As Keith Richards prevented Mandel from entering the Rolling Stones

Speaking with the Guitar World magazine the guitarist Harvey Mandelalready in Canned Heatamong other things, recalled how Keith Richards prevented him from entering the Rolling Stones After the farewell of Mick Taylor.

In 1974, after Taylor left the band the Stones were looking for a substitute. The place, as we know, was then taken from Ronnie Woodwhich is still in the group still over 50 years later.

But the group made more than an audition before recruiting Wood. One of these auditions concerned Mandel.

This is the story of the American musician now almost 80 years old: “I lived in Los Angeles. In the middle of the night, I received a call, and it was Mick Jagger. I thought it was someone who joked, but I understood that he was Mick Jagger. He said, ‘We want you to come to Germany.’ The next day, I took a ticket, I took the amplifier, my guitar and fly to Germany. “

The guitarist recorded the songs “Memory Motel” And “Hot Stuff” with the band, but had not dealt with Keith Richards. His story continues like this: “Ronnie Wood came the next day, they were friends. They grew up together and they attended. Mick Jagger wanted me. Keith Richards wanted Ronnie Wood, and won, because Keith had the power to demand that he was Ronnie. So, in a certain sense, I was eliminated”.

Harvey Mandel
as reported by American Songwriter, explained Richards there in Germany he was somehow hostile to him. “Keith Richards was a bit strange. I played some of the best guitar riffs I ever played, but he never greeted me or close my hand. It was a little cold, while Mick Jagger was the exact opposite. Before Ronnie Wood entered the scene; he did not arrive that after a day or two. Keith was just a little detached.”

Mandel continued saying that he did not suspect that
Keith Richards
If it were intimidated, but rather that it was not naturally friendly, or perhaps, he was simply not enthusiastic about the idea that an American entered his band. “I have never become a friend of Keith Richards. If it hadn’t been for him, I would have been the substitute for Mick Taylor in the Rolling Stones. It is he who screwed me.”