1962–1969Manfred MannKeyboards1962–1969
Mike HuggDrums1962–1969
Paul JonesVocals1963-1966
Mike VickersGuitar1962-1965
Dave RichmondBass1962-1963
Tom McGuinness Bass, guitar1963-1969
Jack BruceBass1965-1966
Mike d'Abo Vocals1966-1969
Klaus VoormannBass1966-1969
Manfred Mann were a 1960s London-based rock and R&B band named after their South African-born keyboard player, Manfred Mann (born Manfred Lubowitz). They scored multiple major hits on both sides of the Atlantic and later morphed into Manfred Mann's Earth Band, which continued their habit of turning other writers' songs into distinctive, often more successful covers.
Manfred Mann was born Manfred Lubowitz in Johannesburg. When he moved to the UK in 1961, he adopted "Mann" after the American jazz drummer Shelley Manne.
They had two distinct frontmen. Paul Jones led the band from 1962 to 1966, giving their blues-leaning early hits a sharp, theatrical edge. When Jones left for a solo career, Mike d'Abo stepped in from 1966 to 1969, bringing a cleaner, more pop-oriented voice.
Before the hits, the band went by the name the Mann–Hugg Blues Brothers, co-founded by Mann and drummer Mike Hugg. They were rooted in jazz and blues, not the beat-group sound that soon surrounded them. Mann himself had worked as a jazz pianist and even a musicologist; his early charts were more harmonically dense than anything most London club bands could dream of playing.
One of the group's internal rules was unusual for its time: no guitar heroics. While British rock bands were busy turning their amps up to 11, Manfred Mann doubled down on keys. Their organ and piano-driven approach set them apart during the height of the mid-'60s guitar explosion.
Their first big break came with "
5-4-3-2-1," which became the theme to the influential UK TV show
Ready Steady Go!, a weekly showcase that plugged them straight into the bloodstream of Swinging London.
The band's early chart success was heavily shaped by producer John Burgess, who had a knack for picking winners: "
Do Wah Diddy Diddy," and "
Pretty Flamingo" were both outside songs he pushed on them.
In 1966 the band added one of the most interesting bass players in rock history: Klaus Voormann, the German artist who designed the Beatles' Revolver cover and moved in the same Hamburg circles as John, Paul, George, and Ringo.
Frontman Paul Jones lived one of the most dramatic personal arcs of any '60s pop star. As a teenager, he rejected the church and became a self-described militant atheist. In 1967 he even debated the existence of God on TV with Cliff Richard. Two decades later, Richard invited Jones to hear Louis Palau evangelize at London's White City. So moved were Jones and his girlfriend, fellow actor Fiona Henley, that he proposed, she accepted, and the couple became Christian evangelists themselves.
Jones also brought political and philosophical edge to the band's first Dylan cover. "
With God On Our Side" was a live staple for the band. Jones loved its critique of war waged under religious banners, but he eventually stopped performing it when his beliefs shifted. As he told
Mojo magazine:
"You have to decide whether Judas Iscariot had God on his side. I'm very sure about that, so I can't sing the song anymore."
Manfred Mann would go on to record multiple Dylan songs, including "
Just Like A Woman" and the hit version of "
Quinn The Eskimo." Their talent for rethinking Dylan tracks became a signature.
Across the decades, the "Manfred Mann" name stretched across three wildly different sounds: the original R&B/pop hitmakers with Paul Jones and Mike d'Abo, the experimental Manfred Mann Chapter Three, and the prog-leaning Earth Band. They barely resemble each other musically, but all three found their audiences, a rare case of one musician successfully reinventing his band not once, but twice.
