Home‎ > ‎The Pantheon‎ > ‎Barely Appreciated Items‎ > ‎

Gail Collins Pappalardi

GAIL COLLINS PAPPALARDI
 
 
 
Gail Collins Pappalardi  (February 2, 1941 - December 6, 2013) was an American songwriter and artist.  Pappalardi was the wife of Felix Pappalardi.  She contributed lyrics to many Mountain songs and co-wrote Cream’s “World of Pain” with Pappalardi and “Strange Brew” with Pappalardi and Eric Clapton.  Both songs are included on the album Disraeli Gears.  As Gail Collins, her artwork appears on the album covers, Climbing!, Nantucket Sleighride, Flowers of Evil, Mountain Live: The Road Goes Ever On, Twin Peaks, and Avalanche.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 
Disraeli Gears marked the arrival of the man who became essentially a fourth bandmember in Cream, Felix Pappalardi.  He was the record producer on this album and the next two, and Pappalardi plays many different instruments (often uncredited), particularly on Wheels of Fire.  With his wife Gail Collins Pappalardi, Felix Pappalardi also wrote two songs on this album, “Strange Brew” and “World of Pain”.  
 
*       *       *
 

Shortly after Woodstock, Canadian Corky Laing replaced N. D. Smart on drums, and this line-up of Mountain produced one of my favorite hard rock albums of all time, Climbing!.  The album featured the hit song “Mississippi Queen” and also “Theme for an Imaginary Western”, but the whole album cooks.  Felix Pappalardi’s wife Gail Collins Pappalardi co-wrote six songs on the album and also contributed artwork for the cover on their first three albums.  The album also includes a reflection on Woodstock, called “For Yasgur’s Farm” (Max Yasgur owned the farm where the festival took place).  

 

(May 2014)