased with. What do you think Leslie's most pleased with? He's looking pretty happy these days.

"He's most pleased with, I think, the fact that he's in a situation where you don't have to worry about nothing. He's been an artist for a long time, never had an album out, and I think now he's playing in a band that he digs to play with. I think he's very happy."

You seem to be happy yourself, that's groovy. You're producing this guy named David Rea who I never heard of. Can you devote much of yourself to him?

"No, I have topick and choose times to get immersed, it's very difficult. Because my head is - besides the production of Mountain, I'm very much into production. I'm a player again now and with that comes an attitude."

Well, why did you make the decision to do this then?

"I just couldn't stand not playing - full time."

Yeah, I mean to produce David Rea?

"Well, he's worth it."

Is he a folk singer? Is that the bag you'd put him in?

"Yeah, I guess you could say that."

Is it an acoustic album, just him and a guitar?