Lyricist Gail Collins Dead, Murdered Felix Pappalardi

Pappalardi, Collins circa 1969

Gail Collins, a lyricist for the bands Cream and Mountain who gained infamy in New York in 1983 when she shot and killed her rock star husband, Felix Pappalardi, has died in the Mexican village where she lived as a recluse, the NY Daily News has learned.

Collins, 72, had been undergoing experimental cancer treatments in Ajijic, an expat resort town south of Guadalajara.

Collins became an intriguing figure in New York’s 1960s music scene as a result of her relationship with Bronx-born bassist/producer Pappalardi of Mountain, the New York band fronted by Leslie West.

She wrote the trippy lyrics that Eric Clapton sang in “Strange Brew” for Cream’s “Disraeli Gears,” which Pappalardi produced. And she became a creative force in Mountain, writing lyrics and painting album cover art.

On April 17, 1983, police found Pappalardi dead in bed at their Waterside Plaza apartment in Manhattan, shot through the neck with Collins’ Derringer.

Convicted of criminally negligent homicide, Collins spent two years in prison and disappeared after her 1985 parole.

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