The Manfreds featuring Paul Jones to perform in Leyburn

The Manfreds.

Think you don’t know any Manfred Mann songs?

You’re probably wrong. Just reading the titles of some of their hits – Mighty Quinn, Pretty Flamingo, Ha! Ha! Said the Clown, 5-4-3-2-1 – might prompt you to break out in song.

Find them on YouTube – which you can here – and you are sure to recognise more, even if you aren’t old enough to remember them in their heyday.

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Now performing as just The Manfreds featuring Paul Jones (without original keyboardist Manfred Mann which explains the name change), the group will appear at the Garden Rooms at Tennants on April 13.

The appearance is part of a 26-date spring tour which will take them up and down the country.

Manfreds tuitarist Tom McGuinness spoke to Richmondshire Today ahead of the tour.

“We haven’t played together for six months or so and I’m really excited about touring again. I’m really looking forward to it.”

Tom was inspired to pick up a guitar after hearing the likes of Lonnie Donegan, Hank Marvin and Buddy Holly, who was a particular inspiration as he also wore glasses.

He first went professional in 1963 and joined Manfred Mann after a playing with a young Eric Clapton in his first band, the Roosters.

He admitted that after all that time he and his fellow band mates did not need to rehearse.

“If we have two or three new songs we will get together, but otherwise we just get on with it – we have relatively few car crashes and can usually cover up any little mistakes!”

Tom said he had visited the Yorkshire Dales before but had never been to Leyburn or performed at the Garden Rooms, and he was looking forward to it.

“The Yorkshire Dales are beautiful – there are lots of beautiful parts of the country and it’s great on a tour to get to see them.”

Tom will be staying local after the show and is hoping to travel to and from Leyburn via the Wensleydale Railway.

He said The Manfreds audience members were often aged over 60 who listened to the group when they first emerged, although they did get younger people and whole families coming along.

At a performance in Japan a few years ago the group played to an audience of young people in their 20s who were fans of British 60s culture, although Tom says they were very respectful and did scream and come at them with scissors to cut pieces of their hair, as fans did in the group’s heyday.

Asked what the audience could expect, the musician said the group would play their hits,

But he added: “It will be a mixed bag – we will do the hits but there will also be some rhythm and blues, some jazz, which is what we would play when we first began. It will be a good night.”

To book tickets for The Manfreds featuring Paul Jones at the Garden Rooms at Tennants, click here.

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