“Mississippi Queen” by Mountain

"Mississippi Queen" was born in a blackout. Corky Laing was drumming with his earlier band, Energy, when the power cut out mid-show, and since his kit needed no electricity he kept going for more than an hour to keep the crowd dancing, one striking Southern woman under the emergency lights in particular, hollering out some of the words and clanging the cowbell that would become the record's calling card.

He carried the idea into Mountain. When Leslie West needed words for a guitar part he'd written, Laing dug out "The Queen" and the two hammered the song into shape, with bassist Felix Pappalardi and lyricist David Rea also on the credits. It landed on the band's debut album, climbed to number 21 on the Hot 100 in 1970, and remains their most successful single, a rock classic by most reckonings.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.