335. father of night, father of day

Manfred Mann’s Earth Band being an example of a darned strong outfit that never bothered much for hype or glory, particularly in their early days, but rather just put everything they had into the music. In the case of Father of Night Father of Day, that meant taking a sub two minute Bob Dylan acoustic throwaway about the glory of God etc and electrifying it, amplifying it glorifying until it was almost ten minutes long, and miles higher. The whole album’s a killer by the way, 1973’s Solar Fire. The Roaring Silence got all the sales and notoriety three years later because it contained Blinded By The Light, but Solar Fire is superior by orders of magnitude, the definition of a rock that was progressive, and at a time when that still mattered.” (Philip Random)

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881. Pluto the Dog

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Manfred Mann started with jazz in his native South Africa, switched to the blues in early 1960s Britain and eventually got some international pop success. But come the 1970s, the times they were a-changing again. Now it was Manfred Mann’s Earth Band and things were getting expansive, progressive even, with Pluto the Dog a funky little number that featured the the kind of wigged out synthesizer freakout that the free world has never had enough of, then or now.

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