“WE were jazz musicians,” says Manfred Mann. “I was listening to Archie Shepp and Ornette Coleman when I started in the industry.” When the South African keyboard player joined forces with English pianist, vibes-man and drummer Mike Hugg to form the Mann-Hugg Blues Brothers in 1962, the two musicians were grounded in jazz and blues. Morphing into Manfred Mann, their fortunes took a pop turn with the 1963 single “5-4-3-2-1”, the theme tune to Ready Steady Go! and the first of several Top 10 hits, including “Do Wah Diddy Diddy”, “Pretty Flamingo” and “Ha! Ha! Said The Clown”.
Having evolved through two incarnations of the band, featuring Paul Jones and later Mike D’Abo as lead vocalists, by the end of the ’60s Mann and Hugg were feeling creatively constrained. Resolving to reach back to their formative influences for inspiration, the result was Manfred Mann Chapter Three, a 10-piece collective featuring a dynamic rhythm section and freewheeling brass players. On their self-titled debut album, released at the tail end of 1969, Chapter Three cooked up a pioneering, progressively funky mix of rock, jazz, blues and soul.
Having ceded the drum stool to Australian powerhouse Craig Collinge, Hugg became the band’s lead vocalist, keyboard player and principal writer. One of the standout tracks on their debut, however, was composed and sung by Mann. “One Way Glass” is a mighty groove, driven by propulsive bass by the Gang Of Four and Ian Dury’s are among the classic albums later recorded there. It’s now an Asda supermarket.
