Michael David d'Abo (born 1 March 1944) is an English singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist of Manfred Mann from 1966 to their dissolution in 1969, and as the composer of the songs "Handbags and Gladrags" and "Build Me Up Buttercup", the latter of which was a hit for The Foundations.

With Manfred Mann, d'Abo achieved six top twenty hits on the UK Singles Chart including "Semi-Detached, Suburban Mr. James", "Ha!

His d'Abo heritage is via the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies; his maternal line includes Edward Harbord, 3rd Baron Suffield (1781–1835).

He is 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m), and has eyes "that honestly seem to change from blue to brown to green, depending on the light" according to Journalist Pete Goodman.

[better source needed] D'Abo's original intention at Cambridge was to read theology and become a priest but, faced with "everything to learn" (not least Classical Greek and Hebrew), and a disconnect between the "strange, impractical philosophy" he was being taught and his idealism about "bringing comfort to people" and spreading "understanding in the world," he "became wholly disillusioned" (Rave, November 1966).

He had minor success with a group of Old Harrovians, A Band of Angels,[2] that had their own comic strip in a UK pop music weekly, Fab 208.

D'Abo then helped record Manfred Mann's As Is album (with the attaching single of the Bob Dylan-penned "Just Like a Woman").

[citation needed] He composed and produced Chris Farlowe's "Handbags and Gladrags",[2] a hit single (which was also notably recorded by Rod Stewart and Stereophonics and subsequently became the theme music to the BBC television show The Office) and "The Last Goodbye".

With d'Abo fronting, Manfred Mann enjoyed numerous hits, including "Ragamuffin Man", "Ha!

He also wrote "Loving Cup" for The Fortunes and "Mary, Won't You Warm My Bed" for Colin Blunstone.

[6] In 1970, he composed and performed the music for the Peter Sellers film There's a Girl in My Soup, and played John Lennon in No One was Saved at the Royal Court Theatre Schools scheme.