40 Year Itch : Revved Up Like a Deuce

Manfred Mann's Earth Band : Blinded by the Light

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And here it is: Bruce Springsteen's only number one hit. Never mind the fact that it was recorded by by the English group Manfred Mann's Earth Band who substituted Springsteen's Dylanesque acoustic guitar strumming ( on Greetings from Asbury Park)  with spacey organ, electric guitar lyrics, "Chopsticks" on piano  and the backing vocals of the legendary Chanter Sisters.

There were also a few changes to the lyrics. Most notably, they exchanged "cut loose like a deuce" for "revved up like a deuce". Not that it sounded like that to anyone with a 5th graders sense of humor. No. We all decided they were singing "wrapped up like a douche". Springsteen even joked on VH1 Storytellers that it was not until Manfred Mann rewrote the song to be about a feminine hygiene product that it became popular. In a way, it was only fair

I loved this song in 1976 and 1977 when, in February, it topped the US charts. I have no idea what it's about and I don't care. I don't even care about the awkward transitions.

"Blinded By the Light" leads off The Roaring Silence, which was released on August 27, 1976.  There are far better Earth Band albums by the way . The debut is great all the way through and was among three 1972 albums to receive an A+ rating from Robert Christgau. The other two were Paul Simon's solo debut and the Rolling Stones classic Exile on Main Street.

40 Year Itch : All Duded Up For Saturday Night

Manfred Mann's Earth Band : Spirits in the Night

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   A year before taking Bruce Springsteen's "Blinded By The Light" to the top of the Billboard 100, Manfred Mann's Earth Band released a keyboard heavy cover of his "Spirits In The Night" which would peak at #97. Both of the songs come from Springsteen's debut Greetings From Asbury Park ( as would "For You", which they recorded in 1980 for Chance.)Most of the album, Nightingales and Bombers,  is made up of what Robert Christgau called "space doodling", although there is also a cover of Joan Armatrading's "Visionary Mountains".

40 Year Itch: November 1973's Best Prop Pop Moments

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By the time The Electric Light Orchestra recorded their third album, Roy Wood has left them for good to prance about in what was then the much greener grass of Wizzard. Now Jeff Lynne could pursue his Beatles fixation unabashed. It was an admiring John Lennon who called him out on that  regarding "Showdown", the single that may or may not be on the album depending on what you country you bought it:

I call them ‘Son of Beatles’ although they are doing things we never did, obviously but I remember a statement they made when the first formed, was to carry on from were The Beatles left off with Walrus and they certainly did. Now for those people who like to know where licks and things come from, which I do cause I’m always nicking little things myself: This is a beautiful combination of "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" by Marvin Gaye and "Lightnin' Strikes" again – Lou Christie-- and it’s a beautiful job with a little ‘Walrus’ underneath

      

   There's still some painful explorations of classically tinged orchestral rock that mars this listener's experience ( especially on Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King"). But on the whole. Jeff Lynne and ELO have found the sound that would make them one of the 70's best-selling rock acts. It's a damn fine album. As a plus, you get Marc Bolan playing some crunchy guitar on  the 1974 single " Ma Ma Ma Belle" .

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   Recording at a clip of two albums a year, Manfred Mann's Earth Band left the heavy blues of its amazing debut in the dust, and followed Argent into the organ driven space rock format. Solar Fire opens with a Dylan cover but the rest is of  it is built around a theme not unlike Holst's The Planets. Not surprisingly, the #9 UK hit single, "Joybringer", is partially adapted from Holst's "Jupiter: The Bringer of Jollity" movement ( listen to the bit at 1:00 or so) .

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Gary Wright and Mike Harrison had broken up the band but returned in 1972 with future Foreigner guitarist Mick Jones. For the band's first Island Records release, Spooky Tooth recorded this solid if uninspired hard rocking set, highlighted by the lead off track "Ocean of Power". 

Harrison left after this album to pursue a second solo career.

40 Year Itch: Top 5 New UK Singles

These are the Top 5 singles debuting on the UK charts for the week ending September 15. The #1 song in the UK was Donny Osmond's "Young Love".

1. Rod Stewart "Oh No Not My Baby" (UK#22). A self produced single of the 1964 Goffin-King classic climed all the way to #5 in the UK and #59 in the US.

2. The Jackson 5 "Skywriter" ( UK#38) The funky third single from Skywriter would peak at #25 in the UKbut failed to chart at all in the US

3. Manfred Mann's Earth Band : Joybringer (UK#39)  A non-album single from busy Manfred Mann's Earth Band who also released two albums in 1973, Messin' ( Get Your Rocks Off was the US title) and Solar Flare. "Joybringer" would peak in the UK at #9.

