Man - Disc of the day

Man
Be Good To Yourself At Least Once A Day

(United Artists, 1972; reissued on Esoteric, 2007)

In honour of Wales’ rugby union Grand Slam… the Merthyr marvels.

The most jam-full and cherry-tight of several cherishable albums by Britain’s best San Franciscan band, Be Good To Yourself… will be a revelation to anyone who imagines that Welsh rock leapt from Tom Jones and Dave Edmunds to the Super Furries and Gorky‘s Zygotic Mynci without interruption. By the point of its sixth album (including one live mini-LP), the Man band’s fluid line-up had become a five-piece focused on Micky Jones’ sweetly melodic guitar – twinned with Clive John’s – the discreetly driving drumming of Terry Williams and the steady pulse of bassist Will Youatt. Vocals at this point were a barely tolerated interruption to the eloquent solos (Jones, John, Phil Ryan on keyboards) and concentrated riffage that drew on the twin guitar attacks of Quicksilver Messenger Service, Grateful Dead and, melodically, even southerners The Allman Brothers Band. This album only had four songs – C’mon, Keep On Crinting (er, don’t ask), Life On The Road and Bananas – the first- and last-named becoming essential to the live set as lengthy though never dull rock extemporisations. Excellent reissue sleevenotes by guitarist Deke Leonard, sacked by the band right before this album, he’d rejoin after one more album. Micky Jones, sadly, has had two operations on brain tumours in recent years and no longer plays, but Man goes on.

Geoff Brown

Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 6:00 AM GMT 23/03/2008