Local Music Gear Exclusive Interview
Written By: Dan O'Donnell
Written By: Dan O'Donnell
Leslie West is a guitar
legend that time has been good to, probably because he refuses to live in the past.
Sometimes called a pioneer of heavy metal,
his band Mountain blew away attendees at the original Woodstock concert (it was
their fifth gig), and established him as a hard driving, hard playing guitarist
with a no-holds barred approach to his sound. It also made him celebrated for
the uniquely rich tone he coaxed out of a single-pickup Les Paul, Jr., which
was his preferred guitar for decades.
While he learned to play
guitar at about nine years old, he first started playing on a ukulele. “When I
got an actual guitar with six strings, I didn’t know what to do with the extra
two,” West said. It was a happy accident that led to him wanting to play
guitar.
