Manfred Mann

In the mid-'60s heyday of the British Invasion, Manfred Mann (led by the keyboard king of the same name) was the toast of swinging London and one of the first mop-top mobs to break in the States. Their cover of the Exciters' "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" turned a minor girl-group hit into a foot-stomping forward-march of peppy British pop. The Mann men even beat Bob Dylan to the punch by scoring with their sunny, sing-along take on his then-unreleased psychedelic fairytale "The Mighty Quinn (Quinn the Eskimo)." Mann the man souped up his sound with his new group, the Earth Band, in the '70s, super-charging Bruce Springsteen's undeniably Dylanesque "Blinded By the Light" with swooping synthesizers and sweeping, stadium-rock power.

Follow the Manfreds from Tin Pan Alley to Laurel Canyon, in Next Steps

Manfred Mann's interpretive gifts reached far beyond rock 'n' roll; they had a magical knack for reinventing tunes from far-flung corners of the musical universe. Burt Bacharach himself preferred their soul-tinted, organ-drenched angle on his "My Little Red Book" to that of U.S. psychedelicists Love. Only London's coolest customers could make a mod rave-up out of '50s musical Lili's genteel "Hi Lili Hi Lo." And in Earth Band mode they continued to tweak expectations, turning Randy Newman's mournful, cabaret-ish "Living Without You" into a bouncy, Badfinger-like piece of power-pop perfection.

Manfred Mann's jazz and R&B roots come to the surface in Deep Cuts

A soul-deep schooling in jazz and blues gave Manfred Mann the edge over their British Invasion buddies. When the band moved on Herbie Hancock's soul-jazz smash "Watermelon Man," the result wasn't just some Merseybeat makeover, but a true-blue boogaloo. They tapped their own deep R&B well to churn out the frantic piano-pounding fever and stinging fuzz-guitar fury of self-penned stomper "Tired of Trying, Bored With Lying, Scared of Dying." But they could reach far beyond their roots, too, with twinkling music-box masterpieces of baroque pop like the harpsichord-flecked "Everyday Another Hair Turns Grey" and the psychedelic-tinged tuneful twists of "Cubist Town."

Manfred Mann continually reinvented the groups that bore his name, which scored hits across the decades, putting their own Brit-rock spin on everything from Bob Dylan to Burt Bacharach. As hepcats of the '60s beat boom, Manfred Mann was always a little hipper than the competition, making the scene with cooler-than-thou jazz beards and a touch of beatnik. They stored some serious jazz/blues cred under their collars, but that never stopped them from turning out a string of merry pop milestones with more foot-stomping beats and sheer hummability than anyone this side of the Dave Clark Five. From the '70s on, Manfred Mann's Earth Band injected electronic flash and art-rock ambition into the picture — their turbocharged versions of Bruce Springsteen songs scored bigger than the Boss had with the originals. From simmering blues 'n' bop to rafters-rattling rock 'n' roll — you can follow Manfred Mann's whole journey right here.