There are people in the history of rock who I feel, at one time, were set to become famous or at least influential, but it never happened for them for some reason and they dropped off the radar for years.
One such is Harvey Mandel. He was a bit of a star in the west coast rock community in the late 60s, though he was from Illinois and played at clubs like The Matrix all the time. His debut solo Christo Redenter showed a man with a very unique and individual approach to lead guitar.
He joined Canned Heat for a couple of years and is on the hit Let’s Work Together and played at Woodstock with them. Then he joined John Mayall for a couple of years and kept releasing solo albums through to 1974. Then after a Best Of in 1975 nothing until the 90s.
I don’t know what he was doing or if after being so integral to that late 60s, San Francisco scene that 1975 just felt like an alien place but there were no more records until 1993 after which he seems to have woken up and released 21 albums on independent labels (as he had done in the 60s and 70s) none of which made a commercial impact.
But there was a time when he was even considered for the Rolling Stones. He was that significant and even appears on two tracks on Black And Blue, Hot Stuff and Memory Hotel.
He was doing two handed ‘tapping’ years before Eddie Van Halen commercialised it.
Maybe at some point he just fell out of love with the whole thing and withdrew after 10 years at the coalface. If you’ve not heard any of the solo stuff or the Pure Food and Drug Act record which he was also part of, do yourself a favour and hunt them down. Christo Redentor, the debut, is especially good
Photo: Harvey Mandel performing hammer ons and pull offs at the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach CA, 1977
Vance Salisbury, Bo Salisbury
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
