Having moved from jazz, Blues and R'n'B to out-and-out pop in his various 1960s bands, keyboard player Manfred Mann went back to the drawing board in 1971 with a new quartet, Manfred Mann's Earth Band, and the intention of focusing on progressive rock.
This new band played a repertoire that leant partly on radical rearrangements of songs by Bob Dylan and then Bruce Springsteen, largely instrumental epics that borrowed from Gustav Holst's The Planets suite, and improvisations based around the interplay between Manfred's newly-acquired Moog synthesiser and the lead guitar of Mick Rogers. Rogers left in 1975 to be replaced by Chris Thompson and lead guitarist Dave Flett, but later returned, and they soon built up a formidable live reputation throughout much of Europe, particularly in Germany and America.
Apart from the Holst-inspired 'Joybringer', a top ten hit in 1973, British success was slow in coming until a cover version of Springsteen's 'Blinded by the Light' and its parent album The Roaring Silence took their status to a new level on both sides of the Atlantic. This book examines the nine albums, fluctuating fortunes and various line-up changes from what was to be their greatest and most prolific decade.
John Van der Kiste has published over ninety books, mostly historical biography and music, including titles on The Beatles, Jeff Lynne/ELO, Led Zeppelin, Lindisfarne and Steve Winwood. He has also reviewed books and records for the local and national press and fanzines, and co-founded and edited the 70s fanzine Keep on Rockin'. He has performed with groups, run mobile discos, and written booklet notes for CD reissues from EMI and other labels. An occasional musician and songwriter, he also co-wrote one track on Riff Regan's Milestones (2015) and played harmonica on London's The Hell for Leather Mob (2020). He lives in Devon, UK.