Manfred Mann (musician)

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Manfred Mann (real name Manfred Sepse Lubowitz^[1]) was born on 21 October 1940 in Johannesburg, South Africa and is a professional keyboard player, best known as the founder member of Manfred Mann and Manfred Mann's Earth Band.

Mann studied classical music at the University of the Witwatersrand and worked as a jazz pianist at a number of clubs in Johannesburg. Between 1959 and 1961 he recorded, together with his childhood friend Harry Miller, two LPs as The Vikings - South-Africa's first Rock 'n' Roll band.

In 1961, strongly opposed to the apartheid system in his native South Africa,^[2] Mann re-located to the United Kingdom. The following year he met drummer and keyboard player Mike Hugg at Clacton Butlins Holiday Camp and together they formed a large blues jazz band called the Mann Hugg Blues Brothers. This eventually evolved into a five-piece group and they signed a record deal with EMI in 1963, under the HMV label. They changed their name to Manfred Mann at the suggestion of the label's record producer, and from 1964 to 1969 had a succession of hit records ("Do Wah Diddy Diddy", "Sha La La", "Pretty Flamingo", "Fox On The Run").

Manfred Mann the group split in 1969 but Mann immediately formed another outfit with Mike Hugg called Manfred Mann Chapter Three, an experimental jazz rock band. The band was short-lived and after two albums disbanded. Undeterred, Mann formed a new band in 1971, Manfred Mann's Earth Band, which still record and perform to this day.