Harvey Mandel - ...and on guitar (2014)

Harvey Mandel was born on 11 March 1945 in Detroit, Michigan, and grew up in Morton Grove, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. He began playing guitar while in his early teens and found his inspiration in the sound of the Ventures, but once he had the chance to hear musicians like Buddy Guy in the small blues clubs of Chicago's West and South sides a whole new world of music opened up to him. He learned from and performed with such greats as Guy, Albert King, Muddy Waters, and Otis Rush, and he got his nickname "The Snake" from master blues harp player Charlie Musselwhite, who admired the way Mandel's left hand would effortlessly snake up and down the guitar neck. His solo career began in the late '60s, after he was signed to Philips Records, a label distributed by Mercury Records, and his first album was 1968's 'Cristo Redentor', which was well-received on the then-growing underground radio scene in California. He followed this with 'Righteous' in 1969 and 'Games Guitars Play' in 1970, before moving to the Janus Records label. On the night that Henry Vestine quit Canned Heat in July 1969, Mandel was in the band's dressing room at the Fillmore West, and both he and Mike Bloomfield joined them to help out on their two sets. Following this, both Bloomfield and Mandel were offered Vestine's spot in the band, and Mandel accepted, with his third performance with the band being the Woodstock Festival in 1969. He stayed with Canned Heat for a year, touring and recording material which appeared on three albums, and during this period, with Canned Heat bandmates Larry Taylor and Fito de la Parra, he also contributed to the 'Music From Free Creek' super session project. With Canned Heat bassist Larry Taylor, Mandel joined John Mayall's band for a couple of years, and after a brief tour with Mayall in Europe in 1972, he recorded 'The Snake', and then 'Shangrenade' in 1973 and 'Feel The Sound Of Harvey Mandel' in 1974, all of which were released on Janus Records. When Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor left the band in December 1974, Mandel was given an audition as his replacement, and although he didn't get the gig, he did record two tracks with the Stones for their 1976 album 'Black And Blue', providing the lead guitar solo on 'Hot Stuff'. Mandel's session work is a short who's-who of blues and roots-rock greats, including playing with The Rolling Stones, John Mayall, Charlie Musselwhite, Barry Goldberg, Jimmy Witherspoon, Don "Sugarcane" Harris, Dewey Terry, Freddy Roulette, Bobby Keys, and eventually, even his heroes the Ventures. In the early '90s, Mandel moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he recorded a series of excellent albums for the Chicago-based Western Front Entertainment label, as well as permanently rejoining Canned Heat in 2010. He continues to write and record to this day, sometimes in collaboration with his son Eric Mandel as lead vocalist, and if you need proof that he's lost none of his skill in recent years then just listen to his work on 'Wasabi' from 1996.

Track listing

Disc One
01 Cha Cha The Blues (from 'Stand Back! Here Comes Charley Musselwhite's  

                                                                                                         South Side Band' 1967) 
02 Spirit Of Trane (from '2 Jews Blues' by Barry Goldberg 1969)
03 Sisters And Brothers (from 'Mighty Grahame Bond' by Grahame Bond 1969)
04 Going Down Slow (from 'The Blues Singer' by Jimmy Witherspoon 1969)
05 I Feel A Lot (from 'Raymond Louis Kennedy' by Raymond Louis Kennedy 1970) 
06 Television Eye (from 'Back To The Roots' by John Mayall 1971)
07 Do It Yourself (from 'Choice Cuts' by Pure Food & Drug Act 1972)
08 The Buzzard's Cousin (from 'Fiddler On The Rock' by Don "Sugarcane" Harris 1972)

Disc Two
01 Suit For The Cat (from 'Chief' by Dewey Terry 1973)
02 Earl's Shuffle (from 'Music From Free Creek' by Various Artists 1973)
03 Which Witch Is Which (from 'Reel To Real' by Love 1974)
04 Memory Motel (from 'Black And Blue' by The Rolling Stones 1976)
05 You Make It Hard (from 'Let's All Get Naked' by Acme Thunder 1978)
06 Zeke And The Rat (from 'Pryvet Blewz' by Denis Farley 1988)
07 Snake Bite (from 'Guitar Speak II' by Various Artists 1990)
08 Wasabi (from 'Standing In Stereo' by Geno White 1996)
09 Shake The Devil Down (from 'Primitive Son' by Eli Cook 2014)

