Michael Lubowitz

Manfred Sepse Lubowitz (born 21 October 1940), known professionally as Manfred Mann, is a South African-born musician, residing in the UK since 1961. He is best known as a founding member of the eponymous bands Manfred Mann, Manfred Mann Chapter Three and Manfred Mann's Earth Band.

Lubowitz was raised in a Lithuanian Jewish family in Johannesburg, the son of David Lubowitz and Alma Cohen. He studied music at the University of the Witwatersrand, and worked as a jazz pianist at a number of clubs in Johannesburg.

Strongly opposed to the apartheid system in his native South Africa, Lubowitz moved to the United Kingdom in 1961 and began to write for Jazz News under the pseudonym Manfred Manne (after jazz drummer Shelly Manne), which was soon shortened to Manfred Mann.

In 1962, he met drummer and keyboard player Mike Hugg at Clacton Butlins Holiday Camp; together they formed a large blues-jazz band called the Mann-Hugg Blues Brothers. This eventually evolved into a five-piece group named after him, and they signed a record deal with EMI in 1963, under the His Master's Voice label.

Prominent in the Swinging London scene of the 1960s, the group regularly appeared in the UK Singles Chart. Three of their most successful singles, "Do Wah Diddy Diddy", "Pretty Flamingo", and "Mighty Quinn", topped the UK charts. The band's 1964 hit "5-4-3-2-1" was the theme tune for the ITV pop music show Ready Steady Go!. They were also the first southern-England-based group to top the US Billboard Hot 100 during the British Invasion.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.