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The BiZARRE MURDER of MOUNTAIN BASSIST FELIX PAPPALARDI

Rock N' Roll True Stories | February 28, 2026



the bizarre murder of Felix Pappalardi

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I cite my sources and they may differ than other people’s accounts, so I don’t guarantee the actual accuracy of my videos.

Felix Pappalardi’s career would flourish in the 1960’s and 70’s. While the name may not be instantly recognizable, he was instrumental in the success of big named musicians with Guitar Player magazine referring to him as a Giant among Giants. He would produce and write music for the band Cream before joining the group Mountain as their bass player and was co-lead vocalist. But by the 80’s his career and personal life were in a freefall. Couple that with drugs, infidelity, and guns and well you get a pretty devastating result. Not just that, but what happened to his killer is pretty shocking. That’s what we’re going to explore in today’s video.

Let me know in the comments section your thoughts on today’s story.
Born in 1939 in the Bronx to a father who was a doctor, Felix Pappalardi would study piano and violin and soon enough could play virtually any instrument. He would eventually move to Ann Arbor to study music at the University of Michigan. Despite being a good student, he dropped out of school and hit the road playing with bands before joining the folk scene in new york.it was here he met his wife and musician and poet Gail Collins
By the 60’s Pappalardi soon started working as a songwriter before producing albums for the likes of Joan Baez and the Youngbloods. Then in 1967 he began working with supergroup Cream, the british blues band featuring Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce & Ginger Baker. The band was working on their second record Disraeli Gears. Pappalardi would be enlisted to produce the record, but he would also co-write a few songs with the members and how wife, including the tracks Strange Brew & World of Pain
He would continue to work with Creamon their two subsequent records Wheels of Fire and Goodbye. It was by the late 60’s Pappalardi would befriend and work with guitarist Leslie West who had played in the band the Vagrants before forming the band Mountain. Initially Pappalardi was going to produce Mountain, but they didn’t have a bass player at the time so he joined the group and performed with them most notably appearing the original incarnation of woodstock. West would reveal about Pappalardi to an interviewer “I couldn’t believe how talented Felix was musically,” “I knew nothing… I learned a lot of what not to do because of him, and I learned a lot of what to do because of him.”
But his time in Mountain would be short-lived. He co-write a number of their songs including Mississippi Queen and his wife was credited with writing a handful of songs too. She even designed several of their album covers., Mountain would continue on until 1974 and Pappalardi got back into production work, and the timing seemed perfect considering he was dealing with hearing issues. But by the late 70’s his career wasn’t as hot as it was a decade prior and he soon found himself doing copious amounts of drugs with his wife while also having an open relationship with her.

Mountain drummer Corky Laing would talk to Classic Rock Magazine in 2021 about Felix and Gail’s relationship
When Mountain started out,Felix and Gail were a brilliant, creative team. But Gail got in big trouble with drugs. Gradually, people in the business who knew them knew she was a witch. She was very talented, very smart, but evil. Gail claimed she loved Felix, but they were always fighting. Felix was not a big guy, and Gail would beat the shit out of him. Other times they’d get high, and shoot at the walls in their house.”West would add One night when they were sitting in the living room,” West added, “they heard a continuous buzzing noise coming from inside the walls. Felix was probably high, so he started shooting at the walls from his chair. Turns out that the contractors on the house had stuffed hornets’ nests between the walls after Gail refused to pay a bill. So Felix was trying to shoot hornets.”
It was in 1982 Felix had fallen in love with a singer named Valerie Merians who was 27 and that casual relationship soon turned into something more. Gail soon found out and according to the new york daily news called her inlaws in December of 1982 telling them her marriagewas on the brink of collapsing.
Corky Laing would tell classic rock magazine In the fall of 1982 Felix wanted to re-form Mountain, and he tried to get me to

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Comments

This post currently has 47 comments.

  6. @thomasoreckinto3212

    February 28, 2026 at 6:30 pm

    I roadied for mountain for a couple of shows after Felix was murdered. They were never the same. Felix was an unbelievable talent with a great voice. I only saw them once with pappalardi at Randalls island but they were great. His wife was a sick bitch that's smoking in hell now. The day of the murder I was at the police academy on 20st in gramercy Park and went over to the waterside towers where he lived. I got there just as crime scene was finishing up and the M.E. was removing his body. It depressed me so because I was the biggest mountain head in Brooklyn. May God rest his soul. He was a fantastic musician

  8. @carlcrasmussen

    February 28, 2026 at 6:30 pm

    Over in the UK where they disarmed British citizens and fed them to the wolves now they have an epidemic of knife crimes truck crimes. The lesson isn't that guns are bad it's that hard drugs and shity people are bad. Bad people don't need a gun they can kill you with a knife a golf club or a rock. Certain people and certainly certain behaviors are the problem. Some of the safest places to be in the world are supermajority European descent where they have lots of guns

  22. @garyg1364

    February 28, 2026 at 6:30 pm

    Mountain played my school in D.C. in the early 70s and they were great and loud. They performed in our outdoor amphitheater, and as they waited to go on, they stood behind their wall of amps. I was on the concert committee and got to be on stage, with the assignment to watch the rear set of steps leading to the stage. Felix came over to me and pointing to those stairs, told me, "Make sure no one comes up those stairs." Separately, I was at Cream's November '68 show at Madison Square Garden, where they awarded a gold or platinum record for "Wheels of Fire" if I remember right. Also present to accept his gold record was Felix.

  23. @goleson100

    February 28, 2026 at 6:30 pm

    Pretty well known now perhaps, but in ‘78 I believe, when I purchased the follow up to the Dead Boys debut, I was surprised to see Felix’s name as producer on the punk band’s back cover.

  34. @syvadcram

    February 28, 2026 at 6:30 pm

    Women getting away with murder is something we routinely see in the modern justice system. A man committing a similar crime back then would have got life imprisonment for sure, it is a two-tier jstice system.

  35. @thomassnider6691

    February 28, 2026 at 6:30 pm

    I never knew Pappalardii was murdered. Reminds me of what happened to Phil Hartman, the actor. Famous people, please don't let your wife have a gun and put her in treatment right away BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE.

  40. @OldschoolFlaBoy

    February 28, 2026 at 6:30 pm

    Well, i'm seventy one in my first Love affairIt was with cream and sixty eight disraeli.Gears. And my oldest son is named after mr clapton, eric. Could you please do a thing on what really happened to Mike Bloomfield and his death? I've heard stories, and they kind of sound alike. But something's missing.Thank you old school florida boy

  41. @JamesAllmond

    February 28, 2026 at 6:30 pm

    Evil, she was just plane evil. Felix deserved better, but dang, he kinda begged for it. So many talented folks went young, and drugs always seem to be involved. Not weed, drugs, nasty, heavy duty drugs. Don't.
    Failure of justice.

  45. @spruggins

    February 28, 2026 at 6:30 pm

    I saw Felix with Mountain in 1971 at the Crystal Palace Bowl, Pink Floyd and Rod Stewart and the Faces were also in that line up, then again later the same year at The Rainbow Finsbury Park, both times it was a great show.

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