Song of the Week – Fish Walk, Harvey Mandel

IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED

Harvey Mandel is a guitarist that languishes in relative obscurity when he really should be a household name.

His career began in the mid-60s playing blues guitar with luminaries such as Charlie Musselwhite, Barry Goldberg, Elvin Bishop and Graham Bond. He was invited to join Canned Heat when lead guitarist Henry Vestine quit in 1969. Mandel’s third gig with the band was at Woodstock!

Next he joined John Mayall for two albums – the now classics, USA Union and Back to the Roots. The musicians he connected with through Mayall led to a short lived band called Pure Food and Drug Act. Their only album was critically acclaimed but never troubled the charts.

In 1975, the Rolling Stones auditioned him to replace Mick Taylor – the job that Ron Wood won. Mandel played on two songs (“Hot Stuff” and “Memory Motel”) on the Stones “audition” album Black and Blue that also featured Woody and Wayne Perkins on other cuts.

But if Mandel is famous for anything, it is for developing the two-handed fretboard tapping technique that was later broadly popularized by Eddie Van Halen. (Mandel acknowledges picking up the technique, in a more rudimentary form, from fellow PFaDA bandmate Randy Resnick.) He introduced it on his 1973 solo album Shangrenade on songs such as “Fish Walk.”

Shangrenade was ahead of its time. If you’re a fan of Jeff Beck’s jazz/rock fusion instrumentals on Blow by Blow (1975), you will love Shangrenade as it explores much of the same landscape.

Enjoy… until next week.

One thought on “Song of the Week – Fish Walk, Harvey Mandel

  1. Harvey actually lives near me in the East Bay, and jams with my across the street neighbors ex-husband (who is a drummer) fairly often. These guys actually invited me to play with them a football Sunday, but I was way too intimidated and insecure about my own playing skills, but still.

    However, Mandel produced one of the great head phone albums of the late 60’s, “Christo Redentor” which has this ass-kicker treatment of “Wade in the Water.”

    Do drag out your phones to listen, and do it with maximum volumne!!! Killer.

    https://youtu.be/UxOtF2XGWzU

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.