At long last guitarist
Harvey "The Snake" Mandel gets some respect in his home country.
Mandel has played with everyone. Beginning in the 1960s, he played with the
Barry Goldberg-Steve Miller Blues Band and
Charlie Musselwhite' he moved on to
Canned Heat (his third gig with them was at Woodstock), then to
Graham Bond and
John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. He has also played with
the Rolling Stones,
Bob Dylan, and literally a hundred others. Like
Jeff Beck, who also prefers a low profile,
Mandel pioneered his own sound and it's instantly recognizable no matter what he happens to be playing. This set collects the first five of his 12 solo albums and as a bonus contains a rarity. While there isn't a weak record in the bunch, some shine more brightly than others. His debut,
Cristo Redentor, was recorded in both San Francisco and Nashville and features
Goldberg-Miller bandmates,
Dan Healy as one of its engineers, and
Kenny Buttrey and
Pete Drake, among others. 1969's
Righteous has string and horn charts by no less
Shorty Rogers and contains a smoking read of
Nat Adderley's "Jive Samba." It's interesting to note this because the Latin rock groove in the tune co-exists historically and geographically with
Santana's explorations. The fiery jazz rock album
Baby Batter issued in 1971 contains an all-star cast that includes bassist
Larry Taylor, keyboardists
Howard Wales, and
Mike Melvoin, percussionists
Jeff Porcaro and
Emil Richards (drums were played by
Colin Bailey) and
Big Black -- who conducted the band -- with more charts from
Rogers. The aforementioned rarity is a heretofore unreleased jam session at San Francisco's Matrix in 1968. Playing with
Mandel are
Miller,
Jerry Garcia,
Elvin Bishop, and
Mickey Hart. While the sound on these recordings is fine, the album sleeves are reproduced by scale, so personnel credits are absolutely tiny. The booklet contains a liner essay by
Dave Thompson and album and track titles. It's a bit of a budget presentation but so is the price, and the music makes that tradeoff totally worth it. ~ Thom Jurek
