Felix Pappalardi - Later Life and Death

Later Life and Death

Pappalardi was forced to partly retire because of partial deafness, ostensibly from his high-volume shows with Mountain. He continued producing throughout the 1970s and released a solo album and recorded with Japanese hard rock outfit Blues Creation. In May 1973, the British music magazine, NME, reported that Pappalardi was playing bass on, and producing former Stone the Crows singer, Maggie Bell's debut solo album, Queen of the Night. In reality he did neither, as the album was eventually produced by Jerry Wexler, and William Salter and Chuck Rainey played bass.

Pappalardi was shot and killed by his wife, Gail Collins Pappalardi, on April 17, 1983 in their East Side Manhattan apartment. Gail was subsequently charged with second-degree murder. She claimed it was an accident, and was found guilty of the lesser criminally negligent homicide and sentenced to sixteen months to four years in prison and was released on parole in April 1985. Felix Pappalardi is interred next to his mother at Woodlawn Cemetery in Bronx, New York.