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Contents
A Yawn in Your Ear…………........….…2
50 Years of the Good Earth………... ...5
Finding the Good Earth …… ......... ….7
Original Good Earth Photos ……..… .13
Press Clippings 15
The Earth Team
Editor…Andy Taylor
Design Nigel Stanworth
Front Cover Photo Mick Murphy
Web Site:
It was over 31 years ago that Platform End was first published, 23 years since it went on-line and 3 years since it last appeared for the 50th anniversary special. The 50th anniversary of The Good Earth’s release on 11 October 1974 seems like a good excuse for this special.
A YAWN IN YOUR EAR
Or for this special Platform End perhaps it should be ‘Launching Place’.
Oh but hang on a minute I am sure I have written those words before. Surely not that long ago! Twenty nine years have passed like an express train since the eighth edition of Platform End was sent to members all over the world, a belated celebration of the album ‘The Good Earth’. I hadn’t even got around to having a Yawn In Your Ear yet (the editorial was called Fish Soup) so it seems that now is a good time to put that right – The Good Earth 50th anniversary Yawn In Your Ear.
In 1995 Platform End was black and white, come to think of it most things were black and white. By the start of August of that year I was at least in my own head a semi-retired hippy still sporting a 70’s moustache, content in the know-ledge that whilst we Hippies hadn’t exactly fixed anything with flower power and good music, we had at least
made some progress. For example it was generally agreed that war was a bad thing and the bomb was to be banned soon. I was fortunate enough to grow up in a world where everyone was equal no matter what. I was the son of a clergy-man (Or preacher man as Dusty Springfield would say). I know that religion gets a lot of bad press these days and most of it is well deserved, but my father who was a truly lovely man believed that you only ever do to others what you would not mind them doing to you! If only the rest of the world could get behind that idea.
My life was protected from a lot of the injustices of the world. I remember the first time I came across racism it made me feel, shocked, angry, and incredibly sad and confused. It is hard to understand sometimes all these years later that it’s still happening,
I can’t remember when I first became aware of the crisis that faces our planet. If I’m honest I am not sure I took the early warnings that seriously. Information started to come to light like a trickle of water from a broken pipe. Then the pipe burst and
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we began to learn of the damage we were doing. I found myself listening to a diverse collection of individ-uals, actors, naturalists, rock stars and royalty
There was one rock star I had followed from my pre hippy days. I am sure he won’t thank me for saying this, but as a shy teenager I could ident-ify much easier with the geek on the keyboards than I could with the One In The Middle! I would have grown out of this I’m sure, if I hadn’t got to like keyboards, Rock/ Jazz and a Manfred Moog Solo
So when the ‘Good Earth’ was released I was already a fully committed MMEB fan. To this day a great Manfred (Moog sound-ing) solo takes me to a special place. The ‘Good Earth’ was not the first time MMEB had warned of the damage we were doing to our planet and our countryside. The album ‘Messin’ featur-ed as the title track a song by Mike Hugg which would have been on Manfred Mann Chapter 3 volume 3 had it ever been released. Both versions stand up well to the passage of time, the MMEB take is easy to find. The Chapter 3
version “Messin’ up the Land” is on disc 1 of the ‘Odds and Sods’ album and represents probably one of the finest moments of that band, who were soon to start losing their brass section
Anyway back to ‘The Good Earth’ and there you have it. I was a big fan for 20 odd years when ‘The Good Earth’ was launched. It will come as no surprise to say I liked it. I honestly can’t rem-ember if I thought it was as good as ‘Solar Fire’, but it would have been played over and over again when it was new. I’m pretty sure the BBC put a live concert on the radio at the time, a rare treat compared to the poor quality bootlegs I had mostly relied upon.
As for the square foot of land, I honestly don’t remember being that interested in the offer of a tiny plot of land in the Brecon Beacons, after all my hippy days were like an ancient dragon heading for the hills to die. I was so much wiser now and at my cynical best. I thought it was a great idea to promote the new album and I also thought the message was a good one. I liked the album. There were greater albums to come
very soon, ‘Nightingales and Bombers’ and then a series of classics starting of course with ‘The Roaring Silence’ and with that the ear through which I yawn.
I would of course revisit the album now and again as I did and still do with all the albums. In a world that now had “Martha’s Madman”, “Don’t Kill It Carol” and “Blinded By The Light” and a band that was now recognised as one of the best live acts around, ‘The Good Earth’ could easily be lost in the back catalogue. Worse still, I never got round to sending for my square foot. There was apparently a problem managing the process, the demand being far higher than was expected. In the end I believe everybody got their square foot of land including me although at the time I don’t think I knew that.
For the record this big fan never went to the Brecon Beacons to find our hill. I don’t think I ever gave it a lot of thought . What was as clear to me as mountain stream was that nobody is going to mess up a remote hill in the Brecon Beacons.
