The Leslie West Band - Got Live (2021)

The late LESLIE WEST was one of the great, BIG characters of American rock and roll. His passing in December, 2020, at the age of seventy-five from cardiac arrest, drew to a close a career that embraced vertiginous highs and deep troughs. Throughout it all, though, West remained garrulous, loud and unafraid to voice his opinion. West is featured on two releases from the Voiceprint division of North London indie Floating World Records – the first, entitled ‘Five Originals’, features five full length albums on three CDs, and includes his album ‘The Great Fatsby’, which is unique insofar as it features ‘High Roller’, a very rare co-write with West and the ‘Glimmer Twins’ themselves - Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones. Jagger even puts in a shift on rhythm guitar, proving that he is equally as talented at the ‘Keef chord’ as the Human Riff himself. The Leslie West Band also featured West’s long-time drumming foil, Corky Laing, as well as British guitarist Mick Jones, who would soon quit to form the multi-million selling Foreigner.

Also included in this set is later albums such as ‘Guitarded’, the title a somewhat self-mocking reference to West’s ongoing health issues that afflicted him in the last twenty years of his life (he suffered from diabetes, survived a bladder cancer diagnosis, and also had to have his right leg amputated below the knee from complications from his diabetic condition in 2011). Throughout it all, though, West remained an active and highly regarded musician, his mastery of tone and feel setting him apart in the crowded arena of fiery guitarists that emerged in the late sixties.

The second multi-disc set is ‘Got Live’, a collection of in-concert performances that include the Leslie West Band, recorded at the Electric Ladyland studios from 1975, right up to a show from The Robin, Bilston, in the British Midlands, from 1998. The performances include renditions of such classics from his Mountain era as ‘Mississippi Queen’, ‘Nantucket Sleighride’ (forever known to People of A Certain Age as the theme from the ITN current events programme, ‘Weekend World’), his distinctive interpretation of the Hendrix ops, ‘Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)’, and run-throughs of ‘Honky Tonk Women’ and ‘House of the Rising Sun’.