Manfred Mann’s Earth Band – Nightingales & Bombers

Nightingales & Bombers is the sixth and final album recorded by the original quartet of Manfred Mann’s Earth Band. The album was also released before the cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Blinded By The Light” with the band’s new lineup that propelled them to greater commercial acceptance. Despite the replacement of singer Mick Rogers by Chris Thompson and the addition of another guitarist, Dave Flett, to widen the gap between Nightingales & Bombers and the follow-up The Roaring Silence, stylistically the two albums are similar.

Nightingales & Bombers is considered perhaps MMEB’s most progressive album with a lot of improvisation, with amazing keyboards and guitar. The title “Nightingales & Bombers” comes from an incident in World War II where a birdwatcher was recording the sound of some nightingales and during the recording, some bombers passed by and were recorded together. The resulting recording is heard on the track “As Above So Below”.

The album is notable for containing the band’s first cover of a Bruce Springsteen song, “Spirits In The Night”. The band had of course covered Bob Dylan songs on previous albums and with Springsteen being hailed by many at the time as the new Bob Dylan, this particular cover was seen as a natural progression. It should be noted that Springsteen was not widely known at the time and this cover of his song by the MMEB gave him some exposure.

Once again the band proved that their real strength was in locating highly dynamic material from other artists and giving it an inspired interpretation, which in no way weakens the rest of the band’s compositions.

The distinctive sounds of Chris Thompson’s guitar are absent here, as this is the last album recorded with the original line-up of the band as mentioned above. The band’s subsequent reworking of “Spirits In The Night” with Thomson also taking on vocal duties, the track is found as a bonus on “The Roaring Silence”, shows the addition of an extra dimension to the band’s music.

“Nightingales & Bombers” is an excellent album that many consider to be the band’s best, showing how Mann was becoming increasingly willing to experiment with different sounds and structures, on compositions by others and turning them into classic songs of the band.

Through this excellent album I select, what else, “Spirits In The Night”.

Tracklist

1. Spirits In The Night 6:26
2. Countdown 3:06
3. Time Is Right 6:33
4. Crossfade 3:39
5. Visionary Mountains 5:42
6. Nightingales And Bombers 4:52
7. Fat Nelly 3:20
8. As Above So Below (Recorded “Live”) 4:15