Ben Mandelson

In the mid-1970s, Mandelson was a student at Bolton Institute of Technology (now Bolton University), where he met Howard Devoto, future Buzzcocks and Magazine frontman. When punk emerged, he formed a band called Amazorblades, being the group's guitarist.

In 1981, he joined Howard Devoto's band Magazine, replacing Robin Simon (who previously replaced a solid member of that band, John McGeoch) and playing on their last album Magic, Murder and the Weather. He is Jewish.[2][3][4][5]

In 1982 as Hijaz Mustapha, he started playing with Lu Edmonds a.k.a. Uncle Patrel Mustapha Bin Mustapha, which led to the formation of 3 Mustaphas 3, a band that was active throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s.

He was founding director, in 1994, of the world music fair WOMEX.[6]

In 2009, together with Justin Adams and, again, Lu Edmonds, Mandelson formed the band Les Triaboliques[7] and released the debut album Rivermudtwilight.[8]

• Information about Ben Mandelson
• "Hijaz (Ben Mandelson) Journal", Ian A. Anderson, Folk Roots No. 213 (Vol. 22 No. 9) March 2001, pp. 44–45, 47, 49.
• Ben Mandelson at AllMusic