Canadian Article 1975

Take of English earth as much
As either hand may rightly clutch...
Lay that earth upon the heart,
And thy sickness shall depart.

This impressive quote from Rudyard Kipling berhymes the feeling Manfred Mann's Earth Band is recently conveying to a congregate of fans. What's good for the good earth, is good for the bad heart. That's exactly the medicine Manfred Mann has been dosing out for the past ten years. Ever since his first hit single of "5,4,3,2,1" in 1964, Manfred Mann's name has appeared under numerous other recordings such as "Do Wah Diddy" and "Pretty Flamingo". He has always been able to create an uplifting emotion in the hearts of his followers; whether it be through the impressive and majestic "Joybringer" or the childlike simplicity of "My name is Jack". Having had experience of forming three bands, each with their own detectable style, Manfred Mann has spawned a number of competent musicians, including Jack Bruce, fifth Beatle Klaus Voorman and Tom McGuiness (of McGuinness Flint fame). Part of Manfred's success was due to his lasting relationship with Mike Hugg in the Mann Hugg Blues Brothers, the Manfred Mann group, and the immensely underrated, Chapter III.

"Chapter III was a band with preconceptions and pretensions. After a year and a half, Mike started getting into his own compositions where he wanted to do his thing. Because he was the singer, I got tired of only having to do his own songs because he would only sing his own songs....Mike's one of those guy's that writes a thousand songs before breakfast. So you're recording them all the time. You do three a week and you're only doing 1 per cent of his writing. So we just never got around to doing something else, and I wanted to do other songs."

Hence the Earth band was created.

"This band started immediately, with absolutely no pretention. We had no idea what it would be. We just got together. But it's changed. The music's changed a lot since the first albums."

Despite the stylistic changes, Manfred Mann has consistently remained a significant individual in the development of modern musicology. His contribution to twentieth century music has been a minimal acceptance to the masses. Consequently, his talent is appreciated more by fellow musicians through their technical praise and criticism. Even within the confines of the Earth Band, any criticism received is not taken personally. Owing this honest criticism to the mastering of his music, Manfred Mann has progressed with the times, while remaining in the hard rocking fashion of the late sixties.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Manfred Mann's Band can appear before an audience of devoted King Crimson fans one night, and Nazareth the next. Despite the wide range of style, he feels his music is not composed to derive any deep, hidden meanings of peace, love and cosmic ideology.

"The music is far more important and delivers a far more fundamental, subconscious, emotional thing than all the verbalising in the world. A lot of people usually feel they have to verbalise a big message (that) the band's trying to convey..."

The Earth Band approach to the dynamics of heavy rock and roll is rather direct. Their albums all have a definite consistency in sound. This is not to suggest that there is any rephrasing of structural concepts, but more of a consistency in their style. The major influence on their style has taken much from the school of jazz. "Sky High", a track from their latest album The Good Earth, features an instrumental passage with an almost Zappa-like feel to it. This is not surprising, as Frank is one of his major influences along with the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Ornette Coleman. Hence his attitudes towards the structural development and progression of a song.

"We have a lot of sections that we allow ourselves to do (improvisations).. There's a lot of freedom. (It's improvised,) within very rigid arrangements. We try and get a kind of compromise between heavily arranged things .. and sections which are fairly loose, and all we know is how we're gonna get out of these things."

Their utilization of pre-recorded choral tapes has proven that even heavy metal rockers can be ethereal once in a while without showing signs of any significant dissimilation.

"We didn't want to become pretentious. We try to use the tapes in a way that you hear a strange tape coming out with a weird kind of singing .. a sort of thing like that could be pretentious. But we have a secret way of getting out of it, which is that you can always tap your foot to it. I'm not joking. As long as it's going ta-ta-ta-ta-ta .. as long as that's going and someone's singing something strange and it's all weird, it's OK."

The question of pre-recorded tapes being used in concert has caused Manfred Mann some problems on our own good Canuck earth. Last August, they were barred from performing again with the aid of tapes in the Ottowa-Hull area.

"We did a gig with another band (Babe Ruth) and it was said that we used 'orchestral' tapes .. and we used no orchestral tapes. We're not trying to be an orchestra. The guy (James Lytle) was worried and wrote a letter saying that we had used orchestral tapes. Now, as if you're trying to fake your way and do musicians out of a job or something, but we're using our own effects that we made in the studio ourselves. We now have formal permission from the A.F. of M. to use those and only those. We never did use any orchestral tapes. We don't even use any orchestral walk-on tapes."

