Decades – Manfred Mann’s Earth Band in the 1970s, Fleetwood Mac in the 1980s / On Track – Spirit

Author:John Van der Kiste, Don Klees, Rev Keith A Gordon

I was quite fond of Manfred Mann’s Earth Band back in the day, although before reading this book I’d not listened to them in years. Most will know them for their hit cover of Blinded By The Light (they also did a creditable version of Spirit in the Night) and Davey’s on the Road Again, and to a lesser extent Joybringer, loosely based on Holst’s piece. The Solar Fire album was quite proggy as was the trend at the time, but the best of their other albums, Nightingales and Bombers and The Roaring Silence, were much more in the well trodden pop/rock vein. They never really made it from the city hall circuit, and are one of those bands where a well curated ‘best of’ is really all you need. The book is an interesting read nonetheless, recounting the band’s career in their seventies heyday when bigger things seemed to beckon for a while but never quite materialised, and gives good coverage of all the albums and their wider activities in that decade.

The eighties seems an odd choice to take a look at Fleetwood Mac, given only two studio albums appeared in that period. The rest of the decade was dominated by solo releases, the most commercially successful by far being Stevie Nicks’ efforts. The pair of band records, Mirage and Tango In The Night, found it hard to live in the shadow of Rumours and even Tusk, although the latter was more of a return to form despite Nicks contributions being severely limited by both her own touring and then lengthy sessions in rehab. This is a very good and well put together read though, looking in detail at both the band albums and all the numerous solo releases that appeared in those turbulent ten years, while the inter band politics and fall outs means your attention never wanes. I’d certainly recommend looking out for this if you’re a fan.

I confess that other than hearing the ‘Twelve Dreams’ album years ago I know little of Spirit or their musical careers. Listening back to that album, it hasn’t aged particularly well for me, and in the UK at least they never escaped the cult band tag, as they navigated the outer limits of rock, blues, jazz and even folk to produce their unique heady brand of psychedelia tinged hard rock. I suppose Love or early Grateful Dead are the obvious comparisons, but this was a band that very much ploughed their own distinctive furrow. To my surprise, they were active for over thirty years, with various break ups and reunions along the way, even enjoying something of resurgence in the 1990’s. Although they are largely forgotten now, this book takes a detailed in depth look at all the records, including solo albums, song by song, and retreads the paths their careers took from the early groundbreaking years when anything and everything seemed possible, to the lean period when they were no more than a minor footnote in the history of rock, and on to their eventual resurrection and ultimate demise

Length of Read:Short

Might appeal to people who enjoyed…

The work of the featured bands.

One thing you’ve learned

I’m always impressed that people are ready to devote their time to producing a book on their favourite artists.

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