Leslie West

Leslie West was one of those guitarists who made you feel the weight of every note — a big man with an even bigger sound. His work with Mountain is the stuff of hard rock legend; "Mississippi Queen" is one of those riffs that's burned into the DNA of anyone who grew up on classic rock radio, and his tone on that song alone should earn him eternal respect. He was born in Forest Hills, Queens, grew up partly in Hackensack, New Jersey, and carved out a style that sat somewhere between blues grit and hard rock swagger. Rolling Stone eventually ranked him among the greatest guitarists ever, and honestly, it felt overdue. He passed away in December 2020, but that raw, bluesy roar he conjured from a Les Paul doesn't get old.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Name (English)

Leslie West

Name (Japanese)

レスリー・ウェスト

Reading

れすりー・うぇすと

Born

October 22, 1945 – December 23, 2020

Origin

New York City, New York, United States

Occupation

singer / guitarist / songwriter / musician

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Libra / Rooster

High school

Forest Hills High School

• Xhttps://x.com/lwestmountain
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie%20West
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%AC%E3%82%B9%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%83%BB%E3%82%A6%E3%82%A7%E3%82%B9%E3%83%88
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1344554

Tags

• New York
• singer
• guitarist
• songwriter

Last updated

October 18, 2026

Only publicly available facts are listed; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Base data was compiled from Wikidata from June 2026 onward; ages are recalculated daily and deaths are checked against Wikidata on an ongoing basis. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.