Manfred Mann's Earth Band
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Manfred Mann's Earth Band is an English group founded in the early seventies and led by the keyboardist (of South African origin but transplanted to London since childhood) Manfred Mann. This bespectacled and frowning musician had already tasted success in the sixties with a beat group under his name, heavily derived from the likes of the Beatles and the Monkees. After a brief dark period, he finally managed to reinvent and stabilize himself in the music scene with this formation, thanks to his notable and particular musical characteristics.

Mann is indeed a musician with precise virtues and precise shortcomings. Among the former is being a supreme arranger and structurer of songs, as well as a great synthesizer soloist (the best, I would venture). His main shortcoming, however, is being a modest composer. Wisely, the Manfred Mann's Earth Band was immediately and throughout their career set up essentially as a cover band. In this album, indeed, only two of the seven included songs are original.

It's at this point that the excellent respectability and value of this formation emerges: far from replicating the original arrangements and atmospheres, the original tracks are always transformed, both rhythmically and structurally, as well as enriched and inflated with good musical hormones, harmonic situations, effective solo escapes by the leader or his guitarist Dave Fleet. The result, in most cases, is a true rejuvenation of the original song, subjected to a rejuvenating treatment that is sometimes miraculous, since this process of "creative covering" is applied not to famous pages of rock discography, but to tracks of medium if not deservedly obscure fame.

This is the case with the highlight of this record, that "Davy's On The Road Again" written by a couple of Band members, but never recorded by them, forced to be released ignominiously on an album of only one of them, John Simon. Mann's churchy Hammond organ, so seventies and vibrant, introduces the track which then gets invigorated with triplet rhythm, capable of giving even greater prominence to the beautiful melody, so redolent of open-air festivals, the Woodstock generation, pop from days gone by, the kind without computers and sampling.

Mann’s acuity in choosing the songs to reinterpret (and vigorously transform) drives him to prioritize the repertoire of great songwriters who however are not arrangers: Bob Dylan is the most striking example of this category, thus the preferred target of the Earth Band, and in this record we find his "Mighty Queen" (incidentally, already in the sixties repertoire of Manfred Mann), in a live version that is extended and intense. In the manner of "All Along The Watchtower" in Hendrix's case, this Dylanian page is literally made Manfred’s own, erasing every trace of the old Bob’s folk march, instead transformed into a pop rock with a progressive aftertaste, robust and resolved. Also because the voice isn’t the American bard’s hoarse delivery, but the great singer of the group answering to the name of Chris Thompson: an extremely powerful, solid, and solemn timbre, this vocalist’s fame is inversely proportional to his talent. When interpreted by him, the entire band's repertoire, although with a certain basic pop lightness, is imbued with tension and energy.

These qualities find further confirmation in the driving "Martha's Madman", my favorite from the batch, a spectacular ride led at a gallop by the group's skillful bassist Pat King, around whom keyboards and guitars go wild exchanging solos, after Thompson has sown panic with his resounding voice.

Among the original compositions, "Drowning On Dry Land" has a good grip, with Thompson's decisive timbre depicting a beautiful melody over acoustic guitars, then everything gets a bit lost in the instrumental coda endowed with its own title: "Fish Soup". On the other hand, "Chicago Institute" appears completely negligible, even in the lyrics contrasting open California with harsh and inhumane Chicago. Speaking of California, the album's gem takes its name from this famous state and is a composition by a certain Sue Vickers (who is she?!), a country rock ballad attempt which the singer's raucous voice and especially Mann's splendid outro synth solo prevent from arriving pure and harmless to the goal. Manfred Mann's creativity is unleashed after his two guitarists (even Thompson lends a hand with the rhythm section and here carves out a call and response with Fleet) have done their part: great expressiveness, great use of the "wheel" alongside the keyboard, capable of altering and making the sound vibrate, wonderfully analog and "big", of the old and glorious minimoog.

To conclude the citations of tracks, at the opening of the album there is finally "Circles", made interesting again by Thompson’s interpretation, who first starts in falsetto and then, at the second verse, pushes in full voice, on the same pitch, sending the piece upstairs.

Manfred Mann is a great keyboardist, his group dignified and interesting, "Watch" (eighth album, 1978) among his most successful and fresh records.