The mountain fell.
Leslie West, who launched towering jams (with an imposing hairstyle) on classic mountain rockers, died at age 75, his publicist confirmed to The Post.
West suffered a cardiac arrest at his home near Daytona, Fla., On Monday and was hospitalized, never regaining consciousness, Rolling Stone reported.
On Tuesday, his brother, Larry West Weinstein, wrote on Facebook that West’s heart stopped and he was put on a respirator, according to the LA Times.
He leaves his wife Jenni Maurer, whom he married on stage at a 2009 concert in celebration of Woodstock’s 40th birthday.
West released guitar riffs and loud howls at Mountain, a powerful trio formed by Felix Pappalardi on bass and Corky Laing on drums. The band’s contribution to the canon was the archetype “Mississippi Queen”, a noisy blues-rock number with cow bells that reached 21st place on the Billboard Hot 100.
The burly west of New York was an imposing figure on stage, in his eccentric clothes and a tiny Gibson in his hands. While the group shared his name with his first solo album, he joked that the trio was nicknamed Mountain “because I was so fat” and later called a solo album “The Great Fatsby”.
One reviewer went so far as to call him “300 pounds dressed in blue velvet, suede and snake skin” in a concert review, according to Rolling Stone.
The group played a set at the Woodstock festival that defined the era, where West “had the most amplifiers of all there,” he reminded Rolling Stone in 1989. Mountain broke up in 1972, but West continued to play with Laing, replacing Cream bassist Bruce Bruce for Pappalardi. He reformed Mountain in 1974 and continued to play with different variations of the band during the following decade, after a stagnant solo career (based on the aforementioned “Fatsby”).
Like many rockers of his day, West struggled with drugs; his choice was heroin. His weight was also an issue, and in the 1980s, he was diagnosed with diabetes and lost the lower half of his right leg due to the disease. Along the way, he added “actor” to the curriculum, appearing in “Family Honor” in 1973 and in “The Money Pit” in 1986, and also became close friends with Howard Stern, marking repeated appearances on the program.
Their music also attracted a second surprise act from the hip-hop community with the song “Long Red”, which was played by De La Soul, The Game, ASAP Rocky, Kanye West and Jay-Z (for Nova’s fellow rocker) York music, “99 Problems”).
“There was something about this song that rappers liked,” West told Blues Blast magazine in 2015. “I have six different platinum albums on my wall from all these different guys trying on my stuff.”
West was revered for his musical descendants. Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider tweeted that West was “one of the founders of heavy metal” and Rolling Stone noted that the late guitarist Eddie Van Halen hailed West as one of his first influences in 2011, calling the tone of the great man’s guitar “incredible”. And no less rock authority than Dave Grohl recently covered “Mississippi Queen” for his virtual series “Hanukkah Sessions”.
West, who never really stopped production, releasing albums throughout the 2000s, with the most recent in 2015, remained a canny who was great with a quote in his later years. He told Page Six in 2007 that his new label was called “Big Rack Records” “because my fiancee has big, beautiful hair”.
“There are no drugs for me,” he added, comparing 2007 to his glory years. “I don’t remember most of the things that happened at that time.”