Fox On The Run - Top 10 hit for Manfred Mann in 6 countries, then a bluegrass favorite & a country hit for Tom T. Hall

[highplainsdem]

Great song written by Tony Hazzard, a British songwriter from Liverpool: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Hazzard .

Manfred Mann recorded it first, in 1968 - and did it best, of course. Three videos - an appearance on Dutch TV (those outfits!), another on Germany's Beat-Club, then a promo film. This reached the top 10 on charts in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Norway and West Germany.

The bluegrass cover by the Country Gentleman was one I saw mentioned most often, but this page at Secondhand Songs will show you the very long list of covers: https://secondhandsongs.com/performance/200362/all

It was a Top 10 country hit for Tom T. Hall in 1976:

And it was recorded by Tony Hazzard, too, in 1969, for his first album:

Interview with Tony about writing this song, from a bluegrass site. He mentions a Celtic influence on some of his music, and I do hear it here. This article turned up because I was just searching for his name and the song title and Celtic:
https://bluegrasstoday.com/songwriters-back-story-fox-on-the-run/

[highplainsdem]

1. Kicking. I know we have some bluegrass fans here, and I'm curious if any of them were familiar with

this song as a bluegrass standard before they found out Manfred Mann had a hit with it first.

[highplainsdem]

2. Btw, although the first video in the OP was broadcast on the Dutch TV station 192TV, which shows

old videos - see their logo in the upper right corner - lettering at the start has some words in German, not Dutch. There's a Top 40 logo in the upper left corner, too. There was a Top 40 music program on German TV by the 1990s, going by videos I've seen on YouTube from DW-TV. Deutsche Welle TV didn't start till the '90s, but there were German music shows earlier (Beat-Club and Rockpalast probably the best known) so it's quite possible there was one called Top 40. I was hoping to find some info on the staging and costumes.

[highplainsdem]

3. And if anyone wonders about the odd, custom-built guitar bassist Klaus Voormann is playing, there's

more info on it in the OP here:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1034165017