Miserlou, Mountain, and Murder

The Felix Pappalardi Story

Feilx Pappalardi was a classically trained singer and multi-instrumentalist, first at New York’s High School of Music and Art, and subsequently at the University of Michigan.

Doin’ That Rag

After graduating in 1964, he joined the touring band for Max Morath’s Original Ragtime Quartet as a bassist. The ORQ was pretty much exactly what it sounds like.

After a year on the road, Felix landed in Greenwich Village and began working as an arranger, producer, and session bassist for some of the scene's most noteworthy folkies including Tom Paxton, Fred Neil, and Joan Baez.

Deal with the Devil

It was also during this time that Felix stumbled upon an assembly of musicians performing a distinctive blend of Turkish, Arabic and Greek songs at a Village cafe called Feenjon. Felix joined with Steve Knight (rhythm guitar, bass, bouzouki), Jerry Satpir (lead guitar, vocals), Elierzer Adoram (accordion), and Kareem Issaq (oud, vocals) to form Devil’s Anvil.

They made a single album called Hard Rock from the Middle East.

Their debut was an entirely unique creation from a period noted for endless experimental endeavoring.

The album is a tight, fierce burst of high-powered Eastern folk music channeled through a rock and roll sensibility. Standouts include ginned up traditionals like “Shisheler” above, and “Miserlou”, here below.

Israeli Gears

In a stroke of remarkably shitty luck, the album’s release coincided with the Six-Day War. June of ‘67 saw long simmering tensions spill over into military violence between Israel and a coalition of neighbors that included Egypt, Syria and Jordan.

Even in the increasingly bold New York radio market, the Devil’s Anvil was untouchable. Their lone album stiffed hard.

But Pappalardi’s ascendance was just beginning. That same year, he joined forces with British power-trio, Cream. Working as producer, arranger, and songwriter, Pappalardi helped steer one of hard rock’s cornerstone bands into commercial success. He even co-wrote “Strange Brew” alongside his wife Gail Collins and guitarist Eric Clapton.

As Cream helped lay the groundwork for the future of hard rock, Pappalardi set to work forming his own proto-metal combo.

Climbing

He worked briefly with a modestly successful New York-based garage group called the Vagrants. Their biggest success (without Pappalardi) had been a regionally popular cover of Otis Redding’s “Respect” in 1967.

Felix produced a minor single for the group. When the Vagrants broke up, he also produced the 1969 solo debut for their former singer–Leslie West.

The album was largely a collaborative effort between West and Pappalardi called Mountain. They subsequently added Corky Laing on drums and Pappalardi’s old bandmate Steven Knight on keys and named their new band after the album.

The chugging, hard-rocking Mountain launched in auspicious fashion. Their third gig ever was a career-making appearance at the Woodstock festival that summer.

Their high-octane primetime slot helped to propel the cowbell-intensive “Mississippi Queen” to #21 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970.

Like Cream, Mountain emerged as another prototypical hard rock group, bashing out loud, blues-based riffage across four albums and five years of touring. Unfortunately, so loud was the band that Pappalardi’s hearing was almost entirely gone by 1974.

Pappalardi Productions

He retired from the road and spent the latter part of the decade producing albums for a diverse spectrum of artists that included Chicago-based Jazz rockers The Flock, punk upstarts The Dead Boys, and roots-rock mainstays, Hot Tuna.

But by this point, Pappalardi’s personal life had spiraled into chaos.

Witch of Trouble in Electric Blue

It was known to those around them that he and his wife Gail Collins endured a mutually toxic relationship darkened by drug use and extramarital activity. These conditions escalated into a deadly confrontation on April 17th 1983.

In a haze of anger and Percocet, Gail shot and killed Felix with a derringer he’d once purchased as a gift for her. It’s said that Gail sold her rights to “Strange Brew” to post bail.

Her resulting trial was marked by drama, and included particularly damning statements and testimonies from members of Mountain’s inner circle.

Prosecutor’s sought a charge of 2nd Degree Murder, but instead the jury delivered a much lesser verdict of criminally negligent homicide. Collins served a short time in prison but was free by 1985.

Soon after, she disappeared from public life, and was never seen nor heard from again. Both Corky Laing and Leslie West recounted rumors that she had committed suicide somewhere in Mexico, but nobody knows for certain.

Leslie West–who also endured years of ill health due to his own drug and alcohol abuse–passed away from cardiac arrest in 2020. However, before his departure, he offered this fairly astute observation regarding his late friend, Felix Pappalardi.

“You want my advice? Buy your wife a diamond ring, some flowers, a push-up bra. Don’t buy her a gun.”

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As usual, we’ll try to leave things off on a bright note.

Here’s a cool recording from Pappalardi’s later days, a glammy 1978 super session with Corky Laing, David Bowie axe-man Mick Ronson, and Mott the Hoople frontman, Ian Hunter.