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Twenty one years later and I am sat in my office from which I managed a group of financial advisers. I enjoyed being a financial adviser, not so much managing others. The day was going quite slowly until the phone rang. “Ian Tompson for you” I was told. You will all I’m sure remember Ian, a legend who in those days managed The Workhouse, recording engineer, Manfred’s keyboard tech and a bit later even became tour manager for a while. (Ian continues to help create extraordinary music live currently on tour with OMD).
Ian told me that some chap from The Guardian had called and he had given him my number. He was interesting in writing an article to celebrat-e the twentieth ann-iversary of the album, ‘The Good Earth’ and its unusual free gift. A few minutes after I had put the phone down Roger Dobson called. I felt unprepared for such an interview and I must have been a huge disappointment to Roger. You see as I confessed earlier I had never been to see our plot of land and wasn’t even sure where it was. It didn’t matter how many times he asked,
that was not going to change. Worse than that but perhaps not surprisingly, I had not even given a single moment’s thought to having my ashes sprinkled on the hillside. When he asked me what the whole thing was about ,it was only then I realised that maybe the ancient dragon had not died after all but was biding time to wake up this daft old hippy.
As unprepared as I was and without thinking this was what I told him
“It was a great idea, not a gimmick, it was saying this is a bit of beautiful land where birds can fly over, where animals can live and where flowers can grow without being poisoned or killed. It was the good earth and the message that came with it was let’s not ruin our countryside. Here at least is land that can be safe.”
Roger asked me if I would visit my plot soon. I had already realised I probably should have visited a long time ago. Not because I had a nominal share of a chunk of land on which I can do absolutely nothing and not because it was linked to
Manfred Mann’s Earth Band but because it was actually a brilliant idea.
“Of course I will” I said
Roger phoned back 10 minutes later and said:
How about next week?”
A week or so later in indifferent to terrible weather, Carol and her Mother, the children and I all headed to the Brecon Beacons where we met Roger and then spent some time searching for our actual hill. A few of the locals were luckily aware of the story of the rock band buying one of their smaller hills. So at last we found what we were looking for. It was a horrible day by now so we didn’t venture very far up the hill. I had a series of ridiculous photos taken and the Saturday Telegraph featured a big article as a result, a job well done. The Good Earth’ album was returned to the collection and I went back to managing.
Then the phone went. It was the BBC. They had read the article in the newspaper and thought it would make for a good item on the long running TV program ‘Country File’. There is plenty
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o read on this amazing event in Platform End 8 available on-line. The day on the mountain was very special. Mick drove up to join us and armed with guitar, posed and mimed to the title track in various locations on the hillside.
A surprisingly large group of us come together to represent the fan club, which was still in its early days. Despite very short notice we even had people come over from Germany. The prod-ucer was also called Mick, an extra-ordinarily talented man who Mick Rogers and I hit it off with straight away. We were both invited to stay with him a month or two after the filming and one day he took us into Pebble Mill where I got to shake hands with John Craven. To those of you not familiar with UK TV, John started out in children’s TV before becoming the anchor of ‘Country File’. He does the link at the start of our feature which is presented by Dilly Parton. John is now what we call a national treasure.
Back on the hillside there was a hungry camera crew, there were hungry fans and
there was no food. We were filming on a Sunday and in those days nothing opened in the Brecon Beacons on a Sunday. Carol and our friend Sheron had both brought picnic and managed admittedly on a slightly smaller scale the equivalent of feeding the five thousand. Phil Six-smith took the brilliant photos we used in Platform End.
It is hard to explain in words what a special day that was. Friends, families and complete strangers came together to celebrate an idea and in doing so a dammed
good album. A couple of days later the BBC crew came to The Workhouse studios to interview Manfred and film him and Mick miming to “Pleasure and Pain” from the forthcoming ‘Soft Vengeance’ album.
I insisted right from the very start that they should feature a new song as well as The Good Earth’ and they were very happy to do so.
When Greenpeace bought land at Heathrow Airport to stop the third runway, it was designed to block this development. Even 21 years on I saw the concept of ‘The Good
Earth’ plot of land as symbolic and in many ways it is. There is however no denying that last time I was there, just one hill stands in that part of the Brecon Beacons in all its unspoilt natural glory, the rest are now used to grow trees.
I was sure that was it as far as ‘The Good Earth’ was concerned. My copy of the album had not travelled this much since new. However a few weeks later we returned once more to the hillside for a BBC Radio 4 program (which Nigel may be able to find).
A bonus was the discovery that ‘The Old Grey Whistle Test’ footage still existed, although it was to take a few more years to track it down and get it released.
I find it very sad that many clever people warned us we were messing up the land. We didn’t take them seriously enough. In writing about the Good Earth, its message is even more relevant now than it was fifty years ago.
