Harvey Mandel: Snake Pit
Richard Gehr on December 9, 2016
A 71-year-old master who’s been battling cancer for the past couple of years has recorded one of the year’s great instrumental guitar albums. Helped out by a few Ryley Walker cohorts, Harvey Mandel’s Snake Pit is a late-career wonder, a casually grooving guitar circus of kaleidoscoping ideas and otherworldly harmonics. Known as “The Snake” due to his swanky sustained notes, the pioneering fret tapper played with every bluesman in Chicago (check out “Ode to B.B.”) before joining Canned Heat just in time for Woodstock. Snake Pit ranges from the title track’s cosmic boogie to the authoritative skronk of “JackHammer.”
Artist: Harvey Mandel
Album: Snake Pit
Label: Tompkins Square
