Harvey Mandel — Snake Walk

Darn that Ronnie Wood!

Harvey Mandel was that close to getting the nod to join “the world’s greatest rock-and-roll band.”

How close? Second guitarist Mick Taylor had quit in 1974, and Mick and Keith were scrambling to fill his slot. Mandel, along with Wood, was in the running. How much in the running? Spin Black and Blue, that first album after Taylor’s departure. Those are Harvey’s extraordinarily viscous lead lines soloing during Side 1, Track 1: “Hot Stuff.” Three songs later, he returns, bluer and airworthy in tone, to roam through the dusk of “Memory Motel.” Who would have guessed that his practical exam would zoom up the charts as part of Billboard's No. 1 record in May 1976 and keep on zooming by going platinum? So you could say: Inches away from being a Rolling Stone.

That said, Mandel’s brand-new Snake Walk is not Some Girls or Hackney Diamonds. Not even close. Different ballpark altogether. Actually, different galaxy.

So, on second thought, Wood’s better fortune with the Stones served as the hand of fate that kept Mandel’s bold fretboard explorations from being detoured or corrupted. Because, in the 57 years since debuting in 1968 with Cristo Redentor, Mandel has kept stretching the bounds of what a guitar can sound like as well as what its strings can do (including being often credited for springing the two-handed technique of tapping the fingerboard upon the 1960s rock world).

Snake Walk—easily distinguished by the most striking of all his psychedelic album covers—keeps the streak roaring strong via 10 original instrumentals that uphold Harvey’s double crown as both “The King of Sustain” (for those extendedly ringing tones) and “The Snake” (for that left hand slithering up and down the guitar neck). You don’t often run into a guitar album with such pioneering spirit and futuristic snarl. Add to that a level of sustain that turns notes into long, broad beams. Divebombing runs majestically swoop down through “World News Blues,” for instance, eliciting their own accompanying string-shrieked responses. Muddy Waters would be drop-jawed.

And, yes, Muddy played a role in the formative history of Mandel, who—born in Detroit, raised in Chicago—came up through the blues. But there were also stages shared with Albert King, Buddy Guy, Otis Rush and Jimmy Witherspoon. Know Stand Back! Here Comes Charley Musselwhite’s Southside Band, Charlie’s 1967 debut? Harvey is the guitarist. That’s also him with Canned Heat (including their famed Woodstock performance) as well as with John Mayall’s Blues Breakers. All that plus cutting a stack of solo albums as innovative as 1973’s Shangrenade got accomplished before Mick Jagger came knocking.

Now on his 23rd full-length album, Mandel continues breaking new ground, planting new flags on the moon. All performances avoid getting lost in themselves by keeping under five minutes. That means the slowly revolving colossus “Puppy Love” conquers in just as short order as does the ominous and beastly pulverizer known as “Freak of Dawn.” But there is also a free and easier side to Mandel, heard in the lazy afternoon title track that drifts past on a turbojet breeze—but a breeze nonetheless.

Keyboards, bass and drums color the songs with added drive and texture. “I’m Back Boogie” is a

prime example of all three shoving and embellishing underneath, whereas “Pumpin’” shakes outright from pungently sharp drum cracks. Extra guitars rev through the set twice. A tough-minded violin visits more often, especially heightening the exoticism of “Eye of the Snake” with every upwardly spiraling duel that engages Mandel, Mahavishnu-style. Regardless, Mandel’s eye-popping Parker Fly Mojo guitar remains the meanest bull in the pasture.

 Opening with the multi-crescendoed “Weather the Storm” and closing on the industrial hustle-bustle of “Cashmere,” Snake Walk can be challenging to pigeonhole in terms of style, genre(s), and planet of origin. It doesn’t matter, though. Because whether you personally hear in its 30some minutes avant-garde blues, intrepid blues-rock, progressive rock, jazz fusion, hulking psychedelia, or extraterrestrial six-string arias, this is what the leading edge of the curve sounds like: fearless, creative freedom that begs for headphones. After all, this is Harvey Mandel.

Label: Earwig

Release date: 5/23/25

Artist website: Harvey Mandel.net

Label website: Earwig Music.com

Reviewed by Dennis Rozanski