Nigel Stanworth and I were having one of our long catch ups a while ago. For various reasons not least the obvious effects of
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climate change we are seeing almost every day now, we came up with what we thought was a bloody good idea to celebrate 50 years of The Good Earth. After all Manfred is not one for looking backwards. What a fitting tribute to ‘Messin’ and ‘The Good Earth’ if Manfred had one more go at saving the planet before the floods get worse you might say. Who knows people might listen this time.
50 YEARS OF THE GOOD EARTH
The Good Earth was released on 11th October 1974. A previous Platform End (which can be seen on this site – Archive/ Platform End/ Issue 8) covers much about the visit to the site in 1995 for the BBC’s Country-File show which Andy refers to above.
For this special I have been lucky enough to have access to
Manfred’s personal ‘press cuttings’ archive and have found a few things which very few people (up until now) will have seen before, together with press
clippings from the time. These are included below. I hope you enjoy them.
The Album
‘The Good Earth’ is the fifth studio album released by Manfred Mann's Earth Band in 1974. Its opening song is a cover of "Give Me The Good Earth", written by Gary Wright and released on his 1971 solo album ‘Footprint’, while tracks 2 and 3 were originally by Australian progressive rock band Spectrum.
The album was on the US Billboard 200 charts for three weeks, peaking at number 157 on 7 December 1974. It also reached number 20 in the Norwegian album charts.
Early owners of each copy of The Good Earth were entitled to rights over 1
square foot of the earth situated at Llanerchyrfa in the County of Brecon, in Wales. The inner sleeve included a coupon that had to be sent for registration. This was part of the promotion
activities linked to the album that had ecological inspirations. There was no swindle and thousands of fans were
registered. Registration could be done on or before 31 December 1975.
Early exposure on the BBC
At 7:00pm on Sunday 24th November 1974 on Radio 1 ‘Sounds on Sunday’ aired, hosted by Alan Freeman. The show which ran for 30 minutes included excerpts from the new album, together with interview segments with Manfred. I recall listening to this, whilst being driven through Liverpool with my father at the time. Despite the best efforts of the BBC in searching for it, it appears this show no longer exists.
Old Grey Whistle Test
The band also appeared on the OGWT on 15 October 1974 performing “Give Me The Good Earth.”
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The original intention when the album was released was for buyers to snip off the coupon from the top corner of the inner sleeve, complete it and send it off to The Workhouse where it would be registered. There was never any intention to send a ‘deed’ out – that is printed on the back of the album. It soon became clear that (especially in pre-Personal Computer days) that the number of returns vastly exceeded the available manpower (including the band).
To try to address this an advert was placed in the music press (in the UK).
Despite this a number of ‘complaints’ were received by the music press which in itself generated a story.
The Sun – Mon 4 Nov 1974
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Daily Express 4 December 1974
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Finding The Good Earth
So how you may ask did the band end up with 10 acres of hillside in South Wales? The article below from the Forestry Commission’s Nov-Dec 1974 internal newsletter explains:
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In response to the overwhelming number of applications received at The Workhouse, it proved impossible to process all the ‘claims’ (this was pre-computer days). The above advert was placed in the music press.
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However there were a lot of questions raised with regards to whether people’s ‘claims’ were registered which led to articles appearing looking at this:
The following article appeared in the UK music publication Sounds in 1976:
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The article refers to the exhibition held at Lees Road (and subsequently The Workhouse). Included in this were a number of photos of the area at Llancerchfrya. These haven’t been seen for 50 years but are re-produced from scans of the negatives on the following pages.
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Original ‘Good Earth’ Photos from 1974
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BBC Radio Wales
In 2016 I was contacted by BBC Radio Wales who wanted to make a 30 minute radio documentary regarding ‘The Good Earth’ since this was about a piece of land on ‘their patch.’
In order to do this, they required a Welsh fan, myself and Andy Taylor to fill out the story. They also included local people from the Brecon Beacons.
With the marvels of technology my part was recorded in a ‘broom cupboard’ at BBC Radio Leeds, Andy’s at BBC Radio Merseyside (he may have got to go in an actual studio), and Terry Strong provided the Welsh connection face to face at BBC Radio Wales in Cardiff.
The show went out for the first time on Saturday 22nd October 2016 and has been repeated a few times since.
50th Anniversary
At the present time, with the 50th anniversary imminent, no contact has been received from any press, radio or TV stations.
Andy Taylor sitting on The Good Earth – from the Daily Telegraph article on next page.
Other Mentions
Whilst researching this PE I came across the following page on the Internet:
https://www.bernib.co.uk/a-pilgrimage-to-the-good-earth/
It’s well worth a look, entitled “A Pilgrimage to the good earth…”
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BEETLE Magazine was a rock music magazine published in Toronto, Canada. The following article is from Beetle dated March 1975.
