All the way from Folk to Electric

Faced with a choice on election night of staying in to watch the results coming in on the box or heading out to The Anvil, Basingstoke, to catch a live show by The Manfreds — featuring my old school contemporary Michael d’Abo on vocals, as well as his apparently ageless predecessor, Paul Jones — it was, as Homer Simpson sometimes says, ‘a no-brainer’. In spite of a single, seemingly slighting reference (from Elvis Costello) to Manfred Mann in this stimulating study of Bob Dylan, I still believe the group to have been among the best interpreters of his songs and I’m sure I have read somewhere that Dylan himself has endorsed this view. The story goes that the relationship got off to a sticky start when Mann, after hearing some demo-tapes, observed that it was a pity Dylan couldn’t find a better vocalist. The singer was, of course, none other than the song-writer.