#25: Fox On The Run by Manfred Mann

City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: February 1969
Peak Position in Fredericton: #6
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #31
YouTube: “Fox On The Run”
Lyrics: “Fox On The Run”

Manfred Sepse Lubowitz was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1940. Raised in a Jewish family, Manfred studied music at the University of the Witwatersrand, and formed a rock ‘n roll band called The Vikings in 1959. Lubowitz was against the South African system of Apartheid, first introduced in 1948, and becoming entrenched and expanded under the leadership of Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd. So Manfred Lubowitz moved to Britain. He began to write for Jazz News under the pseudonym, Manfred Manne. In time he shortened his adopted surname to Mann. In 1962 he met Mike Hugg at a holiday camp at Clacton-on-Sea. (Mike Hugg was born in Hampshire, England, in 1940, and had studied jazz growing up). They decided to start a band and named it the Mann-Hugg Blues Brothers. They added Paul Jones and Tom McGuiness to the band, the latter who was with Eric Clapton’s band The Roosters.

Hugg knew another Hampshire lad named Paul Jones (born 1942). Jones had been asked to join the Rolling Stones, but turned Mick Jagger and Keith Richards down. However, he said yes to Mike Hugg and joined what was now billed as Manfred Mann in late 1962. Jones was a vocalist and went on to sing lead on many of the bands biggest hits. Another musician from Hamshire was Mike Vickers. He lived in Southampton and played guitar, flute and saxophone. A bass player, Dave Richmond, joined the band in 1962 but quit in 1963. Both Manfred and Mike Hugg were excellent keyboard players. But it was decided that Hugg would become the band’s drummer.

In late 1963, Manfred Mann was asked to provide a new theme tune for the ITV pop music TV program Ready Steady Go! They responded with “5-4-3-2-1” which, aided by weekly television exposure, climbed to #5 in the UK in February 1964. In 1963, the band covered The Exciters’ “Do Wah Diddy Diddy”, which had stalled for the girl group at #78. “Do Wah Diddy Diddy” was the third Top 20 hit in the UK, but the first Top 40 hit for the band in North America. It climbed to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in October 1964. In Canada the single reached number-one in Edmonton (AB), Halifax (NS), Montreal, North Bay (ON), Saskatoon (SK), Toronto, Vancouver, Windsor (ON) and Winnipeg (MB). Once “Do Was Diddy Diddy” became a Top Ten smash hit in Canada and the USA, “5-4-3-2-1” and “She-La-La” were added to playlists from coast to coast.

Manfred remembers trying to adjust to stardom. “In the summers of 1964 and ’65, we played Blackpool Pier every Sunday evening. To avoid fans, we’d finish playing and dash in panic down the pier towards our waiting car, hoping to be past the front of the theatre before the audience spotted us. But it only partly worked and every week we were chased by screaming fans.”

The next hit, “Sha-La-La,” climbed to #5 in Vancouver. It was a cover of a song by The Shirelles. They would later cover the Carole King-Gerry Goffin song, “Oh, No Not My Baby”, which climbed to #11 in the UK in the spring of 1965. However, it was not a hit in North America. In 1964, “Come Tomorrow” reached #3 in South Africa and #4 in the UK.

In 1965, Manfred Mann covered song written by Bob Dylan titled “If You Gotta Go, Go Now”. It peaked at #2 in the UK, Ireland and South Africa, and #7 in Sweden. In 1966, Manfred Mann covered the Bob Dylan tune “Just Like A Woman”. It topped the pop charts in Sweden, and reached #5 in South Africa, #6 in Denmark, #7 in Finland, #8 in the UK and #9 in Rhodesia. That year Mike Vickers left the band to pursue a solo career. Jack Bruce, later with Cream, was with Manfred Mann for a brief eight-month stint.

Klaus Voorman joined the band. He was born in Berlin in 1938. In 1965, he designed the cover for the Beatles album Revolver. In 1966, the album won a Grammy Award for Best Album Cover, Graphic Arts. He also designed cover art for some albums by the Bee Gees. Voorman played bass guitar with Manfred Mann from 1966 to 1969, including on the singles “Pretty Flamingo”, “Just Like A Woman”, and “Mighty Quinn”.

