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From the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in Taos, Great Spiral Dance is an energetic and all original fusion of world acoustic instruments spiraling around Michael's intricate finger style guitar pieces. Michael is one of those rare artists who has a strong sense of his Western musical roots, yet can make beautiful and sophisticated forays into the music of the East.

Artist Bio:

As Public Radio International's "Echoes" host John Diliberto put it in a recent interview, "Michael Mandrell is the acoustic guitar player infusing his original melodies with Indian scales and a Celtic lilt." Michael honed his open-tuning guitar chops in the early 80's on the Texas folk circuit, performing with and opening for many prominent and upcoming artists such as Nancy Griffith, Lyle Lovett and John Gorka to name just a few. Moving to Taos, NM in 1991, Michael performed with the world fusion group "Taos" co-producing their CD, "The Deepening Edge", released nationally on Blix Street Records. His self produced CD, "The Great Spiral Dance" continues in the world fusion tradition with all original guitar compositions, adding flutes, East Indian percussion, Uillean pipes and other ethnic instruments. Lyrical, haunting, melodic, Michael Mandrell's "The Great Spiral Dance" contains music from the film Stone Reader by Mark Moskowitz (www.stonereader.net). Tracks from this self-produced album weave in and out of Moskowitz's film, helping to create the movie's unique, narrative feel. The film features the tracks "Ancient Art of Soul Travel" and "Ambrosius". More recently Mandrell colaborated with Benjy Wertheimer to produce "Anjali" a mystical yoga/meditation CD. "Anjali" features an improvisational mix of Michael's guitar work with the Benjy's stellar Tabla and Esraj playing. Michael tours regionally and nationally, playing solo as well as with many of the acoustic warrior road tribe, including Jenny Bird (www.jennybird.com), Lynn Wedekind (www.lynnwedekind.com)and Benjy Wertheimer (www.benjymusic.com). As "Echoes" executive producer Kimberly Hass observes, "Michael's hybrid guitar style reveals a guitarist of eclectic sensibilities and delicate technique. His music circles the globe in imagistic compositions."

Product SKU: AGE-36542-GREATS