His Love: Geoff Mann’s Art, Music and Faith
To commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the passing of our dear friend, Geoff Mann, this February, his official biography will be published later this year. His Love: Geoff Mann’s Art, Music and Faith has been written by Andrew Wild, author of many books including the Twelfth Night biography Play On. Like several of Andrew’s other books it will be published by SonicBond.
Often irreverent, never compromising, Geoff Mann was many things: artist, musician, poet, playwright, vicar, husband, father, friend. Geoff packed more into his thirty-six years than most do in three-score and ten, releasing fifteen albums, performing hundreds of concerts, exhibiting his art at ten galleries, caring for his family and church members.
This official biography – written with the full support and blessing of the Mann family – takes a fresh and detailed look at Geoff’s life, from his childhood in Manchester through student years in Reading, his three years as a professional artist, the two tumultuous years with Twelfth Night, his solo work, The Bond, Eh! Geoff Mann Band and collaborations with Marc Catley and Clive Nolan.
His Love will be a limited-edition 160-page hardback book with sixteen pages of photographs, mostly unseen outside friends’ scrapbooks and family photograph albums.
Everyone who places a pre-order will also receive a new ‘Best of Geoff’ CD, which will include our favourite tracks from his post-Twelfth Night albums, a couple of TN rarities, and some recently discovered solo demos which have never been heard publicly before. Also included, and published for the first time, is Geoff’s final artistic endeavour: a striking series of poems written in hospital which face his terminal illness head-on.
This is a very special book, which we feel sure will appeal not just to all Twelfth Night fans, but also more widely as it charts the life of a truly remarkable man.
Geoff Mann had a short but busy life. He met all of Twelfth Night when they were students at the University of Reading. But as they built a reputation as a live instrumental band, Geoff was a full-time artist, enjoying several exhibitions between 1978 and 1981. His two years in Twelfth Night culminated in legendary farewell shows at London’s Marquee, in November 1983, released as the Live And Let Live album.
His Love includes Geoff’s own reflections on his reasons to leave on the cusp of success. ‘Like those puzzles in comics where you join up the dots to make a picture,’ Geoff wrote, ‘personal desires and ambitions come together in a way that is not so much new as previously unrealised. All of a sudden-ah! Decisions, decisions. So what was wrong? …’
Between 1984 and 1986, Geoff recorded and released three solo albums, appeared in two gospel musicals, and wrote a play which was produced in London and Edinburgh. In parallel with ordination training to become a minister, Geoff formed The Bond and released two albums. He became Rev. Geoff Mann in 1989 and, in addition to his parish duties, he toured extensively with Eh! Geoff Mann Band, releasing two very well-regarded albums, as well as another solo release and projects with Marc Catley and Clive Nolan.
‘Life with Geoff was hugely entertaining with never a dull moment,’ Jane Mann recalls. ‘He was an incurable romantic, had a ludicrous sense of humour and no respect for office or position. He used to talk about us having ‘gallons of children’. He used to make me home-made cards for birthdays and anniversaries (which despite his appalling memory he never forgot) with the most dreadful puns on them. I’ve still got them all. A picture of a golf club with “Fore” was presented to me on our fourth wedding anniversary. I didn’t get it, not being a golfer. Once, when assembling the boys’ new bunk beds, I went upstairs to discover him lying on the floor. When I asked what he was doing, he showed me the instructions: “Lay flat on floor” it said.’
His Love
All of the pain you will pass through, the lies you will see bought and sold,
Will never destroy His love in you, the Spirit of life that the grave cannot hold,
His love is a strong place to stand on, His love causes blindness to see,
His love it is pure it is holy, His love is forgiving and free,
I’m grateful for His love, so grateful for His love,
Undeserved for me