Felix Pappalardi
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Felix Pappalardi was born in the Bronx on December 30, 1939. He is best known as the producer of the psychedelic, blues-inspired rock trio Cream, beginning with their second album, Disraeli Gears.
Pappalardi was also the bassist and founding member of American hard rock band Mountain, a band born out of Atlantic Records asking him to work with The Vagrants. Mountain's "Mississippi Queen" is still heard regularly on classic rock radio stations.
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. From there he moved into record production, initially concentrating on folk and folk-rock acts for artists such as The Youngbloods and Joan Baez. However, it was Pappalardi's late-'60s work with Cream that established his reputation. He contributed instrumentation for his imaginative studio arrangements and he and his wife, Gail Collins Pappalardi, wrote the Cream hit "Strange Brew" with Eric Clapton.
Pappalardi was forced to retire because of partial deafness, apparently from his high volume shows with Mountain. He continued doing studio work and released a solo album and an album with Creation.
Pappalardi died April 17, 1983 in his uptown Manhattan apartment from a gunshot wound at the age of 43. See the article on Gail Collins Pappalardi for the circumstances of his death.
He was known for playing a Gibson EB-1 violin bass through a set of Sunn amplifiers that, he claimed, once belonged to Jimi Hendrix.
External link
- Felix Pappalardi home page (http://www.pappalardi.com)