Love - Black Beauty (1973)

In July 1968, eight months after Love's third album 'Forever Changes' was released, frontman Arthur Lee disbanded the original line-up, before regrouping with a completely new troupe of musicians, recording three albums with this new line-up, 'Four Sail' and 'Out Here' in 1969, and 'False Start' in 1970. Lee found limited success and was on the verge of obscurity, but following recording sessions with Jimi Hendrix in April 1970, he forsook his folk rock roots in favour of a hard rock approach. In 1972, he released his first solo effort 'Vindicator', featuring the first songs composed in the newly adapted style, but again it did not fare well with music critics or the public. Despite Lee's self-doubt and unwillingness to tour, he decided to persevere with another new line-up, recruiting drummer Joe Blocker, Melvan Whittington on lead guitar, and Robert Rozelle on bass. With record producer Paul Rothchild at the helm, Love recorded throughout mid-1973, with the resultant album intended to be released on Buffalo Records, a small indie label founded by Hair producer Michael Butler. However, before 'Black Beauty' could be distributed the company went bankrupt, and although some songs from the recording sessions did appear on 'Reel to Real' in 1974, 'Black Beauty' itself was consigned to the vaults. Over the years poor-quality releases of the 'Black Beauty' sessions have appeared, motivating Lee to push for an official release right up until his death in 2006. With his widow Diana overseeing the project, High Moon Records remastered the original acetates of the sessions, and released it on a limited edition of 5,000 vinyl copies in 2012, which are now long gone. One critic has proclaimed 'Black Beauty' to be the great lost Love album, praising the cohesive effort of the group, and the quality of the production, and while it will never reach the heights of their trilogy of classic albums of the late 60's, it's a welcome addition to the discography of a much-loved band.

Track listing

01 Young And Able (Good And Evil)

02 Midnight Sun

03 Can't Find It

04 Walk Right In

05 Skid

06 Beep Beep

07 Stay Away

08 Lonely Pigs

09 See Myself In You

10 Product Of The Times

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Jimi Hendrix - ...and on guitar (1970)

Considering the many, many hours of Jimi Hendrix recordings that exists, including both studio and live tapes, it's surprising at just how little there is of him collaborating with other artists in the later years of his career. There's the famed bootleg of him jamming with members of Traffic, and one album from Irish psyche-poppers Eire Apparent, for which he acted as producer and played guitar, but apart from those his guest appearances were limited to helping out friends Robert Wyatt, Arthur Lee and Stephen Stills, doing a favour for Paul McCartney, and appearing with a stellar cast of mates on two sessions, for Lighting Rod and Timothy Leary. 
Eire Apparent (a pun on their Irish heritage) hailed from Northern Ireland, and launched the careers of both Henry McCullough and Ernie Graham, but their main claim to fame is getting Hendrix to act as producer and play guitar on their sole album 'Sunrise' in 1968. The link is that both artists were managed by ex-Animals bassist Chas Chandler, and at one point both were signed to Track Records, for whom Eire Apparent recorded one single. Following this the band were sent to tour America, firstly with The Animals, and then later with Soft Machine and The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and while in Los Angeles they recorded songs for their debut album 'Sunrise', with Hendrix producing and playing on the record. 'Sunrise' went the way of a lot of albums of the late 60's, selling a moderate number at the time, but being re-discovered in the 80's as a 'lost classic', and original copies now go for large sums, helped quite a bit by the Hendrix connection. 
Also is 1968, Roger McGough and Mike McGear were members of hit Liverpool art/rock/poetry band The Scaffold, and fancied doing a duo album of their own stuff. They roped in Mike's brother Paul McCartney to produce it, and between them they managed to engage the services of Hendrix to provide guitar on two of the more song-orientated tracks, both of them mid-to-late 60's pop/psyche offerings.
At the end of the tour, on which Eire Apparent supported Hendrix and The Soft Machine, The Experience gave Robert Wyatt access to their recording studios after hours, so that he could record some demos, and Hendrix added guitar to one of them, 'Slow Walkin' Talk'. 
In 1969, The Last Poet's member Lighting Rod was perfecting one of the earliest example of rapping, and wanted to record his outlandish tale of the prostitute 'Doriella Du Fontaine', so persuaded Buddy Miles and Hendrix to improvise in the studio with him. They recorded a basic 8 minute take which was eventually released as a 12" single in 1984, together with an edited four minute instrumental version of the track.
In 1970, Hendrix provided guitar on one song from Stephen Stills' debut solo album. The pair had known each other for years, and there's an hour-long jam session of the two of them in Stills' basement in 1968 available on Youtube, and during the sessions for the album the pair also recorded a jam called 'White Nigger', which Stills later turned into 'High And Dry' for his Manassas project. This was actually a re-acquaintance of the two in a recording studio, as the previous year Hendrix had invited Stills to a session at New York’s Record Plant, and it was there that Stills performed the Joni Mitchell song 'Woodstock' for the first time, a year before it would appear on Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's album ‘Déjà vu’. Stills and Hendrix then recorded a version of the song, along with a take on Stills' '$20 Fine', both with Stills on vocals. 
Also in 1970, Hendrix was invited by Love's Arthur Lee to contribute to his band's album 'False Start'. Hendrix returned to Olympic Studios, the recording facility where he'd recorded 'Are You Experienced' and 'Axis: Bold As Love', and he and percussionist Remi Kabaka joined Love in recording 'The Everlasting First'. The three musicians recorded sixteen takes before a basic track met Lee's approval, and they also taped two takes of Hendrix's own 'Ezy Rider', before they took part in an extended instrumental jam session, later titled 'Loon', before departing. This album doesn't aim to include everything that Hendrix was involved in outside The Experience or Band Of Gypsys, but it's more of an overview of his collaborations, so I've picked just two songs from Eire Apparent's album, on which his guitar-playing is particularly up-front, along with the two 'McGough & McGear' songs, three with Stephen Stills, the Robert Wyatt demo, and the recording with Love. The Timothy Leary recording is nice to hear once, but doesn't really warrant repeated plays, so if you want to hear it you can do so here. I  haven't included the Love versions of 'Ezy Rider', as Hendrix sings on them and so they just sound like normal Hendrix out-takes, and 'Loon' is just a ten-minute jam, and I've also omitted '$20 Dollar Fine' which is available on the 'Both Sides Of The Sky' album. If you like the two Eire Apparent tracks then do check out their album as it really is excellent stuff.  

