Manfred Mann
The Vicar’s Daughter
Manfred Lubowitz aka Manfred Mann was born in South Africa und lived in Vienna for a while.
In 1965 he met Mike Hugg in England and they founded a group that played blues and jazz stuff. MM feels a deep affinity to this kind of music, but in order to survive and to make some money he was forced to do some commercial songs like “Do Wah Diddy” or “My Name Is Jack”. The result was a string of hits between 1965 and 1969. Two songs even topped the charts in the U.S. and Great Britain.
In early 1970, MM once again demonstrated his personal musical ambitions and his fondness of jazz. Accompanied by Mike Hugg, he recorded some strange tracks. But Chapter Three — which was the group’s new name — didn’t get the success the musicians should have had.
Returning to the commercial scene — connected to a harder pace — MM’s Earth Band built on past successes.
There were three important lead singers in the group: Paul Jones, Chris Thompson and …. Michael d’Abo. The latter wrote a lot of hits and fine tunes for both MM and several other groups.
“The Vicar’s Daughter”, well composed by d’Abo, is a fine tune about a young love that had no future. The song isn’t available on YouTube in Germany, so you have to buy an album called “Mighty Garvey” to listen to it. But let me tell you it’s worth it.
These days, MM is still touring with different musicians. But the commercial part of his legendary career is represented by The Manfreds with Michael d’Abo on vocals.
