Thursday, June 25, 2020

Manfred Mann - As Is - Non-Album Tracks (1966)

Here's the next in my series of Manfred Mann 1960s albums. This is essentially the officially released British album "As Is." I've included the entire album "as is" (ha ha), but I've added some extra songs.

This album is notable as the first one with the band's new lead vocalist Mike D'Abo, who replaced Paul Jones. Personally, I prefer the D'Abo era. Both were very good vocalists, but D'Abo also was a talented songwriter, including some songs you wouldn't expect, such as "Handbags and Gladrags," a hit for Rod Stewart, and "Build Me Up Buttercup," a hit for the Foundations.

The band had already been moving away from their rhythm and blues sound at the end of the Paul Jones era. Musical trends were changing fast in 1966, and the band fought to stay relevant. While the band wasn't "cutting edge" by any means, you can hear on this album how they continued to diversity their sound.

As far as the extra songs, the first three are from Mike D'Abo and his band just before he joined Manfred Mann. I figured these three songs are pretty good, and I didn't find any better place to put them, so I've stuck them at the start of this album. The song "(Accept My) Invitation" is particularly important because the rest of the Manfred Mann band heard D'Abo sing that in a concert, and were so impressed that they invited him to join the band. The last song is just a little short unreleased acoustic guitar instrumental, but I thought it was nice enough to include.

This album is 41 minutes long.

01 Gonna Make a Woman of You (Mike D'Abo & a Band of Angels)
02 Leave It to Me (Mike D'Abo & a Band of Angels)
03 [Accept My] Invitation (Mike D'Abo & a Band of Angels)
04 Trouble and Tea (Manfred Mann)
05 A Now and Then Thing (Manfred Mann)
06 Each Other's Company (Manfred Mann)
07 Box Office Draw (Manfred Mann)
08 Dealer, Dealer (Manfred Mann)
09 Morning After the Party (Manfred Mann)
10 Another Kind of Music (Manfred Mann)
11 As Long as I Have Loving (Manfred Mann)
12 Autumn Leaves [Instrumental] (Manfred Mann)
13 Superstitious Guy (Manfred Mann)
14 You're My Girl (Manfred Mann)
15 Just like a Woman (Manfred Mann)
16 Acoustic Guitar [Instrumental] (Manfred Mann)

https://www.imagenetz.de/fkNJo

The album cover is the exact cover from the official album. However, in the bottom left, there was a list of the songs on the album. I didn't want that, because I added some songs. So I used Photoshop to erase those words.

5 comments:

  1. Hi Paul This link does not work. Thanks. Ed

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Paul,
    This link is dead or archived ... can you plse repost it ?
    Thanks, Dominique

    ReplyDelete