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ODDS & SODS collects four CDs worth of alternate takes, outtakes and other assorted rarities, mostly recorded during the 1970s and 1980s, from long-lived rock act Manfred Mann's Earth Band. Liner Note Author: Andy Taylor . This is one of the best conceived box sets to come around since the format made its bow with the Eric Clapton and Allman Brothers packages from Polygram at the end of the 1980s. The problem with most boxes is that the producers can never be sure of the direction in which they should go, especially with acts that have a long history and a lot of hits -- do they represent all of the single A- and B-sides, or plunge into the vaults head first and fill it up with material that will be best known to hardcore fanatics? Luckily, in the case of Manfred Mann's Earth Band, there's a lot of history but not a huge raft of hits to deal with, just some extremely important ones, so a direction that didn't compromise either a box set's potential broad appeal (such as it was) or its hardcore fan appeal was available, for anyone so inclined and motivated. Covering a musical history that crosses 30 years, each CD has a distinctive thrust and content that separates it from the discs adjacent to it, yet it all manages to hold together as a vital resource for appreciation of the band. Disc one is devoted to the transition between Manfred Mann Chapter Three, the short-lived Manfred Mann/Mike Hugg-led break with the original group Manfred Mann, mixing jazz and rock, and Manfred Mann's Earth Band, the much louder and harder-rocking ensemble that followed. "Happy Being Me" was the debut single of the Chapter Three band, while "Travelling Lady," which goes into King Crimson-esque saxophone territory, was off of the group's debut album; both tracks, like "Messin' Up the Land" which follows, were written by Mike Hugg. The latter track is the original Chapter Three rendition, completely different from the version that Manfred Mann's Earth Band ultimately released on their third album two years later -- it opens a brace of previously unissued tracks from the abandoned third Manfred Mann Chapter Three album, which was thought lost until Mann began working on remastering his library; it stands somewhere midway between the late-'60s soul-inspired pop of the original Manfred Mann group and those funky, jazzy jams that King Crimson started getting into circa 1972 with Mel Collins and company. The rest is far more diverse, representing most of the unreleased Earth Band album Stepping Sideways, among them a killer version of Dylan's "Please Mrs. Henry" as a low-wattage blues piece, "Ashes to the Wind," in its original version, the stunning acoustic rocker "Holly Holy," and the Moog-driven "Ain't No Crime" -- any one of these cuts is almost worth the price of admission by itself, and together they make this first disc essential listening, not just for Chapter Three or Earth Band fans but also for anyone who ever took the '60s version of the group seriously, for as m
