On The Record - Manfred Mann

(Article from late 80's)

Thanks to Keith Sheen

Manfred Mann has enjoyed an eventful career in music spanning more than 25 years.  Throughout the Sixties he and the band named for him scored a succession of hits like 5-4-3-2-1, The Mighty Quinn and Semi-detached Suburban Mr James.
A keyboard virtuoso, manfred then went on to form the more rock-orientated Earth Band whose hits included Joybringer, Davy;s On The Road Again and Blinded By the Light which topped the charts all over the world.  In 1983 he released an album called Somewhere in Afrika which pre-dated Paul Simon's classic Gracelands by three years. 
"I don;t want to make too much of it says Manfred, but some of the musicians I've met who worked on Gracelands told me he was constantly using my record as a reference poimt."

Right now he is recording an LP with Greg Lake of Emerson Lake and Palmer fame.  For the first time he is working with computers, rather than musicians.
"I spend all day in front of a computer screen thinking: 'I didn't start out in this business to be doing this!'  But there are two main benefits.  First you get the exact notes you require and second, you don;t have the expense of employing musicians." 
"But working by yourself is a burden - you miss the input of your fellow players and the camaraderie."

Enjoying performing with a group led Manfred to spend most of the Seventies and Eighties on the road.  "Manfred Mann had toured before then but to be perfecty homest it wasn't much fun.  The shows were full of young girls screaming because they had seen us on TV.  With the Earth Band, it was very different - the audiences were into the music.
"Mind you, being on the road can present a whole new set of problems.  It isn't really the concert which is exhausting or even the travelling.  It is the emotional deprivation: when you want to be alone, you are in a bus with the rest of the band.  When you need company, everyone else has left the hotel.  "Then  on stage, thousands of people are cheering.  I think it is the sudden contrast between adulation and loneliness that is responsible for the strange behavious on the road.  It;s the result of usually reasonable people being subject to a particular kind of cruelty."

At the moment Manfred has no touring plans.  Apart from working on the new album, he is overseeing the release of 20 Years of Manfred Mann's Earth Band, which contains two compssitions by Brice Springsteen.
"Determination is not separate from ability.  A musician instinctively knows if he's capable of producing the goods.  That's what keeps me going.  Which is a terrible curse because I'd much rather go on holiday!"

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