In 1966, Paul Jones left Manfred Mann as lead singer and was replaced by Michael David d’Abo. He was born in a village in Surrey in 1944 and was with A Band of Angels when he got the nod to join Manfred Mann. The band ended the year with another international Top Ten hit, “Semi-Detached, Suburban Mr. James”. The song with lead vocals by d’Abo concerned an ex-boyfriend who boasts to the bride that no one can love her like he can. The song climbed to #1 in Rhodesia, #2 in the UK, #3 in New Zealand, #5 in Finland and Ireland, #7 in Denmark, #10 in Sweden, and #11 in South Africa.

In 1967, Manfred Mann released “Ha! Ha! said the Clown”. The single shot to number-one in Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, South Africa and West Germany. It also charted into the Top Five in Denmark, France, New Zealand, Norway, Rhodesia, Sweden and the UK.

In the 1960’s on the Billboard Hot 100, the band managed only two Top Ten hits and one other song, “Pretty Flamingo,” which made #29. It climbed to #1 in Ireland, Rhodesia and the UK, and was also a Top Ten hit in Canada, Norway and Sweden. Their last North American hit in the 60’s was “The Mighty Quinn (Quinn The Eskimo)”, which peaked at #10 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1968. That same year, “My Name Is Jack” peaked at #1 in Austria, and was a Top Ten hit in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK and West Germany.

Manfred Mann’s final release in 1968 was “Fox On The Run”.

“Fox On The Run” was composed by Tony Hazzard, who was born in Liverpool in 1943. In 1966, Herman’s Hermits took Hazzard’s “You Won’t Be Leaving” to #9 in Australia. He also wrote “Listen To Me” for the Hollies which peaked at #11 on the UK pop charts in 1968. That year Lulu had a #9 hit in the UK with “Me, the Peaceful Heart”. In 1969, Hazzard penned a #5 hit for the Tremeloes in South Africa titled “Hello World”. Hazzard also wrote songs recorded by Andy Williams, Cliff Richard, and Gene Pitney. During this time he also wrote and produced television jingles, and wrote theme tunes for BBC and ITV series. One jingle won an award at the Cannes Film Festival. Tony Hazzard provided backing vocals on Elton John’s albums Tumbleweed Connection and Honky Chateau. He worked as a guitarist with Elton John, Long John Baldry, and James Last. As a recording artist, Tony Hazzard struggled even as he released three studio albums into the mid-70s. Hazzard said in an interview, “In 1981 I took a twenty-five year sabbatical from songwriting, during which time I retrained, managed a drug and alcohol rehab, wrote articles and short stories, acted, sang in two choirs and an acapella group, and allowed my field of songwriting to lie fallow, regrow itself, and mature.” In 2011, he released a CD of new work, entitled Songs From The Lynher. And in 2016, he released two more CDs of original material.

“Fox On The Run” is a song about a woman who tempts a man, just like Eve tempted Adam in the Garden of Eden. The first verse details how:
She walked through the corn leading down to the river,
her hair shone like gold in the hot morning sun.
She took all the love that a poor boy could give her,
and left me to die like a fox on the run.

The guy is attracted to the lady with the golden hair. But she is more into having him as a conquest, loving him and leaving him. Later in the song, we learn the singer is reflecting on his life. Over a glass of wine with a friend he “talks about the world and the friends we used to know.” His life is in its twilight as he judges “the game is nearly up and the hounds are at my door.”

Internationally, “Fox On The Run” peaked at #1 in New Zealand, #2 in Ireland, #3 in Australia, #5 in the UK, #6 in Norway, #7 in West Germany, and #13 in Austria. In radio markets in Canada and the USA the song climbed to #3 in Washington DC, #5 in Arlington (VA), and #6 in Fredericton (NB), and St. Louis.

Since Manfred Mann’s recording of “Fox On The Run”, the tune has become a bluegrass standard. It’s since been recorded by Tom T. Hall who had a #9 country hit in 1976. Other bluegrass recordings of the song include those by Bill Monroe, The Country Gentlemen, George Jones, Ricky Skaggs, Flatt & Scruggs, Doc Watson, Bare Naked Ladies, and The Zac Brown Band. Hazzard told Songfacts, “I love hearing the cover versions. The song has adapted especially well to bluegrass. I should mention that Mike D’Abo, who sang on the Manfred Mann version, changed some of the lyric in the last verse (not sure why) so that has continued in the bluegrass versions.” Given its multiple recordings, Tony Hazzard won a BMI Citation of Achievement in 1977 for “Fox On The Run”.