Track listing

01 The Clown (from 'Sunrise' by Eire Apparent 1968)
02 Mr. Guy Fawkes (from 'Sunrise' by Eire Apparent 1968)
03 So Much (from 'McGough & McGear' by McGough & McGear 1968)
04 Ex Art Student (from 'McGough & McGear' by McGough & McGear 1968)
05 Doriella Du Fontaine (by Lightning Rod 1969)
06 Old Times Good Times (from 'Stephen Stills' by Stephen Stills 1970)
07 White Nigger ('Stephen Stills' out-take 1970)
08 Woodstock (out-take with Stephen Stills 1969)
09 Slow Walkin' Talk (from ''68' by Robert Wyatt 1968)
10 The Everlasting First (from 'False Start' by Love 1970)

Now that this has turned into a series, I've updated the artwork on this post to match the others, although I've left the original cover in the file. If you want this cover then just right-click and save it from the post.

Love - Gethsemene (1968)

Shortly after the classic 'Forever Changes' was released, Love effectively broke up, but despite this there have been rumours ever since that a follow-up album called 'Gethsemene' was due for release but was shelved by the band. Subsequent interviews with Arthur Lee and Johnny Echols have pretty much disproved the rumours, as neither of them recognised any of the songs that were supposedly recorded, so it must just have been wishful thinking on the part of some fervent fans. There was a post-'Forever Changes' single released in 1968, in the form of 'Your Mind And We Belong Together' / 'Laughing Stock', but that was the last thing that the classic line-up recorded together. However, if we take that single and add in the b-side to '7 And 7 Is', a few choice out-takes, some songs from Bryan McLean's solo album which might have made the cut, and a few tracks which later turned up on 'Four Sail', then we can piece together a reasonable approximation of what the follow-up to 'Forever Changes' could have sounded like. 

Track listing

01 Wonder People (I Do Wonder)
02 Laughing Stock
03 Tired Of Sitting
04 Your Friend And Mine (Neil's Song)
05 I'm With You
06 Your Mind And We Belong Together
07 Robert Mongomery
08 People
09 No. Fourteen
10 Dream
11 Always See Your Face
12 The Everlasting First