Manfred Mann
Album: Greatest Hits And More
Label: Rhino
Tracks: 25
Website: http://www.rhino.com

Manfred Mann were (was) one of the most well-known and respected of pop combos, lasting from 1963 through to 1969. Their hitmaking career fell conveniently into two distinct phases: for the first (up to summer 1966), Paul Jones was the lead vocalist, and for the second the role was filled by Mike D'Abo. There have been a number of compilations of the band's many chart hits, but - I'd guess due to the fact that the band changed labels from HMV to Fontana - none that have spanned both phases of the band's career. So this new collection is a first, in the important respect that it contains, in chronological order, every A-side that charted, whatever the label on which it was released. The collection also scores by subsequently appending Paul's two solo post-MM hits (High Time and I've Been A Bad Bad Boy), Mike's lone solo post-MM hit (Handbags And Gladrags) and MM bassist Tom McGuinness's post-MM hits with his band McGuinness Flint (When I'm Dead And Gone).

This new package does what it says on the tin, then - and very well indeed. Listening through its 25 tracks, it also proves a salutary reminder of just how versatile the band was, moving from the hard-edged, frantic bluesy R&B of 5-4-3-2-1 (the famous RSG theme tune) and catchy pop (Do Wah Diddy Diddy, Pretty Flamingo) to decent Dylan covers (If You Gotta Go, Go Now and With God On Our Side, the latter included here along with tongue-in-cheek band portrait The One In The Middle also from the band's chart EP). After Paul departed the band, the Dylan theme continued with Just Like A Woman and Mighty Quinn, then the band embraced sunshine-pop and quirky psych-pop (Ha Ha Said The Clown, My Name Is Jack) and the movie theme Up The Junction.

Sure, and arguably more so than with many other pop bands of the 60s, the hits were but the tip of a creative iceberg, particularly on the innovatively jazzy-R&B front, and the exhaustive EMI four-disc box-set Down The Road Apiece (containing all their HMV label recordings) is an essential adjunct for those who cherish memories of that aspect of the band's creativity and their fine instrumental work; completists will also bemoan the fact that there's been no comparable "complete" issue covering the band's Fontana years (even while readily admitting the albums from that era were decidedly uneven in quality!). But taking The Greatest Hits + More at face value, quite literally as nothing other than a purely-A-side-based collection, this latest, marvellously well-stocked Rhino release really can't be bettered.

David Kidman