Musician fronted hits, gave rise to future stars
Spencer Davis, the veteran British rock musician renowned for hits that bore his name but who did not sing, died in a hospital Monday while being treated for pneumonia. The Spencer Davis Group’s hits included the mid- 1960s classics Gimme Some Lovin’ and I’m a Man. These were sung not by Davis but a 15- year- old Steve Winwood, making the group, like the Dave Clark 5 and the J. Geils Band, one of several from the era named after a bandmember who was not the singer or frontman.
The reason, bandmember Muff Winwood told Mojo in 1997, was because “Spencer was the only one who enjoyed doing interviews, so I pointed out that if we called it the Spencer Davis Group, the rest of us could stay in bed and let him do them.”
Born in Wales on July 17, 1939, Davis began playing harmonica and accordion at six. He moved to guitar and began playing in bands as a teen before moving to Birmingham for university in his early 20s. Along the way he played in a band called the Saints with bassist Bill Perks — who changed his name to Bill Wyman when he joined the Rolling Stones — and dated and performed with singer- keyboardist Christine Perfect, who later took her husband John McVie’s name and joined Fleetwood Mac.
In 1963, Davis saw brothers Steve and Muff Winwood performing in a Birmingham pub and convinced them to form a band with him, with Steve’s soaring voice and rousing keyboard at the centre. Davis played rhythm guitar and backing vocals, Pete York was on drums and Muff Winwood played bass. Performing a steady repertoire of R& B covers, the Spencer Davis Group quickly developed a following.
With Fontana Records they released a string of top hits, including their first, Keep on Running in 1966 — which knocked the Beatles’ We Can Work It Out/ Day Tripper from the top spot. The hits were all sung by Steve Winwood, whom many people thought was Davis.
The Winwood brothers left the group in 1967. Davis — known in music circles as the Professor, for his fluency in four languages — continued the group until 1969, reforming it in 1973 in California. He also worked as an A&R executive for Island Records in the 1970s, developing such artists as Bob Marley and Robert Palmer.
He led various incarnations of the Spencer Davis Group, recording intermittently and touring regularly as recently as 2017.