GUY MANNING: TALL STORIES FOR SMALL CHILDREN

I will never forget what i felt when i heard this album for first time. Purely emotional and melancholic, once simple and greateful, someone could find influences of Pink Floyd (or more probably the Roger Waters solo career) or a little of Jethro Tull. But Guy Manning gives a special touch to his own style. "The Last Psalm", first piece of the album, is simply wonderful: is once tragical and sweet, incredibly melancholic and also with a particular vision of "no- war" philosophy mixtured with childish images.

Guy Manning, perhaps familiar to some listeners due to the work he has done with UK based progressive rock band Parallel Or 90 Degrees has now produced a fine solo album, a little bit in the Roger Waters (Amused to Death) tradition. No less than three "Epic" pieces can be found on this album! The album focuses attention on carefully crafted lyrics, emotional vocals and clever musical arrangement with sound effects mixed in to bring the 'stories' to life. The first track "The Last Psalm", opens atmospherically and can best be described as quite intense, with Hammond work by PO90 musician Andy Tillison and a focus on Mannings' vocals. The guitar work here is also very fine. All in all from this first epic, it is clear that Manning knows how to find balance between all the instruments. Next up, "The Voyager" has a very Middle Eastern feel to it. Pav Chana provides Tablas on this track which also features excellent keyboard work. A little rest point comes with "White Waters", sounding like a modern Peter Gabriel/Yes. The "Candyman" is probably my favourite track, very intense and melancholic. It starts with hardly any rhythm, only the acoustic guitar chords and vocal and it really grabs you by the throat. Subtle keyboards later layer a tapestry in the background. The next Epic is "The Fall And Rise of Abel Mann?" made up of five sections The first of which ("Grand Fanfare") is a sort of male Kate Bush song, one of those floating piano pieces. "Waiting On a Ledge" follows with simple guitar and vocals against Gospel-like Hammond organ playing. The "Post-Mortem" piece starts similar to Waters' Amused to Death album with sound effects and great guitar improvising over keyboard chords. The second part, "In My Life" features the strongest chorus of all, with a melody that really sticks in ones mind. Now time for a quiet moment again with "Castaways" with its seagulls and a laid back melody. The album closes with the third epic, "Holy Ireland". This epic, especially "A Soldier's Story" (being a letter from a frightened soldier to God) is very strong. It has almost the feel of a Bob Dylan protest song about it. This song moves into the quiet "The Widow's Tale", which is beautiful in its simplicity. "Priest's Song" opens with a bombastic march/parade but transforms into a very powerful chorus where Irish influences mix with classic rock. The album closes with "The Land (reprise)". Very positive words for this beautiful album which fans of well orchestrated mainly acoustic music with Folk, World and Progressive influences will certainly relish.

Guy is guitarist with Parallel Or Ninety Degrees, and on his debut album he was joined by PO90 keyboard player Andy Tillison, as well as bassist Jonathan Barrett, Simon Baskind on drums, Pav Chana on tables and Jon Burr on harmonica. The album is very impressive, and very mature in outlook. While there are many pieces that would not sound out of place on a Pink Floyd album, for example, there are also others which are far more reflective and Roy Harper in style. Three of the songs are epics, but are sub-divided into smaller songs that can be accessed separately. The vocals and music work so well together that the listener can concentrate heavily on the lyrics.

Feedback #59, July 2000

"Tall Stories For Small Children" is the debut full-length studio album by UK progressive rock artist Guy Manning (Parallel or 90 Degrees, The Tangent). The album was released through Cyclops Records in October 1999. All subequent Guy Manning solo releases have been released under the shortened Manning monicker. Manning plays and sings most instruments and vocals on the album, but a few guests help him out including Andy Tillison (Parallel or 90 Degrees, The Tangent).

Stylistically the 8 tracks on the 69:20 minutes long album is an eclectic mix of symphonic progressive rock, folk rock (Jethro Tull is an influence on those parts), and other rock and pop influences. Manning has a relatively distinct sounding voice and singing style. He´s arguably a skilled singer, and other than the lead vocals he has also arranged some nice sounding choirs and harmonies. There´s still something holding the vocal part of the album from reaching the highest levels, but that can in part also be attributed to the sound production, which is a bit thin sounding and lacking organic bottom.

"Tall Stories For Small Children" opens with the 14:07 minutes long multi-part epic "The Last Psalm" and then moves through various creative and interesting songwriting ideas and tracks (check out the middle-eastern orchestral arrangement on "The Voyager") until it closes with the 17:39 minutes long "Holy Ireland", which is another multi-part epic symphonic progressive rock composition.

Upon conclusion "Tall Stories For Small Children" is a decent quality debut album from Guy Manning. It has a home recorded quality to it that´s not providing the material with the best possible conditions to shine, and my guess would be that Manning recorded most of the album alone in this home studio, and that assumption is further enhanced by the programmed drums. So there are some positives regarding the relatively intriguing songwriting (although some tracks aren´t as remarkable as others), and the musicianship is also decent enough, but the sound production is dragging the album down. A 2.5 - 3 star (55%) rating is warranted.

Tall Stories For Small Children...was the first Guy Manning album. It has a number of varied and intricate pieces on it. From the 3 lengthy 'epics' The Last Psalm , The Fall & Rise of Abel Mann and Holy Ireland to the more introspective The Candyman and the Gabrielesque White Waters, this is a album full of twists and turns which leave the listener with a plate full of memorable lyrics and music! If you cannot recall any of these tunes then you must have an attention deficit disorder of some sort.

