Felix Pappalardi

At 43 years old, Felix Pappalardi physical status not available right now. We will update Felix Pappalardi's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

In 1964, Pappalardi was a member of Max Morath's Original Rag Quartet (ORQ) in their premier engagement at New York's Village Vanguard with several other musicians. Along with Pappalardi on guitarrón (Mexican acoustic bass) were pianist-singer Morath, who revived classic ragtime played in the Scott Joplin manner, Barry Kornfeld, a New York studio folk and jazz guitarist, and Jim Tyler, a Baroque and Renaissance lutenist, playing four-string banjo and mandolin. The ORQ then toured the college and concert circuit during the following year, and opened four engagements with the Dinah Shore show in Las Vegas and elsewhere. Pappalardi studied classical music at the University of Michigan. Upon completing his studies and returning to New York, he was unable to find work and so became part of the Greenwich Village folk-music scene where he made a name for himself as a skilled arranger; he also appeared on albums by Tom Paxton as well as Vince Martin and Fred Neil for Elektra Records. From there he moved into record production, initially concentrating on folk and folk-rock acts for artists such as The Youngbloods and Joan Baez.

As a producer, Pappalardi is perhaps best known for his work with Cream, beginning with their second album, Disraeli Gears. He contributed instrumentation for his studio arrangements and he and his wife, Gail Collins, wrote the Cream hit "Strange Brew" with Eric Clapton. He also produced The Youngbloods' first album.

As a musician, Pappalardi is widely recognized as a bassist, vocalist, and founding member of the American hard rock band (and heavy metal forerunner) Mountain, a band born out of his working with future bandmate Leslie West's soul-inspired rock and roll band The Vagrants, and producing West's 1969 Mountain solo album. The band's original incarnation actively recorded and toured between 1969 and 1971. Pappalardi produced the band's albums, and co-wrote and arranged a number of the band's songs with Collins and West.

The band's signature song "Mississippi Queen" is still heard regularly on classic rock radio stations. They also had a hit with the song "Nantucket Sleighride" written by Pappalardi and Collins.

Pappalardi generally played Gibson basses on Mountain's live and studio recordings. He was most often seen with an EB-1 violin bass but there are also photographs of him playing an EB-0 live (likely because they had the same pickup configuration and scale length). Pappalardi obtained his sound by playing Gibson basses with a single Humbucker in the neck through a set of Sunn amplifiers that, he claimed, once belonged to Jimi Hendrix.

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