Spencer Davis
Encyclopedia
Spencer David Nelson Davis (born 17 July 1939) is a British musician
and multi-instrumentalist
, and the founder of the 1960s rock
band, the Spencer Davis Group
.
, in south Wales
. His father served as a paratrooper
. Influenced by his Uncle Herman's mandolin
playing, Spencer Davis began learning to play harmonica
and accordion
at the age of six. He then attended Dynevor School
, where he passed seven GCE
O-level
examinations. He moved to London
when he was sixteen, and began working in the Civil Service
as a clerical officer at the Post Office Savings Bank
in Hammersmith
and for HM Customs and Excise; but went back to his old school to study for A-levels
in languages, becoming Head Boy in 1959. In 1960 he moved to Birmingham
, to read German
at the University of Birmingham
. In music circles, Davis was later known as "Professor".
, jazz
, and blues
, the mainstays of popular music
in the early 1960s. Influential artists include Big Bill Broonzy
, Huddy Ledbetter, Buddy Holly
, Davey Graham
, John Martyn, Alexis Korner
and Long John Baldry
. By the time he was sixteen Davis was hooked on the guitar and the American
rhythm and blues
music making its way across the Atlantic
. With few opportunities to hear R&B in south Wales, Davis sought out any performance that came to town. When he heard a Dixieland
band perform a skiffle version of the R&B song "John Henry
", Davis formed a band called The Saints, with Bill Perks, who later changed his name to Bill Wyman
.
When Davis moved to Birmingham, as a student he often performed on stage after his teaching work day was finished. While in Birmingham, he dated Christine Perfect
, who later married Fleetwood Mac
's John McVie
. They busked and played in folk clubs with the Ian Campbell Trio. With Perfect on piano
and Davis on 12 string guitar, they performed Canadian
folk
songs, such as "Spring Hill" and "Nova Scotia". They also interpreted W. C. Handy
and Lead Belly songs.
to see Muff Woody, a traditional jazz band featuring Muff
and Steve Winwood
. Steve, only fifteen at the time, was already gaining notice for his musical abilities. Muff, five years older than his brother, was an accomplished jazz musician. Davis persuaded them to join him and drummer Pete York
as the Rhythm and Blues Quartet. Davis performed on guitar, vocals and harmonica, Steve Winwood on guitar, organ and vocals, Muff Winwood on bass, and Pete York on drums. Playing mainly R&B covers
, the band performed first at the Golden Eagle pub on Hill Street, but within a year they had landed a regular gig at The Marquee, and by 1964 had adopted the name The Spencer Davis Group. The group had No 1 hits in the UK with consecutive single releases in 1966 ("Keep on Running" and "Somebody Help Me
"). Steve Winwood sang lead vocals on all the Spencer Davis Group's hits up to "I'm A Man
" in 1967.
The Spencer Davis Group continued after Winwood left to form Traffic
in April 1967, and split in 1969. Another version of the group with Davis and York appeared in 1973 and disbanded in late 1974. Various incarnations of the band have toured in recent years, under Davis' direction.
, Davis now lives in Avalon
on Catalina Island
, a small island in the Pacific Ocean
off the coast of southern California
. He regularly accompanies other musicians on stage at such venues as The Lobster Trap, Luau Larry's and The St. Catherine. In 1993 Davis participated in The Somebody Help Me Project, produced by Laramy Smith.
Spencer Davis pulled out of a concert scheduled for 11 November 2011 in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, UK owing to 'serious illness' as confirmed by The Animals
' lead singer.
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
and multi-instrumentalist
Multi-instrumentalist
A multi-instrumentalist is a musician who plays a number of different instruments.The Bachelor of Music degree usually requires a second instrument to be learned , but people who double on another instrument are not usually seen as multi-instrumentalists.-Classical music:Music written for Symphony...
, and the founder of the 1960s rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
band, the Spencer Davis Group
Spencer Davis Group
The Spencer Davis Group was a mid-1960s British beat group from Birmingham, England, formed by Spencer Davis with Steve Winwood and his brother Muff Winwood...
.
Early life
Davis was born in SwanseaSwansea
Swansea is a coastal city and county in Wales. Swansea is in the historic county boundaries of Glamorgan. Situated on the sandy South West Wales coast, the county area includes the Gower Peninsula and the Lliw uplands...
, in south Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
. His father served as a paratrooper
Paratrooper
Paratroopers are soldiers trained in parachuting and generally operate as part of an airborne force.Paratroopers are used for tactical advantage as they can be inserted into the battlefield from the air, thereby allowing them to be positioned in areas not accessible by land...
