“I never could see the attraction of throwing a television set out of a hotel window,” says Paul Jones matter-of-factly. “It never appealed to me.”
The singer is talking about rock star antics of the 60s and 70s – and the “certain amount of madness” he witnessed when touring Australia and New Zealand with The Who and The Small Faces in 1968.
“That was extraordinary,” says Paul, 82. “I remember after we came back Roger Daltrey and I did a television show and Roger told me ‘You and I were the only two sane people on that tour!’
“There was a lot of behaviour which people got famous for. We were evicted from an airplane even though most of us were asleep. The problem was one of the New Zealand backing musicians had brought a bottle of beer onto the plane, which was against the law. But I think it was more due to the fact that we had long hair!”
As the frontman of Manfred Mann, and touring again with The Manfreds later this year, Paul’s illustrious seven-decade career has covered everything from pop to the TV screen via the blues and the West End stage.
His hits like Pretty Flamingo, Do Wah Diddy Diddy and 5-4-3-2-1 – the theme from 60s pop show Ready Steady Go – still have a massive appeal today.
Why? “They are well-written songs by people who know what they are doing. Flamingo was written by Mark Barkan, who knew how to put a song together that people would sing along with. And Do Wah Diddy was written by Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich who specialised in things that people would join in with but with nonsense titles – Da Doo Ron Ron, Hanky Panky –
as well as sensible songs like River Deep, Mountain High.
“We had wonderful fun making those songs.
“I guested with Lulu on the last night of her recent tour and launched into Pretty Flamingo. Her audience joined in within moments. They can’t stop themselves from singing along – and I encourage them.”
That was also evident when Paul appeared on Jools Holland’s Hootenanny a year ago.
“I thought this is really good, this is living,” says Paul.
He met Sir Rod Stewart that night. As the Manfreds played Glastonbury’s acoustic stage last year [2024] I wondered what advice he’d give Rod, who has the Legends slot this year?
“Definitely don’t put your stage clothes on until you get to the dressing room. By the time you have walked from your car to where you are going to change, you are up to your knees covered with fine dust. And try and listen to as many other people who are on as possible.”
Paul keeps his finger on the pulse when it comes to bands and has a wide and varied music history. Before joining Manfred Mann, he was friends with Brian Jones from The Rolling Stones and his career could have turned out very different.
“We were good friends and spent a lot of time at parties that we had gate-crashed, student stuff. In 1962 we’d go regularly to hear Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated at The Ealing Club.
“One day Brian said to me, ‘We are not taking this thing seriously enough, we are just dilettantes. I’m starting a band and I’m going to become rich and famous. Do you want to be my singer?’.
“We were playing blues in pubs and in people’s lounges but we weren’t getting any money. I said to Brian ‘I really wish you luck and thanks but no thanks’.
“People ask me, don’t you regret turning down the Rolling Stones? I didn’t turn down the Rolling Stones. I turned down a band Brian Jones was forming. Had I joined, it would never have become the Rolling Stones. You had to wait for Mick and Keith for that. So the world should be grateful to me!”
Paul reveals he also encouraged Mick Jagger to write his own songs. “Their manager Andrew Loog Oldham gets all the press for having forced Mick and Keith to write by locking them in a room. Before that, we had a residency at the Marquee Club and the Stones needed rehearsal space for a television show.
“As they were packing up, I said to Mick ‘Are you writing songs yet?’ and he said ‘No’. I said ‘Mick, you ought to get started now’ and I know that encouraged him.”
After leaving Manfred Mann in 1966, Paul branched out into a solo career, including acting and musicals. He sang as Juan Peron on the original vinyl version of Evita and appeared in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.
TV appearances followed, in The Persuaders, Space 1999, Z Cars and in 1975 The Sweeney.
“That episode was an extraordinary piece of casting,” says Paul, “because there I was as a sort of ‘Sarf London’ boxer. Look at my hands and arms and you’d know I’m not a boxer, never have been. I enjoyed doing things like that.”
In 1979 he founded The Blues Band which was more successful than he ever dreamed it would be. This led to his own blues show on BBC Radio 2 running from 1986 to 2018.
“I’m a jazz and blues fan at heart,” says Paul. “I listen to a variety of music, anything from classical to Stevie Wonder. His ability to write songs is phenomenal and what a great mouth organist. I look up to people like him.”
Paul, also an accomplished harmonica player, says The Manfreds, who reformed in 1991 without their eponymous founder, are at the top of their game. He’s looking forward to their Maximum Rhythm N Blues Show, which takes them on 30 dates from early October to late November.
“The current line up of The Manfreds is the best it’s ever been,” says Paul. “We now call it the A Team. We always had incredible guests on our autumn tour – Georgie Fame, Alan Price, PP Arnold – and this year we’ve got Noel McCalla who’s sung with Stiff Little Fingers and the Morrissey-Mullen group, everything from late punk to jazz.
“He also worked for 18 years with Manfred Mann’s Earth Band which means he holds the record for the longest time as a singer with Manfred Mann. I did it for three and a half years!”
Paul stays ready for touring by “living ‘match fit’; my wife [former actress Fiona Hendley, 65] and I eat sensible and delicious food and get a reasonable amount of exercise. I’m not a gym person. It’s much more interesting to go for a walk.”
His Christian faith is also hugely important to him. Paul, who grew up in Portsmouth, was a chorister as a child and studied English at Jesus College, Oxford, but turned to music instead of graduating. A teenage atheist, he later found his faith again.
“The funny thing about that was I loved Gospel music,” says Paul. “There I was listening to the soul-stirring and silver tones of Mahalia Jackson and not really getting what it was about.
“I spent 25years as an atheist and then in the late 70s, I picked up the habit of going to art galleries and spending time with paintings, particularly an artist called Caspar David Friedrich. His landscapes are full of faith and Holy Spirit and I started to gravitate to things like that.
“It didn’t change me but it made me ready to change. One day Cliff Richard invited me and my wife to come and hear an evangelist called Luis Palau at White City Stadium in West London and that night everything changed.”
Paul has considered writing his autobiography, but says,
“I always feel I’m too busy and anyway if your career is as long as mine, you are going to need to do some serious research…”
*The Manfreds’ Maximum Rhythm N Blues Show is touring from October 2 until November 29. For more visit myticket.co.uk