Aside from the tapes, there is something more distinctive that has become an important trademark: the synthesiser. Manfred first incorporated the synthesizer when the Earth Band was in its primal stages. He originally considered it on the 'new toy' level until he started recording. Then he realised its potential and incorporated it into the sound of the new band. His use of the synthesizer, in the construction of his songs, is varied. At times, it is a very effective noisemaker, much on the same level as a drummer's bells and gongs. Other times, it becomes a very emotional and moving inflection of sound. But through this versatile instrument, he has come to respect a high calibre of musicianship in those he listens to. His admiration for the Mahavishnu Orchestra has led him to feel that "Jan Hammer is the best synthesizer player, bar none."

Simplicity is the basic concept for Manfred's consideration of his keyboard selection.

"The more keyboards you have, the easier it gets. That's the thing. I must tell you, it's easier now with the three than it is with two. The hardest thing is to do it all with one. Much, much more difficult. You see, I'm trying to resist this desire to have more keyboards. I think that if I got another keyboard, which I probably will, I'll probably get an electric piano. I think I've got enough sytnthesisers."

The delicate sensitivity of a mellotron is one reason fro not dragging one around on tour, but the questionable quality of the reproduction is also a major factor.

"Any band you hear with a mellotron, unless the mellotron is playing on its own, sounds very muddy. When everyone's playing together, you've got this big orchestra going 'mmmmmmm'. It's always a very muddy sound and I've tried it. I tried it on "Father of Day" because we recorded it with a mellotron and I tried it for one gig. I played it for fifteen seconds and that's my sole use of the mellotron."

The instruments are all part of Manfred Mann's departure from the music of those "Do Wah Diddy" days. During his live performances, the audience aren't shouting for those golden oldies anymore. They're just pleasant memories in the back of their commercial minded heads. Consequently, the element of surprise and spontaneity is a major factor in the performance of a newly arranged version of Dylan's "The Mighty Quinn".

It's a final attempt at getting the audience out of their seats and singing along. Manfred's feelings towards audience participation is one of lengthy passages built around the reaction, rather than the reaction improvised around the passages.

"We don't make a real effort to make people sing. All we do is stop, and suddenly people are singing and we just leave it and then we carry on. To me, that was people singing. We're not one of those bands like, 'Everybody get up on your feet', and give them precise and specific instructions, 'Now all sing the song together'. In Europe though, people tend to sing a lot more."

The progression of his band has tended to shy ways from any of his past commercial hits. The music is conceived on a totally different plane, although Manfred wishes he could achieve a similar height in popularity with his music today. Then, what is the reason for the haunting memory of "The Mighty Quinn" and that period of his career?

"We don't want to relive it, and we don't really want to pretend it never happened. What I'm saying is quite specific. We don't mind saying, "This is one of the old songs."

Neither, it seems, does a large portion of his audience. For the Earth band, the music comes first and last - whether it be "The Mighty Quinn" or "Father of Day". All he's ever wanted to do with his music is to give the audience a good time. So, the Earth Band's stage presentation relies very heavily on the conscious level of its audience. The atmosphere reflects on the band's playing.

"We have trouble in the studio getting the atmosphere, cause we respond very much to the atmosphere. We're reacting. It's very much a visual thing. You know, there are some bands often at a gig, and you sit backstage and you hear them playing and you say, 'Heh, this sounds good'. And you get out there and the instant you walk through the door, it's boring. You just look and somehow there's nothing happening, yet when you actually listen, the music's good. It sounds good, but the moment you look, it doesn't seem right. And I think with us, some of what you're hearing, is the fact that it's feeling good and it's atmosphere."

Manfred Mann is also an artist that can turn another composer's song into a completely different, yet satisfying, arrangement. He has been successful with randy Newmans's "Living Without You" as well as all the Dylan material.

"One of my side strange abilities is to hear a good song, no matter how it's being performed. Even if you get a bad performance, I can still hear that there's a good song. And some of Dylan's performances, in relation to what you would call 'produced' performances, like Elton John or The Beatles, are very, very personal. But in a sense, bad. very often they hide the melody line. Go back and listen to the original of "Father of Day", and what I could hear was a very, very good song hidden away. Now, you do that at a quarter of the speed and it's gonna be good."

Their future development depends on consistently writing substantial material, the same for any popular band that want to stay popular. Manfred plans to spend two months on the next recording to insure a proper consistency in their music. Their good time music. Their good earth music. With this, Manfred Mann and his Earthy Band are set to stage the stars. But, is there a place in this uncertain business for a rock and roll Pink Floyd? Well, I guess that all depends on whether you want your music to analyse or to rock to.

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