. Influenced by his Uncle Herman's mandolin
Mandolin
A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...
playing, Spencer Davis began learning to play harmonica
Harmonica
The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
and accordion
Accordion
The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
at the age of six. He then attended Dynevor School
Dynevor School, Swansea
Dynevor School was a secondary school in Swansea, Wales. It was closed in 2002. The school's premises have been re-developed and are now used by the Swansea Metropolitan University .-Notable alumni:*Rowan Williams - Archbishop of Canterbury...
, where he passed seven GCE
General Certificate of Education
The General Certificate of Education or GCE is an academic qualification that examination boards in the United Kingdom and a few of the Commonwealth countries, notably Sri Lanka, confer to students. The GCE traditionally comprised two levels: the Ordinary Level and the Advanced Level...
O-level
Ordinary Level
The O-level is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education . It was introduced as part of British educational reform in the 1950s alongside the more in-depth and academically rigorous Advanced Level in England, Wales and Northern Ireland A-level...
examinations. He moved to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
when he was sixteen, and began working in the Civil Service
Civil service
The term civil service has two distinct meanings:* A branch of governmental service in which individuals are employed on the basis of professional merit as proven by competitive examinations....
as a clerical officer at the Post Office Savings Bank
Postal savings system
Many nations' post offices operated or continue to operate postal savings systems to provide depositors who do not have access to banks a safe, convenient method to save money and to promote saving among the poor.-Great Britain:...
in Hammersmith
Hammersmith
Hammersmith is an urban centre in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in west London, England, in the United Kingdom, approximately five miles west of Charing Cross on the north bank of the River Thames...
and for HM Customs and Excise; but went back to his old school to study for A-levels
Advanced Level
The Advanced Level General Certificate of Education, commonly referred to as an A-level, is a qualification offered by education institutions in England, Northern Ireland, Wales, Cameroon, and the Cayman Islands...
in languages, becoming Head Boy in 1959. In 1960 he moved to Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, to read German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
at the University of Birmingham
University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...
. In music circles, Davis was later known as "Professor".
Early music career
His early musical influences were skiffleSkiffle
Skiffle is a type of popular music with jazz, blues, folk, roots and country influences, usually using homemade or improvised instruments. Originating as a term in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century, it became popular again in the UK in the 1950s, where it was mainly...
, jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, and blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, the mainstays of popular music
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
in the early 1960s. Influential artists include Big Bill Broonzy
Big Bill Broonzy
Big Bill Broonzy was a prolific American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. His career began in the 1920s when he played country blues to mostly black audiences. Through the ‘30s and ‘40s he successfully navigated a transition in style to a more urban blues sound popular with white audiences...
, Huddy Ledbetter, Buddy Holly
Buddy Holly
Charles Hardin Holley , known professionally as Buddy Holly, was an American singer-songwriter and a pioneer of rock and roll...
, Davey Graham
Davey Graham
David Michael Gordon "Davey" Graham, originally spelled Davy Graham, , was a British guitarist and one of the most influential figures in the 1960s British folk revival...
, John Martyn, Alexis Korner
Alexis Korner
Alexis Korner was a blues musician and radio broadcaster, who has sometimes been referred to as "a Founding Father of British Blues"...
and Long John Baldry
Long John Baldry
John William "Long John" Baldry was an English and Canadian blues singer and a voice actor. He sang with many British musicians, with Rod Stewart and Elton John appearing in bands led by Baldry in the 1960s. He enjoyed pop success in the UK where Let the Heartaches Begin reached No...
. By the time he was sixteen Davis was hooked on the guitar and the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
music making its way across the Atlantic
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
. With few opportunities to hear R&B in south Wales, Davis sought out any performance that came to town. When he heard a Dixieland
Dixieland
Dixieland music, sometimes referred to as Hot jazz, Early Jazz or New Orleans jazz, is a style of jazz music which developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century, and was spread to Chicago and New York City by New Orleans bands in the 1910s.Well-known jazz standard songs from the...
band perform a skiffle version of the R&B song "John Henry
John Henry (folklore)
John Henry is an American folk hero and tall tale. Henry worked as a "steel-driver"—a man tasked with hammering and chiseling rock in the construction of tunnels for railroad tracks. In the legend, John Henry's prowess as a steel-driver was measured in a race against a steam powered hammer,...
", Davis formed a band called The Saints, with Bill Perks, who later changed his name to Bill Wyman
Bill Wyman
Bill Wyman is an English musician best known as the bass guitarist for the English rock and roll band the Rolling Stones from 1962 until 1992. Since 1997, he has recorded and toured with his own band, Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings...
.
When Davis moved to Birmingham, as a student he often performed on stage after his teaching work day was finished. While in Birmingham, he dated Christine Perfect
Christine McVie
Christine McVie is an English rock singer, keyboardist, and songwriter. Her primary fame came as a member of the British/American rock band Fleetwood Mac, though she has also released three solo albums...
