Community

I'm going to begin this post with a quote that will seem to have nothing to do with the accompanying video. Maybe it doesn't. In any case:

For years mental health professionals taught people that they could be psychologically healthy without social support, that 'unless you love yourself, no one else will love you.' Women were told that they didn't need men, and vice versa. People without any relationships were believed to be as healthy as those who had many. These ideas contradict the fundamental biology of human species: we are social mammals and could never have survived without deeply interconnected and interdependent human contact. The truth is, you cannot love yourself unless you have been loved and are loved. The capacity to love cannot be built in isolation.

The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook, Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D. and Maia Szalavitz

I've lost count of the number of times I've heard this song. For the longest time, it struck me as nothing more than a divinely-daffy slice of 1960s British psychedelia.

Then, one day, I listened again, and this quote came to me.

If they're related at all, both the quote and the song say something urgent about communal living. Maybe what comes off as childhood fantasy in the video is really a light-bulb moment about an ingredient that's been missing in Western society for far too long.

This is Manfred Mann with "My Name Is Jack".

One Of the Good Guys

In my quest to slowly but surely grok all things Manfred Mann pre-Earth Band, I found this on YouTube, and had to hear it immediately.

Even without the video, I found the lyrics scary and disturbing; the video just underscores the point. Then, I read the video description, and discovered that the song had been written and sung by Manfred Mann guitarist, Tom McGuinness.

If you've been following along, you've seen Tom McGuinness in a couple of the videos I've posted, and he is the most blissed-out, light-beaming ... rock star I have ever seen. I absolutely love Tom McGuinness because he is, in fact, the very antithesis of the typical  rock star.

What could have led a guy like that to come up with this?

To answer that, you have to answer whether we humans are alone on this planet.

 It matters not whether you believe in aliens, angels, ghosts, or spirits of some kind; any of these might account for what McGuinness writes and sings about here. The villains, er, authority figures of the piece either don't believe, or believe that whatever is sharing the space with us is pure evil.

Worse yet, they want to punish the guy who communicates with these others -- without even knowing the first thing about any of them.

I watch Tom McGuinness, and I have to wonder: What if the man he sings about was -- or is -- one of the good guys?

Here's Tom McGuinness, out in front of Manfred Mann, with "There Is A Man".

A Post For Mike Hugg's Birthday

I've been looking for an excuse to share this clip, and Mike Hugg's birthday is it. (That's him on the left hand side of the photo, with longtime-collaborator and keyboardist, Manfred Mann).

No, this is not the kind of music I usually share, simply because I generally don't care for it. This is different: It's one of the best examples of progressive rock I've ever heard. The fact that it was recorded in 1966 makes it all the more astonishing. Manfred Mann was a band both ridiculously-versatile and far, far ahead of its time.

Hugg kicks it off, and it's clear from the first beat that he means business. No self-indulgent, flimsy tempos here. Thanks to his background in jazz, Hugg's beat is rock-solid, and even his cymbal playing has a focus that lesser drummers lack. Manfred Mann the band started as the Mann-Hugg Blues Brothers, and you hear the fruits of that long association in their hand-in-glove rhythm playing, to which both Klaus Voormann on bass and Tom McGuinness on guitar add their equally-estimable chops.

This is probably an awkward moment in which to mention that I detest drum solos -- loud, thrash-y, over-long, inexact, self-congratulatory drum solos. Mike Hugg's solo is none of these things. It's as well-plotted as if he'd learned it from sheet music. He makes full use of dynamics as well as his mind-boggling technique. Then, as his solo comes to a close, he puts in a ritardando (In rock? Who does that?), which sets the stage perfectly for the rest of the band to come back to the main theme -- a return that Hugg telegraphs in the last few beats of his solo. The technique is so rigorous, the musicianship so delightful that it's almost classical.

This is Manfred Mann, featuring birthday boy, Mike Hugg, with "Still, I'm Sad". And, yes, in case you're wondering, this beats the Yardbirds' lugubrious, spaghetti western version to death.

AM Radio and the Little Things

Mercy, the things you miss on AM radio.

Yes, you read that right. Not once have I ever heard this song in high fidelity. Transistors, tinny car radios, AM stations that were anything but clear-channel -- those were the only stations that would play this song after it fell from the charts. Maybe even while it was on its way to Number 1 in the U.S. I don't know; I was too young to have my own radio then.

Fast forward to the Internet and YouTube, and people from all over the world posting clips from tapes they had jealously guarded for decades. Suddenly, you can understand lyrics. Separation is often better, so you can hear individual parts.

Suddenly, you realize just how brilliant some musicians are; you realize just who some musicians are (When I grow up, I wanna play bass as brilliantly as Klaus Voormann does here).

At last, you see that every 60s band was not obsessed with maintaining a hip veneer; these guys were hip by virtue of their musical brilliance, which encompassed not only pop psychedelia, but folk, blues, and jazz. They must have known it, because they're not even trying to stare you down. They're having the time of their lives, and they want the whole world to join in.

That's what you miss on the radio.

Three cheers for the Internet, and three cheers for Manfred Mann.

This is "The Mighty Quinn".