4. Mott the Hoople "All the Way from Memphis" (UK#40) The sad story of a lost guitar would peak at #10 in the UK for Mott the Hoople. From the album Mott, one of 1973's best.

5. Status Quo: Caroline (UK#44) From the album Hello, this was a Top 5 hit for Status Quo. It started a golden streak for the band in the UK that lasted the rest of the decade. The US ignored the band the entire time.

   Further down the chart: two notable tunes:
     #46 Elton John: Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting
     #47 Wings: Live and Let Die

40 Year Itch: Those We Missed Sep '72

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Joe Walsh leaves The James Gang and that band's hard rock sound behind for acoustic guitars, harmony vocals and even some experiments with an ARP Odyssey synthesizer on his first solo album Barnstorm.  "Comin' Down" is the final track on the album. This one's a grower and the best of the bunch in today's post.

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"Dinah Flo" was the single on Boz Scaggs's fifth album My Time, recorded with the mighty Muscle Shoals backing band. Surprising that it would take four more years for Boz to make what seems to my ears a small leap from "Dinah Flo" to Silk Degrees.

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For their second album of 1972, Manfred Mann's Earth Band get heavier  and more experimental than on their magnificent debut. Then they close the whole thing out with a Dylan cover that ranks among the best ever.

[Purchase a Styx Anthology]

Chicago based prog rockers showed off their classical training on their Wooden Nickel eponymous debut which featured a 13 minute suited called  "Movement for the Common Man", the third section of which is Aaron Copeland's "Fanfare for the Common Man". Styx could also get heavy handed. Witness  "After You Leave Me", the final cut on the album.These were probably not the best of times.

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Founders of World Music, the African and Caribbean expats who recorded as Osibisa in London may sound stale compared to the more authentic high life recordings we can all hear in this digital age. But they were the shit in the 1970's.

Dave Wakeling (English Beat) Picks His Top Ten Fave Songs (1980)

English Beat songwriter and guitarist Dave Wakeling provided this list for the April 3, 1980 issue of Smash Hits courtesy of  Like Punk Never Happened. At the time, The Beat were just weeks away from releasing their monumental debut I Just Can't Stop It.

1. Toots and The Maytals: Pomp and Pride
2. Smokey Robinson and the Miracles: Tracks Of My Tears
3. Manfred Mann: Ha Ha Said The Clown
4. The Congo: Children Cry
5. Tim Buckley: Sweet Surrender
6. Tapper Zukie: Viago
7. Elvis Costello And The Attractions: Secondary Modern
8. Percy Sledge: When A Man Loves A Woman
9. The Undertones: Male Model
10. Captain Beefheart: Moonlight On Vermont

"I like all of these because of their lyrics, especially the Tim Buckley one."

40 Years Ago Today : Manfred Mann's Earth Band debut

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In 1972, the dean of all rock critics, Robert Christgau, gave just three albums his A+ rating: Paul Simon's eponymous album , The Rolling Stones 's Exile On Main Street and this multifarious album by Manfred Mann's Earth Band.
  From the beginning Manfred Mann always had a way with choosing covers. Their 1964 #1 hit "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" was originally a minor hit for The Exciters. "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" (UK#2,1965) "Just Like A Woman" (UK#10, 1966) and "Mighty Quinn" (UK#1 and US #10,1968) were all Dylan compositions. "Pretty Flamingo" (UK#1,1966 ) was written by the same guy who wrote The Banana Splits Theme. But all along Mann and his bandmates could knock out some pretty good stuff on their own.
My current obsession is the Beach Boys inspired "Up The Junction", a  follow up single to "Mighty Quinn" that went absolutely nowhere.



[Buy The Essential Manfred Mann]

When the band Manfred Mann dissolved, Mann himself began fusing jazz with hard rock.
That's a recipe for progressive self indulgence of the worst kind. There's some of that ( "Sloth", "Tribute") but in Mann's hands, the album works wonders for the most part. Gospel meets Deep Purple riffing on "Captain Bobby Scout". Watch as Mann responds to a band mate's "Let's boogie!" with a passionate three minute long Moog synthesiser solo below.




So the album rocks hard in places. But there are also some quiet originals that will break your heart."I'm Up And I'm Leaving" and "Part Time Man" both sound like something Ray Davies probably wishes he wrote.



Finally there are the covers. Dylan's "Please Mrs Henry", Dr John's "Jump Sturdy and Randy Newman's "Living Without You", the highest charting single from the album at #69. As most of us know, Manfred Mann's Earth Band wouldn't make a huge splash on the charts until they discovered Bruce Springsteen. "Blinded By The Light" went #1 in the US in 1976 and "Spirits in the Night" cracked the Top 40 in both the US and UK. But that was years after the Earth Band recorded their best album, a debut Christgau called "the perfect corrective to the willful brightness of boogie optimism."