(Credits: Far Out / Keijo Laajisto / Finnish Heritage Agency / Alamy)
Tue 24 February 2026 20:00, UK
If you were to dissect every pop hit from the past 50 or so years, the majority of them would share the same two or three chord sequences. When a track breaks from that accepted formula, though, something very special can be conjured up, as Manfred Mann’s chief songwriter Mike d’Abo found out back in 1967.
Although they aren’t often afforded the same credit or enduring legacy as some of their fellow swinging sixties alumni, Manfred Mann were responsible for a multitude of the era’s defining sounds. It was Paul Jones who started that run of hits, forming the band in 1962 and spearheading the majority of the band’s defining moments, including both ‘Do Wah Diddy Diddy’ and the theme tune for Ready, Steady, Go, both of which helped to establish Manfred Mann among the most exciting youth outfits in London.
When 1966 rolled around, however, the group changed entirely, signing to Fontana Records and having Mike d’Abo take over the mantle of lead songwriter. That personnel shift, coupled with the rapidly evolving cultural revolution occurring around the band during the age of psychedelia and early hippiedom, inevitably ushered in a new age for Manfred Mann and established d’Abo as a generational songwriting talent.
Never was that talent more overt than on his 1967 composition ‘Handbags and Gladrags’, a song with a legacy that arguably outweighs Manfred Mann themselves. Inspiring a multitude of cover versions, spanning the spectrum from Stereophonics to Rod Stewart, along with virtually every open-mic music night up and down the British Isles, it is fair to say that it was d’Abo’s defining moment as a songwriter, but, seemingly, he owed it all to Jimi Hendrix.
There were, admittedly, very few rock and roll songwriters during the late 1960s who weren’t having their minds blown wide open by the psychedelic stylings of Hendrix, but d’Abo was attracted by one of the guitar virtuoso’s more mellow offerings. “I found a chord sequence that is absolutely the ultimate perfect chord sequence,” he once recalled to Charly Records.
“I think I heard this riff on a Jimi Hendrix record called ‘The Wind Cries Mary’ and it inspired me,” the songwriter continued. “The solo that he played, it was sort of like in the style of Floyd Cramer, and I thought, ‘There’s a song here’.”
It was that unusual chord progression, and Hendrix’s uncharacteristically tranquil solo on that legendary song, that formed the backbone of ‘Handbags and Gladrags’, according to Mike d’Abo.
It was immediately clear that this masterful song was something special, even if its roots in Hendrix’s output weren’t immediately clear, but it was also at odds with the typical output of Manfred Mann. So, instead, it was Chris Farlowe who recorded the first version of the song, and it wasn’t until seven years later that d’Abo’s own version saw a widespread release – it took even longer for Manfred Mann to release their version, in 2003.
‘Handbags and Gladrags’ might not have kept Manfred Mann afloat forever, with the band eventually folding in 1969, but it certainly established Mike d’Abo as a legendary songwriter, as well as reflecting the sheer, influential power of Jimi Hendrix during his heyday.