Spencer Davis, founder and guitarist of the Spencer Davis Group, has died in Los Angeles from pneumonia at age 81.
The Spencer Davis Group featured 17 year old Steve Winwood on keyboards when the single ‘Keep On Runnin’ was released in 1965. He was 18 when ‘Gimme Some Lovin’ was released a year later.
In his early days Davis had a band called The Saints with Bill Perks, who later changed his name to Bill Wyman and joined the Rolling Stones.
Davis moved to California in the early 70s and made it his home. At one point he became an exec for Island Records and worked with Bob Marley and Robert Palmer. It was at Island he worked again with Steve Winwood, who released his first solo album for Island in 1977.
In 1995, Davis formed a supergroup with Randy Meisner from Eagles, Bobby Kimball from Toto and Denny Laine from Wings/Moody Blues.
In a statement Steve Winwood said,
I’ve known Spencer since I was about 13–he would have been about 22. I was playing a show at Birmingham University with my brother and his band. Spencer who was a student at Birmingham, was playing with a small group of musicians. We met and the seeds of The Spencer Davis Group were sown.
Spencer was an early pioneer of the British folk scene, which, in his case embraced folk blues, and eventually what was then called “Rhythm and Blues”. He influenced my tastes in music, he owned the first 12-string guitar I ever saw, and he was taken with the music of Huddie “Lead belly” Ledbetter, and Big Bill Broonzy. I’d already got a big brother who influenced me greatly, and Spencer became like a big brother to me at the time.
He was definitely a man with a vision, and one of the pioneers of the British invasion of America in the sixties. I never went to the U.S. with Spencer, but he later embraced America, and America embraced him.
I feel that he was influential in setting me on the road to becoming a professional musician, and I thank him for that.
Thank you, Spencer.
– Steve Winwood
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