The Spencer Davis Group - Gimme Some Lovin'
The Spencer Davis Group - Keep On Running
They say the greatest songs almost write themselves. Roy Orbison claimed Oh, Pretty Woman took him half an hour. Tony Iommi came up with the riff to Paranoid while the rest of Black Sabbath were at lunch. Keith Richards supposedly dreamt (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction in a Florida hotel room.
The Spencer Davis Group’s classic Gimme Some Lovin’, covered by everyone from The Blues Brothers to The Grateful Dead and Thunder, came together in less than an hour.
“The classic ‘wrote it on the back of a fag packet’ story was often true,” recalls Muff Winwood, then the band’s bassist. “Sometimes there’s that little bit of magic that you can’t put your finger on, but it happens and it just works. Gimme Some Lovin’ came really fast.” So fast, in fact, that Island Records boss Chris Blackwell was convinced the band were wasting his time.
“We’d been rehearsing at the Marquee,” Muff laughs, “and he came down at midday but we weren’t there. We were down the road in a café in Wardour Street, and Chris found us in there. He went berserk: ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing with your careers? You’ve got work to do and you’re lazing around here!’ So we said: ‘Just wait until we’re finished, then come back and listen to what we’ve done.’
“We’d done Gimme Some Lovin’ in ten minutes and couldn’t believe how good it was. So we’d packed up and gone for lunch. Of course, when Chris came back and heard it his jaw just dropped. It just sounded like an instant hit.” From: https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-story-behind-gimme-some-lovin-by-the-spencer-davis-group
Island Records impresario Chris Blackwell had brought his Jamaican Ska artist Wilfred "Jackie" Edwards over to England and introduced him to the Spencer Davis Group. Blackwell asked him if he had anything suitable for them to record. He played them a Ska record he had written, "Keep On Running," which Steve Winwood reworked to a more rock sound on the piano. Following Keith Richards' lead-in "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," the band's bass guitarist Muff Winwood used a fuzz guitar.
Spencer Davis: "No one had seen a picture of the group in America and in 1966, the radio was split into black and white stations. 'Keep On Running' was played on black stations in the States and when they saw a picture of these four shining white boys, the record was dropped from the playlists so the momentum was lost." From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/the-spencer-davis-group/keep-on-running
The Spencer Davis Group’s classic Gimme Some Lovin’, covered by everyone from The Blues Brothers to The Grateful Dead and Thunder, came together in less than an hour.
“The classic ‘wrote it on the back of a fag packet’ story was often true,” recalls Muff Winwood, then the band’s bassist. “Sometimes there’s that little bit of magic that you can’t put your finger on, but it happens and it just works. Gimme Some Lovin’ came really fast.” So fast, in fact, that Island Records boss Chris Blackwell was convinced the band were wasting his time.
“We’d been rehearsing at the Marquee,” Muff laughs, “and he came down at midday but we weren’t there. We were down the road in a café in Wardour Street, and Chris found us in there. He went berserk: ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing with your careers? You’ve got work to do and you’re lazing around here!’ So we said: ‘Just wait until we’re finished, then come back and listen to what we’ve done.’
“We’d done Gimme Some Lovin’ in ten minutes and couldn’t believe how good it was. So we’d packed up and gone for lunch. Of course, when Chris came back and heard it his jaw just dropped. It just sounded like an instant hit.” From: https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-story-behind-gimme-some-lovin-by-the-spencer-davis-group
Island Records impresario Chris Blackwell had brought his Jamaican Ska artist Wilfred "Jackie" Edwards over to England and introduced him to the Spencer Davis Group. Blackwell asked him if he had anything suitable for them to record. He played them a Ska record he had written, "Keep On Running," which Steve Winwood reworked to a more rock sound on the piano. Following Keith Richards' lead-in "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," the band's bass guitarist Muff Winwood used a fuzz guitar.
Spencer Davis: "No one had seen a picture of the group in America and in 1966, the radio was split into black and white stations. 'Keep On Running' was played on black stations in the States and when they saw a picture of these four shining white boys, the record was dropped from the playlists so the momentum was lost." From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/the-spencer-davis-group/keep-on-running
