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Manfreds Paul Jones and Mike D’Abo on 60-year anniversary tour




Maximum Rhythm & Blues with The Manfreds at The Anvil, Basingstoke, on Thursday, September 21. Review by DEREK ANSELL

The Manfreds
The Manfreds

THEY were not called the Manfreds when I saw them at the Flamingo in London way back when. It was just the Manfred Mann group, but curiously I never saw anyone with that name.

Then, as now, the lead singer was Paul Jones, today a sprightly 81-year-old.

He introduced long-time collaborator Mike D’Abo, who was once lead singer when Jones originally left to go solo.

Now the two are back together on a 60-year anniversary tour... yes, it has been that long.

Not surprisingly, the group began with high octane versions of the old hits like Fox On The Run and Ha Ha Said The Clown. Then Sha , La, La, where Newbury musician Simon Currie, late of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, exercised his tenor sax prowess.

It all sounded good and much like the originals, but the excessive amplification tended to add unwanted distortion to the music.

Although not often remarked upon, the Manfreds rarely played original material. The Beatles had Lennon and McCartney, the Rolling Stones had Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, but the Manfreds did their own unique versions of other people’s material.

Like Bob Dylan’s The Mighty Quinn, played here with a strong beat.

You might ‘not see nothing like the Mighty Quinn’ but you can still see the Manfred’s belting it out. Along with Pretty Flamingo, where Jones easily recruited the audience to join in the singing. And most of them knew all the words!

Best of all, I thought, was genuine, unadulterated blues by Howlin’ Wolf, the old time blues singer, which Jones obviously enjoyed singing.

The band also played an acoustic session where the excessive electricity was turned down low and we heard pieces like Dylan’s Just Like A Woman, played on D’Abo’s keyboard, Currie’s soprano sax and Paul Jones on harmonica, along with a restrained rhythm section.

On recitals like this, Jones and company could exercise their jazz chops, which they did on Bennie Golson’s Killer Joe.

There was room, too, for more pure, undiluted blues selections, which was the format that got Paul Jones started in the first place all those years ago.

At the end they did justice to Herbie Hancock’s Watermelon Man and the encore was Hi Lily, Hi Lily, Hi Lo.

See what I mean about adapting other people’s material?



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