From Manfred to Manziel -- A Few Autograph Story Gems

[Josh Board]

It seemed like just yesterday that there was controversy when a college football stud -- Mr. Football -- Johnny Manziel was selling his autograph in a hotel room. You see, college athletes aren’t allowed to make money off their name, and the Texas A&M quarterback and Heisman winner, broke the NCAA rules and was suspended.

Manziel quickly turned into Mr. Trouble with his NFL career. He was drafted by the Cleveland Browns, “playing” in two seasons, before being released after a series of questionable partying behavior, and allegations of getting violent with a girlfriend.

His autograph is certainly worth a lot less these days, but if you have $149 you want to waste and you’re in Houston for the Super Bowl -- you can grab one. He’s going to have two separate signings leading up to the big dance. It might be the first time I can recall, where a celebrity was selling an autograph for way more than it’s worth, and which will immediately diminish in value as the days go by.

Now, I’m more of an old school guy, and more into musician autographs than athletes. So I wanted to segue from Manziel to Manfred.

I recently got married, and my wife is a huge Bruce Springsteen fan. I think he’s okay, but I can name 50 bands I like more. One of them is a band that covered a handful of Springsteen tunes in the ‘70s -- Manfred Mann. In the ‘60s, they hit big with Do Wah Diddy. Who doesn’t love that tune? (especially after seeing Bill Murray sing it in “Stripes”). They did one of the worst Bob Dylan covers ever -- The Mighty Quinn. Some of their other songs were bigger in the UK: Pretty Flamingo, Come Tomorrow, 5-4-3-2-1, and the Burt Bacharach song “My Little Red Book” (covered better by LA garage band Love, but I digress).

When Manfred Mann got a new singer, and changed their name to Manfred Mann’s Earth Band in the ‘70s, they had a string of hits with Bruce Springsteen covers. Their biggest was “Blinded by the Light,” but I also love their version of “Spirits in the Night” and “For You.” And as I was disputing all this with my wife, I decided to Google Manfred Mann, to see what the keyboardist was up to. It looked like a lot of touring in countries I can’t get to, and he wrote a few blogs that were great reads. One involved autographs, so I thought I’d give a condensed version of what he wrote.

The band once got into a horrible car crash. Their singer Paul Jones was bleeding and had a broken arm and bloody lip. Mann was knocked unconscious, and having trouble breathing. He started banging his chest, feeling like he would die. He had broken ribs, and would spend a few days in the hospital. The accident occurred in front of a hut in the early morning, and some men were eating. They rushed out of the hut to rescue the car crash victims in front of them. As Mann is regaining consciousness, he thought he’d hear the usual things you’d hear from people rescuing you. Instead, the first thing he heard was, “F**king hell, it’s Manfred Mann! Can I have an autograph?”

He ends by saying “Fame is such that even when faced with a wrecked vehicle which could have killed them or the injured people in the car, the first thoughts of these good British citizens is to get an autograph.”

In this day and age, it would be a selfie somebody is taking as they rescue Manfred Mann from a car crash.

Now, Springsteen was recently rescued from the side of the road when his motorcycle broke down. But he wasn’t injured, and ended up going to the bar and buying everyone drinks and taking selfies and signing autographs. He’s always been good about signing for fans.

I thought I’d end with lyrics to a song they both did, but I’ll include a line:

Crawl into my ambulance/your pulse is getting weak

Reveal yourself all to me now/While you’ve got the strength to speak.

‘Cause they’re waiting for you at Bellevue/with their oxygen masks

But I could give it all to you now/If only you could ask…..

For an autograph.