, who later married Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac are a British–American rock band formed in 1967 in London.The only original member present in the band is its eponymous drummer, Mick Fleetwood...
's John McVie
John McVie
John Graham McVie is a British bass guitarist best known as a member of the rock group Fleetwood Mac. His surname, combined with that of Mick Fleetwood, was the inspiration for the band's name...
. They busked and played in folk clubs with the Ian Campbell Trio. With Perfect on piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
and Davis on 12 string guitar, they performed Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
songs, such as "Spring Hill" and "Nova Scotia". They also interpreted W. C. Handy
W. C. Handy
William Christopher Handy was a blues composer and musician. He was widely known as the "Father of the Blues"....
and Lead Belly songs.
The Spencer Davis Group
In 1963, Davis went to a Birmingham public housePublic house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...
to see Muff Woody, a traditional jazz band featuring Muff
Muff Winwood
Mervyn "Muff" Winwood is an English songwriter and record producer, and the older brother of Steve Winwood. Both were formerly members of the Spencer Davis Group in the 1960s, in which Muff Winwood played bass guitar...
and Steve Winwood
Steve Winwood
Stephen Lawrence "Steve" Winwood is an English international recording artist whose career spans nearly 50 years. He is a songwriter and a musician whose genres include soul music , R&B, rock, blues-rock, pop-rock, and jazz...
. Steve, only fifteen at the time, was already gaining notice for his musical abilities. Muff, five years older than his brother, was an accomplished jazz musician. Davis persuaded them to join him and drummer Pete York
Pete York
Pete York is a rock drummer who has been performing since the 1960s.-Early life:...
as the Rhythm and Blues Quartet. Davis performed on guitar, vocals and harmonica, Steve Winwood on guitar, organ and vocals, Muff Winwood on bass, and Pete York on drums. Playing mainly R&B covers
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
, the band performed first at the Golden Eagle pub on Hill Street, but within a year they had landed a regular gig at The Marquee, and by 1964 had adopted the name The Spencer Davis Group. The group had No 1 hits in the UK with consecutive single releases in 1966 ("Keep on Running" and "Somebody Help Me
Somebody Help Me
"Somebody Help Me" is the title of a single by The Spencer Davis Group, which was released in 1966. It became a number-one hit in the UK Singles Chart.Like "Keep on Running", it was composed by Jackie Edwards....
"). Steve Winwood sang lead vocals on all the Spencer Davis Group's hits up to "I'm A Man
I'm A Man (Spencer Davis Group song)
"I'm a Man" is a song written by Spencer Davis Group singer-songwriter Steve Winwood and record producer Jimmy Miller.-Original version by the Spencer Davis Group:...
" in 1967.
The Spencer Davis Group continued after Winwood left to form Traffic
Traffic (band)
Traffic were an English rock band whose members came from the West Midlands. The group formed in April 1967 by Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Chris Wood and Dave Mason...
in April 1967, and split in 1969. Another version of the group with Davis and York appeared in 1973 and disbanded in late 1974. Various incarnations of the band have toured in recent years, under Davis' direction.
Solo career
After the group broke up, Davis moved to California and recorded an acoustic album with Peter Jameson, It's Been So Long for Mediarts in mid-1971. He followed it up with a solo album Mousetrap for United Artists. Neither album sold. Soon after, he moved back to the UK and formed a new Spencer Davis Group and signed with Vertigo.Current activities
While remaining honorary member and supporter of the Wales nationalist party, Plaid CymruPlaid Cymru
' is a political party in Wales. It advocates the establishment of an independent Welsh state within the European Union. was formed in 1925 and won its first seat in 1966...
, Davis now lives in Avalon
Avalon, California
Avalon, or Avalon Bay, is the only incorporated city on Santa Catalina Island of the California Channel Islands, and the southernmost city in Los Angeles County. Besides Avalon, the only other center of population on the island is the small unincorporated town of Two Harbors...
on Catalina Island
Santa Catalina Island, California
Santa Catalina Island, often called Catalina Island, or just Catalina, is a rocky island off the coast of the U.S. state of California. The island is long and across at its greatest width. The island is located about south-southwest of Los Angeles, California. The highest point on the island is...
, a small island in the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
off the coast of southern California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. He regularly accompanies other musicians on stage at such venues as The Lobster Trap, Luau Larry's and The St. Catherine. In 1993 Davis participated in The Somebody Help Me Project, produced by Laramy Smith.
Spencer Davis pulled out of a concert scheduled for 11 November 2011 in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, UK owing to 'serious illness' as confirmed by The Animals
The Animals
The Animals were an English music group of the 1960s formed in Newcastle upon Tyne during the early part of the decade, and later relocated to London...
' lead singer.