SAN DIEGO — Guitar and keyboard wizard Mike Keneally has made several dozen albums as a band leader and has been featured on 200 or so more by other artists. His collaborators have ranged from Frank Zappa and the great soul singer Solomon Burke to avant-jazz trumpet great Wadada Leo Smith, Indian violinist L. Shankar and award-winning vocal group The Persuasions.
But until the pandemic shutdown of 2020, Keneally had always recorded his albums in top-notch studios or on concert stages. He worked with leading San Diego audio engineer Mike Harris, whose other clients have included U2, Willie Nelson and Switchfoot.
The shutdown erased those options. Keneally was left to helm his wonderfully absorbing new album, "The Thing That Knowledge Can't Eat," largely on his own. He did so in the thin-walled condo in Alpine where he lived until recently with his wife, Sarah. (The couple moved five months ago to a ranch in the mountains of northeastern Arizona.)
