Wednesday 10th February

The Manfreds were a big band in my teens.  They emerged, mostly from Clacton, in the early Sixties and were originally very bluesy and jazzy; they were named after their keyboard player Manfred Mann, a South African actually.  They hit almost immediate fame when they were asked to write the theme tune to Ready Steady Go, a new pop music show on ITV in ’64.  They came up with 5-4-3-2-1, a great fast number which whizzed us into the show.  They were fronted by Paul Jones for a while and then Mike D’Abo and had great hit singles “Do-Wah-Diddie” and “Sha-La-Le” and the superb “If You Gotta Go, Go Now” (actually written by Dylan) and “Pretty Flamingo”.  They were very rarely out of the charts throughout the Sixties and often covered Dylan songs such as “The Mighty Quinn”.  Like the Hollies they were one of those bands that while not truly great were always around and slowly evolved as the music of the Sixties changed.

But the usual band dynamics broke up the band in ’69 and Manfred created a new band ‘Manfred Mann’s Earth Band” in ’71.  I bought a couple of their records and they were brilliant.  “Angel Station” with great songs like “Don’t Kill It Carol” and “Belle Of The Earth” and a slightly progressive feel to the music.  I also have “Somewhere in Afrika” where Manfred returned to his South African roots and presented a highly political album; this was 1983 and long before the release of Nelson Mandela.  Songs like “Tribal Statistics” and “Brothers and Sisters of Azania” recorded the plight of black South Africans (not that it is that much better today).  There is also a brilliant version of Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” which almost surpasses the original.  They continued to have a few great singles too, “Blinded By the Light” and “Davey’s On The Road Again”.  Strangely I haven’t bothered to buy many other Manfred Mann’s Earth Band records – note to myself…{Rectify that as soon as possible}.

Manfred Mann, a minor footnote in the music of the Twentieth Century…but what a great one.