Manfred Mann - Ha Ha Said the Clown - Non-Album Tracks (1967)

I've got tons of albums from different bands to post, but Manfred Mann is on a fast track, so here's the next stray tracks album from them.

Manfred Mann didn't release a studio album at all in 1967. I think this was a big mistake, and must have cost the band popularity and credibility. Recall that 1967 was a time of rapidly and drastically changing musical trends. You had to keep up or be left behind. (Some bands, like the Dave Clark Five, Herman's Hermits, and the Searchers, fell way behind around 1967.) As it so happens, Manfred Mann had enough new material for not one but two new studio albums in 1967, and they had hit singles then as well, so their lack of an album that year is even more of a mystery.

I have some songs recorded in 1967 on the last stray tracks album I posted here ("Semi-Detached Suburban Mr. James"), and more on the next album in this series. But all of the songs on this album date from 1967. I have it in rough chronological order by recording date, from January to August 1967.

The big hit song this time around is "Ha Ha Said the Clown." It was a Top 5 song in Britain, and hit Number 1 in some European countries, but it didn't chart at all in the US. Although it's a nice song, it's also a lightweight one, and fare badly with a lot of masterpieces coming out in 1967. Songs like this one help explain why the band got the reputation as a poppy singles band.

Happily, the album has more substance. True, some of the other songs are in the same vein as "Clown," but the band was still showing off its rhythm and blues and/or jazzy chops, as well as dabbling with psychedelic sounds. Six of the songs here were released as A- or B-sides. Two more come from BBC sessions, and for both of those I edited to songs to remove the BBC DJ's talking over the intros. Another song only came out as an album bonus track years later.

That leaves three songs that still remain officially unreleased: "Golden Flower," "She Once Was My Love," and "Rainbow Eyes." This is puzzling to me, because I think they sound just as good as any of the other songs on the album. Luckily, all three come from a bootleg with sterling sound quality, so they sound exactly as good as the released tracks. The song "She Once Was My Love" was a rather messed up take, with the song breaking down and then restarting more than once, as well as having some vocal flubs. But I edited it to make it sound coherent and mistake-free.

This album is fairly short at 35 minutes, but that was how long such albums typically were in those days. By luck, the last song ends with a bit of a reprise of the first song. It's brief and a bit subtle, but it's there.

01 Ha Ha Said the Clown (Manfred Mann)
02 I Love You (Manfred Mann)
03 Feeling So Good (Manfred Mann)
04 The Nitty Gritty [Edit] (Manfred Mann)
05 Golden Flower (Manfred Mann)
06 She Once Was My Love [Edit] (Manfred Mann)
07 Sweet Pea [Instrumental] (Manfred Mann)
08 One Way (Manfred Mann)
09 Rainbow Eyes (Manfred Mann)
10 Hound Dog [Edit] (Manfred Mann)
11 So Long, Dad (Manfred Mann)
12 Funniest Gig (Manfred Mann)

https://www.imagenetz.de/dCiJv

For the cover art, I chose from one of several different versions of the "Ha Ha Said the Clown" single. I made a few changes. For instance, I removed the title of the B-side, which was written right below the title of the A-side. I also moved the location of the record company logo.