Manfred Mann had one more single release titled “Ragamuffin Man”. It reached #5 in New Zealand, #8 in the UK, #10 in Ireland, and cracked the Top 20 in both Australia and West Germany.

Manfred Mann disolved as a band in 1969. Later in 1969, Mann and Hugg formed an experimental jazz band named Manfred Mann Chapter Three. In 1971 their band took a new direction and they renamed it Manfred Mann’s Earth Band. In this fourth incarnation they had three Top Ten hits in the UK in the 1970’s. One of these, “Blinded By The Light”, became an international hit that topped the pop charts across North America in 1977.

Tom McGuinness formed McGuinness-Flint with Hughie Flint (of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers). Their debut single, “When I’m Dead and Gone” peaked in early 1971 at #2 in the UK and #5 in Ireland. A followup, “Malt and Barley Blues”, was a #5 hit in the UK later that year. In 1979, McGuinness and Paul Jones co-founded The Blues Band. Over the next four decades the band released over twenty albums.

Mike d’Abo co-wrote “Build Me Up Buttercup” for the Foundations. In the winter of 1968-69, he played the lead in Gulliver Travels (subtly, not Gulliver’s Travels) in London. D’Abo also portrayed Herod on the original recording of Jesus Christ Superstar. In addition, he had a short role on the original recording of Evita. In film, Mike d’Abo appeared in the Peter Sellers-Goldie Hawn romantic comedy There’s A Girl in My Soup. In 1976 he teamed up with former Dave Clark Five keyboard player, Mike Smith, and released an album titled Smith & d’Abo. Starting in 1997, he hosted a show called The Golden Years, playing music from the 50s onward. It was aired on several local BBC radio stations across the UK.

After Manfred Mann split in 1969, Klaus Voorman was a session musician with the Plastic Ono Band, Badfinger, Dion, Hoyt Axton, Donovan, Peter Frampton, Art Garfunkel on “My Little Town” and others, George Harrison on “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)” and others, John Lennon on “Imagine”, “Whatever Gets You Thru The Night”, and many others, Maria Muldaur, Randy Newman on “Short People” and others, Harry Nilsson on “Without You” and others, Yoko Ono, Billy Preston, Lou Reed, Leon Russell, Martha Reeves, Carly Simon on “You’re So Vain”, “Mockingbird”, “Haven’t Got Time For the Pain” and others, Ringo Starr on “It Don’t Come Easy”, “Photograph”, You’re Sixteen”, “No No Song”, “Back Off Boogaloo” and others, Howlin’ Wolf, and Louden Wainwright III. Voorman was also part of George Harrison’s band at The Concert for Bangla Desh at Madison Square Garden, New York City, August 1, 1971. Voorman went into semi-retirement in the late 80s. But in 2009 released his first studio album. In 2016, Klaus Voorman published a graphic novel titled Revolver 50: Birth of an Icon.

May 10, 2025
Ray McGinnis

References:
Richard Webber, “Whatever happened to… Manfred Mann?,” Express, London, UK, October 18, 2014.
“Tony Hazzard Biography,” tonyhazzard.com.
Country Gentlemen, “Fox On The Run“, Mike Seeger’s Grassroots show, May 24, 2008.
Bare Naked Ladies, “Crazy/Fox On The Run“, Boarding House Park, Lowell (MA), July 19, 2014.
Tom T. Hall, “Fox On The Run“, 1976.
Paul Morley, “Klaus Voorman,” Guardian, September 4, 2009.
“Mike Hugg: Biography,” themanfreds.com.
“Mike d’Abo: Biography,” themanfreds.com, December 2005.
“Tom McGuinness Interview (Manfred Mann – Hits From the Sixties),” Velvet Thunder, October 4, 2023.

CFNB 550-AM Fredericton (NB) Top 20 | February 8, 1969