These days, when someone asks Leslie West, “How are you doing?” it’s not just a casual greeting – they’re really asking how he’s doing. On June 18, the 65-year-old West – now and forever immortalized as the guitarist, singer and chief songwriter powering one of early hard rock’s great bands, Mountain – was on a plane to Mississippi for a gig when his right leg began to swell. Rushed to a Biloxi hospital upon landing, West, who is diabetic, underwent the amputation of his leg up to the knee when doctors determined that the limb could not be saved.

Most of us would be devastated by such a turn of events but just a month after the surgery, West was cordial and joking. He’d readily accepted the drastic change that this would mean for his lifestyle and was already planning to get back on the road, albeit with a new electric wheelchair. “It doesn’t have wheels on the side like a normal wheelchair. It’s like an all-terrain vehicle,” he says. “This thing can rock.”

So can Leslie West – still. And if anyone needs confirmation of that, listening to his new album, Unusual Suspects, should do the trick. Completed before the amputation but released afterward, the album matches West with five guest axe monsters: Slash, Zakk Wylde, Joe Bonamassa, Steve Lukather and ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons.

West and the album’s producer, an old friend named Joseph Pizza wrote several of the new tracks. One, “Mud Flap Momma,” is co-credited to West and his wife Jennifer, whom he married onstage two years ago at Bethel Woods, the venue that now stands on the site of the Woodstock festival, where Mountain played its fourth-ever gig. “Third Degree,” the track featuring Bonamassa, is a blues co-written by Eddie Boyd and Willie Dixon. Bonamassa loved the version of the song that West had cut in 1972 with ex-Cream bassist Jack Bruce and Mountain drummer Corky Laing in their short-lived trio, and West was happy to revisit the tune. The album also has covers of The Beatles’ “I Feel Fine” and Willie Nelson’s “The Party’s Over.”

But perhaps the standout is a song that Pizza first began writing for West three decades ago. It’s called “Legend,” and what’s notable about it is that the humble, if still-imposing singer refuses to take on that designation, insisting that fans not call him a legend, that he “just came here to play.”

That pretty much sums up the attitude that the former Leslie Weinstein has projected since he first emerged in the late ‘60s as the leader of the popular Long Island-based blue-eyed-soul/garage combo The Vagrants. With a signature weighty guitar tone matched only by his girth at the time, West became – by the start of the ‘70s – one of the first heroes of heavy rock. He’s slimmed down considerably since those days, but his playing, as ever, is all muscle.

The Vagrants’ claim to semi-fame was their cover – on the Atlantic Records’ Atco subsidiary – of Otis Redding’s “Respect.” Their recording predated (but was quickly buried by) Aretha Franklin’s version thought it later found love as part of the iconic, influential Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era compilation.

West remembers his random encounter with the song’s author. "One day I go up to Atlantic and I get out of the elevator – I was going to pick up copies of the single. Right in front of me is Otis Redding. I start shitting a brick. There he is in a sharkskin suit. I said, ‘Mr. Redding, this is my group’s single, “Respect.” ’ He looked at it and he signed it, ‘To Leslie with respect.’ I wish I still had it."

Although The Vagrants didn’t last much longer, one positive association came out of the group’s run: While at Atlantic, West made the acquaintance of producer/musician/songwriter Felix Pappalardi, whose credits included producing the monumental Cream album Disraeli Gears. After a few non-starters in the studio with The Vagrants, Pappalardi and West set about trying to create music together after the group ultimately disbanded.

Leslie West’s debut solo album, Mountain – produced by Pappalardi and released in 1969 on the Windfall label (owned by Pappalardi and his business partner) – soon led to the formation of the same-named group, with drummer N.D. Smart and keyboardist Steve Knight filling out the lineup. Brand new and still finding its direction, Mountain appeared in front of 400,000 during prime time at Woodstock.

“We got to go on at a great time because Jimi Hendrix’s agent was our agent,” says West. “So he must have said, ‘If you want Hendrix, you have to take this other group, Mountain.’ We were on just before it got dark, after the Grateful Dead and before Creedence. Creedence came on, hit after hit after hit. I said, ‘How many freakin’ hits can a group have?’ Then The Who came on and did Tommy and then Sly came on.”

Unfortunately for them, Mountain did not appear in the smash concert film of the event – their footage was somehow lost (a couple of tracks were later recovered) although some speculate that the real reason is because the group’s then-manager turned down whatever financial offer was made. Nonetheless, Mountain, with Corky Laing now on drums, took off in 1970 with the release of their first proper group album, Climbing!

By that time, people were recognizing West as a new guitar star, one with a meaty, instantly-identifiable sound that was based in the blues but different from what the other rock guitar heroes of the day were presenting.

“I wanted to have the greatest, biggest tone and I wanted vibrato, like somebody who plays violin in a hundred-piece orchestra,” he says. “It took me a while to get to the point where I said, ‘Yeah, that’s the sound I want to get every night.’”

That sound is very much in place in the leadoff track on Climbing!, the song that would become most closely associated with Mountain, “Mississippi Queen.” West remembers how it came about: “Corky came to my apartment in Manhattan,” he recalls. "He said, ‘Look, I have this lyric, “Mississippi Queen.” He had been in Nantucket, [Mass.] playing this bar and the power went out. He was playing the drums and shouting the words ‘Mississippi Queen, do you know what I mean?’ I started fooling around with the guitar in the apartment and I came up with this riff. We went really quickly into the studio and Felix told him to count it off and he counted it off with a cowbell. We left it in there."

Jimi Hendrix, hearing it for the first time at New York’s Electric Lady Studio, where they recorded it, gave it his blessing: “That’s some riff, man,” he told West.

By 1972, Mountain was over, and although they would reunite in 1974 and then again on a number of occasions, West – along with all fans of rock – was shocked to learn of Pappalardi’s death in 1983; his wife shot him in what she claimed was an accident during a gun lesson.

West and Laing have remained on-again-off-again musical partners, and have recorded together as recently as 2007, when Mountain released Masters of War, a set of Dylan covers. West has remained prolific throughout the decades as a solo artist as well, recording and performing live regularly. He’s influenced not only fellow rock guitarists, but also, as it turns out, several top rappers: Jay-Z, Kanye West and Common have sampled “Long Red,” a song that appeared on that maiden 1969 solo album. “That’s the greatest thing,” says the guitarist. “It’s got a fucking hip-hop beat.”

Despite his fabled past and his recent physical challenges, Leslie West prefers to keep his gaze on the future. “We announced a tour with me, Uli Jon Roth and Michael Schenker. I might not be able to walk onstage but I can certainly ride this electric wheelchair. Somehow, I’ll be playing the guitar.”

Sorry, Mr. West, but we are going to have to call you legend.