Be Good to Yourself at Least Once a Day

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Be Good to Yourself at Least Once a Day
Cover - be good.jpg
Studio album by
Man
ReleasedNovember 1972
RecordedSeptember 1972
Studio Rockfield Studios, Monmouth, Wales
Length36:03
Label United Artists UAG 29417
Producer Man, Dave Edmunds
Man chronology
Live at the Padget Rooms, Penarth
(1972)
Be Good to Yourself at Least Once a Day
(1972)
Christmas at the Patti
(1973)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [1]
Christgau's Record Guide B [2]
DPRP(8/10) [3]

Be Good to Yourself at Least Once a Day is the sixth album by the Welsh rock band Man.

Contents

Issued just two months after the previous album, Live at the Padget Rooms, Penarth , it features a radically different line-up. Martin Ace having left, and Deke Leonard having been fired, Clive John returned, bringing with him Phil Ryan and Will Youatt, with whom Clive had formed Iorwerth Pritchard and the Neutrons when he left Man in 1971. This is the only studio album by this particular line-up, which also recorded the live Christmas at the Patti before Clive John left again.

The LP had a prize-winning gatefold sleeve that, when opened, unfolded a 2' by 2' (61 cm by 61 cm) cartoon map of Wales, [1] showing the origins of numerous Welsh bands, including Man, and other places of interest. The country was shown as an island, separated from England by a large channel of water, and being pushed away from her neighbour by ten men using long poles.

The inner sleeve featured 'Man's Family Jungle', [4] Man's family tree, similar to those prepared by Pete Frame, but in a scrawled version drawn by Leonard, despite him having been recently fired from the band, as is acknowledged on the chart. Unfortunately, on the earlier CD issues (prior to 2007) the map was unreadably small and the 'Family Jungle' was missing.

Due to the complications of a previous publishing contract, newly arrived bassist Will Youatt did not appear in the writing credits despite allegedly making a significant contribution to the songs.

Track listing

All songs composed by Micky Jones, Phil Ryan, Terry Williams and Clive John.

Side one
No.TitleLength
1."C'mon"11:03
2."Keep on Crinting"8:18
Side two
No.TitleLength
1."Bananas"9:28
2."Life on the Road"7:14

Personnel

Release history

The original LP was released in November 1972 in the UK (United Artists UAG 29417), Japan (Liberty LLP-80784) and the USA (United Artists UA-LA 077).

This album was released on CD by Beat Goes On in 1991 (BGO CD 14)

In 2007 Esoteric remastered and re-released the album (ECLEC 2019) with two bonus tracks:

  1. "Bananas"
  2. "Rockfield Jam"

These bonus tracks were recorded at Rockfield Studios, in the spring of 1972, by the previous line-up (Micky Jones, Deke Leonard, Martin Ace and Terry Williams) and show how "Bananas" developed with the change of line-up [5] although the writing credits for this track were only given to the new line-up.

This re-issue also greatly improved the situation of the cover artwork, i.e. the map and the 'Family Jungle' which were now readable.

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References

  1. 1 2 Man - Be Good to Yourself at Least Once a Day (1972) album review by Richard Foss, credits & releases at AllMusic.com Retrieved 12 January 2009
  2. Christgau, Robert (1981). "Consumer Guide '70s: M". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies . Ticknor & Fields. ISBN   089919026X . Retrieved 2 March 2019 via robertchristgau.com.
  3. "Dutch Progressive Rock Page (DPRP): CD & DVD Reviews". www.dprp.net. Retrieved 1 December 2009.
  4. Man's Family Jungle Retrieved 8 October 2008
  5. Sleeve notes to CD re-release