Liverpool Sound and Vision rating 8.5/10
It is perhaps easy to forget that the music of the 1960s were more than just four lads from Liverpool, easy and honest, after all, wherever you go in the world, wherever you may travel, a common unifying bond can be easily brought to any conversation by humming a few bars of any number of songs created by The Beatles; it is a truism that defies any other comparison, it also neglects the same adulation that should be placed at the door of bands such as The Who, The Small Faces, the early laid back beauty of Blues infused Fleetwood Mac and of course Manfred Mann.
It is to the radio that many are first drawn to a new sound, an experience that in turn fuels the necessity of inquisitive nature, the urge to find out more about the creation of music at the hands of their new chosen idols, and whilst in the modern age we are inundated with wall to wall stations supplying the habit of self-expression, in a time that really is not that far gone, there was so little choice, and yet it flooded the senses with charm, a groove, and without having to bend a knee to the overbearing sentiments of empty riches and words that many insist upon today.
Music, in the hands of a band such as Manfred Mann, in the appreciation of Tom McGuinnes, Mike Vickers, Paul Jones, Mike Hugg and Manfred Mann himself, is special, one that deserves the radio studio microphone and the attentive listener to be in a symbiotic relationship, especially in the days before the idea of catching up at a later date was considered the mode. However what the first volume released of Manfred Mann’s Radio Days: The Paul Jones Era readily showcases is how mature and natural the band sound, the ease in which the B.B.C. interviewer, Brian Matthew, places the five men in and whilst the questions by today’s standard might seem lacking in the art of teasing and probing an answer that would titillate an audience searching for clues that aren’t there, they offer a pointed politeness that we have lost along the way.
Not everything has to be about sensation, and this first double album proves that the best answer to any question is the art in which you employ, and in songs captured such as Watermelon Man, Oh No Not My Baby, The One In The Middle, If You Gotta Go, Go Now, the marvellous reworking of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ I Put A Spell On You, There’s No Living Without Your Loving, Tired Of Trying, Bored With Lying, Scared of Dying, the superb Pretty Flamingo and Long Hair, Unsquare Dude Called Jack, that feeling of poetic beat to which Kerouac and Ginsberg would have acknowledged as being instrumental in the art of communication and tangible ideas first makes itself known and readily accessible.
Manfred Mann Radio Days Volume 1: The Paul Jones Era is a collection that strikes a chord of recognition throughout the multitude of songs and series of interviews; the world of music is richer for both Manfred Mann being part of its soul, but also for this opening chapter in which the band’s early appearances on the B.B.C. were golden.
Manfred Mann Radio Days Volume 1: The Paul Jones Era is released on Umbrella Music on Friday 10th May.
Ian D. Hall