I can somewhat agree with reviewer UMARs point about sound quality...I have noticed that this has improved dramatically from this first album through to the later albums, presumably as better recording equipment was obtained (as it is well documented that Mr. Manning records everything himself in his own small home studio)

The compostions and lyrics here are where this album wins. This truely is album of stories (as the title implies) covering the then current political climate (Holy Ireland) through to the post-apocalyptic vision of 'Last Psalm'. This album also sows the seeds (in ...Abel Mann) for the later A Matter Of Life & Death album, where this storyline is explored further

The arwork was provided by Mannings children...interesting to observe that on his latest album Songs From The Bilston House, the artwork is again provided by Guys daughter, this time grown up into a professional graphic designer!

Working backwards from the new Bilston album, subjectively, there may be more 'popular' Manning albums in the collection, but this is still a wonderful CD!

Manning's debut is by far his most acoustic oriented album, driven mostly by acoustic guitar albeit with plenty of keyboard embellishments. It reflects a surprising musical maturity, especially in the first and longest track. Questionable sound effects and allusions to "Wizard of Oz" notwithstanding, "The Last Psalm" generally manages to hold interest thanks to that blend of instrumentation and a sense that one doesn't know what Manning will say next. It is nonethless a bit static at times, a general theme among Manning's work.

Other highlights of the album are "White Waters" and especially the wistful and atmospheric "The Candyman". Most of the rest of the album is dominated by 2 suites, "The Rise and Fall of Abel Mann" and "Holy Ireland". The first of these ends strongly, with "Post-Mortem: 3 Score Years and 10" having more than a little Camel in it, and "Post-Mortem: In My Life", being an uplifting ballad with a lovely melody. From the later suite, "The Widow's Tale" features more of that plaintive style with some well placed bass work, while "Priest's Song" is a welcome jig like tune blended with prog elements.

Because Manning has such a distinctive, albeit pleasant voice, and the instrumentation tends to be similar from track to track, this 69 minute album falls into the trap of perhaps seeming overly long and at times overly languid. Still, a good debut with plenty of promise, and that's no tall tale.

This is the debut album by GUY MANNING. Guy Manning has been involved in other bands, but this is his first solo effort. It is so solo that he even include his first name here on the album cover. As far as I know, most of his other albums has been released under the name MANNING. Any good reason for this ? I have been listening to this album and I have a theory. Anyway; that tidbit was a public service to any trivia-quizz wizards out there.

This album, and GUY MANNING's solo career, starts with the brilliant epic The Last Psalm. Clocking in at over fourteen minutes, it winds it's way through various themes. The music is a previously stated epic and monumental. The unearthly beautiful conclusion of the this epic is brilliant and the best piece of music I have so far heard from MANNING. This song is the best song on this album.

After this song, the album nosedive into what I can only call half-acoustic music. It strangely enough gives me some associations to the music of TRACY CHAPMAN. Guy's voice is pretty similar to Tracy's voice. The urgency and tempo of the songs also brings strong associations to Ms. Chapman. The feeling of this being the intimate work of a songwriter & solo-artist is also there. In this respect, there are some references to BOB DYLAN here. As far as I understand it, MANNING was previously classed as Prog Folk before being moved over to Eclectic Prog. Most of the songs on this album is Prog Folk so I can understand that classification although Eclectic is probably the best classification when all ten albums are taken into consideration.

This album is therefore a mix of epic prog (symphonic prog, if you like) and folk rock. The Last Waltz are an excellent track, but the rest is pretty pedestrian stuff. Even The Voyager with it's Turkish/Middle East flavour fails to reach the sky. Some tracks has hints of great ideas, but then falls down again like making bread without yeast. The problem is the quality or even lack of quality on this stuff. But being a debut album, and without knowledge of MANNING's last two albums, I would had said that MANNING is a band I should put on my radar list. In other words; I would check out the next albums. There is most definate things on this album which points in the direction of great things to come. And I do not have a crystal ball. Well, this album being ten years old, I do have a crystal ball of sorts.

Despite of some flaws, this is a good debut album from a man with a pretty huge potential.

3.25 stars.

Guy Manning´s first CD is interesting, but quite different from his latter output I love so much. This is basicly a singer/songwriter record, mostly folkish, done in the vocal/acoustic guitar mode most of the time. The notable exception is the opener The Last Psalm, a terrific prog rock track that is one of his very best songs ever. Here we have a good example of what he would do in his future works (i.e. great instrumental arrangement to go with the song, with every instrument coming in and out at the right moment, building a fine climax). Not that the other songs here are bad, far from that. But as I said before, they are mostly acoustic affairs, excellent if you like folk tunes with a few sparse keys and percussion bits to add.

I guess my problem here is that english is not my native language and I have some difficult to grab the meaning of the lyrics in this style, while on his later works Manning´s music was as important as the words and you can appreciate his CDs without having to fully understand the text. There is not much variety here, at least not as much as I´m used since Anser´s Tree. So, in the end this a too long CD (69 minutes in all) to hold my atention in just one listen. Tall Stories For Small Children is better appreciated when you listen to it in small doses, when you can enjoy every track for its own sake. The weak production does not help either.

In the end I found this album to be a very promising start for a great and prolific songwriter. All the basic elements of his famous sound are already here and he would develop them greatly over the next few years culminating with masterpieces like Ten and Margaret´s Children.

A good beginning. 3 stars.