“I was actually doing it way before Van Halen”: Guitarist says he never got his dues for pioneering the two-handed tapping technique
Harvey Mandel, former guitarist of the blues-rock band Canned Heat, has spoken about pioneering the famous two-handed tapping technique before Eddie Van Halen made it popular.
Although guitarists like Steve Hackett and Ace Frehley are often mentioned as early adopters of electric guitar tapping, Mandel reveals he was using the guitar technique in the late ‘60s, having picked it up from Randy Resnick, his co-guitarist in the Pure Food and Drug Act group.
“He did it in a very melodic but simple way,” Mandel tells Guitar World. “I didn’t want to do it in front of him, but once I saw him do it, I was able to practice it and figure out how he was doing it.”
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Asked if he has been properly credited for his contributions to two-handed tapping, the guitarist replies: “Not really. On YouTube, I get credit for it, but the truth is that back then, unfortunately, when I was doing the tapping, I wasn’t with a known band, as opposed to Van Halen, who had a hit record, so he did it, and the world got to hear it. When I did it, the audience that got to hear me do it was much more limited.”
“I was actually doing it way before Van Halen and way before almost everyone else did after him,” he adds. “People heard my stuff and thought I was a jazz player!”
While Ace Frehley has claimed that Eddie “probably got some ideas from me” as far as two-hand tapping was concerned, Mandel argues that the late Van Halen actually took a page out of his book.
“I was playing at the Whisky and the Starwood, and George Lynch, Van Halen, and a couple of different people saw me doing it,” he says. “Next thing I know, he’s [Van Halen] using it all the time, and he took it off into his own world. He played great; I can’t say anything bad about Van Halen. He was a great player! But he was more of a gymnastic player.”
The musician also explains that Van Halen’s technique was different, as he used “two-handed tapping to do all kinds of tricks,” while Mandel took on a more melodic approach.
“I still did the fast tapping and everything, but I tried to make it more musical, and parts of the melodies of the songs and stuff, as opposed to just going crazy and showing off with it,” he says.
The post “I was actually doing it way before Van Halen”: Guitarist says he never got his dues for pioneering the two-handed tapping technique appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
