Tom McGuinness

Tom McGuinness entered the picture as the final addition to Manfred Mann's original lineup, assuming bass duties from Dave Richmond on December 21, 1963. Richmond had already appeared on the group's opening three singles, one being the hit "5-4-3-2-1." McGuinness remained until the band folded in 1969, though he returned to guitar, his instrument of choice, late in 1965, and went on to log three decades in the music industry as guitarist, singer, songwriter, and bandleader.

He first took up the guitar at fourteen, caught up in the skiffle wave Lonnie Donegan launched, yet also drew direction from Buddy Holly's rock & roll model; Holly's bespectacled image showed the likewise spectacled McGuinness—as it had a young John Lennon—that glasses need not bar rock & roll success. By the early sixties McGuinness was immersed in R&B, passing through the Talismen and the Ravens (separate from the early Kinks group of that name) before forming the Roosters, whose roster briefly included Eric Clapton, future Rolling Stone Brian Jones, and singer Paul Jones.

After the Roosters split in mid-1963, McGuinness followed Paul Jones into Manfred Mann in mid-December; the unit already possessed a recording contract and stood poised for its first hit. Across the next seven years he played bass, then guitar, on a run of chart-topping singles, EPs, and albums while contributing the occasional song. When Manfred Mann's final version dissolved in 1969, McGuinness joined ex-John Mayall's Bluesbreakers drummer Hughie Flint to launch McGuinness Flint, which scored two major British hits, "When I'm Dead and Gone" and "Malt and Barley Blues." With Dennis Coulson and Dixie Dean added, the band also released the acclaimed 1972 album of Bob Dylan covers titled Lo and Behold.

In the late seventies McGuinness reunited with fellow Manfred Mann alumnus Paul Jones in the Blues Band, whose roster also featured Hughie Flint and veteran British bluesman Dave Kelly, and which issued a pair of albums. After a stretch in music-related television production, writing the book So You Want to Be a Rock 'n Roll Star?, and additional Blues Band work, McGuinness linked up with Jones, his Manfred Mann successor Mike D'Abo, and bandmates Mike Hugg and Mike Vickers in the Manfreds. First convened to support a Manfred Mann hits collection, the Manfreds stayed active and toured through the mid- and late nineties.