Mountain

Mountain is a one-hit wonder of classic rock. In their original incarnation they may have put out two and a half studio albums and half a live one in the space of two years, played a number of shows with (presumably) a full setlist – including Woodstock, just their fourth show as a group – and since that time re-formed and re-disintegrated several times, with any number of “comeback” albums to show for it, but very few people can claim to be even passingly familiar with any Mountain track other than “Mississippi Queen”. Having worked my way through a few 30-second soundbites of their other work, I can vouch for the judgement of history. Mountain was essentially an attempt to re-create Cream, but without anything like the star power of a Clapton, a Bruce or a Baker, although Mountain did count as a member a guy who had co-produced several of Cream’s albums. What ensued was mostly a bunch of nondescript white blues-rock, with an occasional riff worth hearing. “Mississippi Queen” is by far the most memorable of it all, although that can be difficult to judge in hindsight, given that years of overplay on classic rock format radio has essentially burned this track like a groove into everyone’s minds, and we all respond most readily to the familiar.

In thinking about this track I realized that the only lyric I could remember at all was “Mississippi Queen, you know what I mean”, which struck me as odd since in that context I really had no idea what he meant. What is a “Mississippi Queen”, anyway? A riverboat? A gigantic catfish? A flamboyant homosexual on a riverboat? A quick Google search turns up lyrics that seem to be about a simple visit with a prostitute, which answers the question but turns out to be a little disappointing, at least compared to where my imagination was prepared to take me.

In any case, “Mississippi Queen” is the best song Cream never recorded, and a prototype for later hard rock and heavy metal in the same way that Cream was.

Mississippi Queen