Fact #120680
When:
Short story:
Birmingham's Spencer Davis Group plays its first headlining gig at The Marquee Club, Soho, London, UK.Full article:
Muff Winwood (bass, Spencer Davis Group) : My brother Steve and I found ourselves playing in the same folk clubs as a Birmingham university student, Spencer Davis. We formed an electric guitar blues band, earning ourselves beer money, and suddenly, without our noticing, we were successful. Spencer was teaching, I was in an accounts department and Steve was falling asleep in class. He was thrown out of school. Mum and Dad were upset but realistic. Every night before we went out, Mum would say, 'Keep an eye on your brother; make sure he gets some food before he plays.' He was very forgetful, so I'd double-check he knew the time and the place.
Steve Winwood : I was playing piano in a group with my brother Muff in Birmingham University, and we met up with Spencer who was playing with Pete York at the same gig. I hooked up with Spencer, who was also playing guitar, and he was playing folk clubs, so then I started going round with him to the folk clubs and playing folk-blues with him.
Then, I don't know whose idea it was, his or Muff's, the idea was spawned for him and that drummer, Pete York, and I to get together and form a band. The idea was to do r'n'b, folk blues and blues, not rock. That's why you get songs like Take This Hammer in our early records.
We called ourselves the Rhythm'n'Blues Quartet at first. We could make about £30 a night between us, which wasn't bad. The average wage would have been about £20 a week, so it wasn't bad for a night's work, specially if you double up some nights.
Piano was my main instrument but I was playing guitar around then, the reason being that you could never trust the pianos in those rooms above the pubs. They'd be out of tune, keys not sounding, and you couldn't cart one around with you. Occasionally, if the room had a good piano, then I'd do some songs on it, otherwise forget it.
Somehow that turned into the Spencer Davis Group, because we learned that somebody else was also called the Rhythm'n'Blues Quartet, but we were well received. There were all these people who were blues enthusiasts, discovering Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker and Jimmy Reed and all this kind of music, which is what we were playing, so it was the right time.
A lot of our fans were people from the art college, real enthusiasts who'd take me down the record shop and get me to listen to Louisiana Red or whatever, so I got to discover more about it. About this time the Stones were bringing out their first records and there was a British blues scene developing. Alexis Korner, Cyril Davies, Graham Bond, Georgie Fame, all these people were playing this music and suddenly we, from playing these little pub rooms around Birmingham, we'd go down and have a London gig at the Flamingo or The Marquee.
There was a point when I started singing in the Spencer Davis Group. Spencer had started as the singer, then I found that I wanted to sing, but it wasn't really from a point of view of wanting to perform, it was more from a music point of view, from wanting to make a sound that was like these records I'd been hearing. I thought I could do it in some sort of way.
So, even when I started singing, it wasn't scary because everybody loved it. It went down well, so I thought 'That's all right, I think I'll do a bit more of that.' And that's when Spencer Davis Group took off. We started doing London gigs, Europe, we put a record out…
To his credit, Spencer was fantastic about me getting the attention. There was never any bad vibe about that, and you can imagine that there could easily have been. It may have been there but I never picked it up from him. Really, we'd started to earn good money, like £100 a gig, and we'd started to get success, so it wouldn't have made sense to complain about it.
That was a great time for us. It was a series of peaks, like making it in Birmingham, then going down to London and playing Cook's Ferry, then touring the country, then on to Europe and bigger audiences. and it seemed to keep climbing.
John Glover (roadie) : Muff was the business head of the band. He was the one I dealt with to sort out the fights and hotels.
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Steve Winwood : I was playing piano in a group with my brother Muff in Birmingham University, and we met up with Spencer who was playing with Pete York at the same gig. I hooked up with Spencer, who was also playing guitar, and he was playing folk clubs, so then I started going round with him to the folk clubs and playing folk-blues with him.
Then, I don't know whose idea it was, his or Muff's, the idea was spawned for him and that drummer, Pete York, and I to get together and form a band. The idea was to do r'n'b, folk blues and blues, not rock. That's why you get songs like Take This Hammer in our early records.
We called ourselves the Rhythm'n'Blues Quartet at first. We could make about £30 a night between us, which wasn't bad. The average wage would have been about £20 a week, so it wasn't bad for a night's work, specially if you double up some nights.
Piano was my main instrument but I was playing guitar around then, the reason being that you could never trust the pianos in those rooms above the pubs. They'd be out of tune, keys not sounding, and you couldn't cart one around with you. Occasionally, if the room had a good piano, then I'd do some songs on it, otherwise forget it.
Somehow that turned into the Spencer Davis Group, because we learned that somebody else was also called the Rhythm'n'Blues Quartet, but we were well received. There were all these people who were blues enthusiasts, discovering Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker and Jimmy Reed and all this kind of music, which is what we were playing, so it was the right time.
A lot of our fans were people from the art college, real enthusiasts who'd take me down the record shop and get me to listen to Louisiana Red or whatever, so I got to discover more about it. About this time the Stones were bringing out their first records and there was a British blues scene developing. Alexis Korner, Cyril Davies, Graham Bond, Georgie Fame, all these people were playing this music and suddenly we, from playing these little pub rooms around Birmingham, we'd go down and have a London gig at the Flamingo or The Marquee.
There was a point when I started singing in the Spencer Davis Group. Spencer had started as the singer, then I found that I wanted to sing, but it wasn't really from a point of view of wanting to perform, it was more from a music point of view, from wanting to make a sound that was like these records I'd been hearing. I thought I could do it in some sort of way.
So, even when I started singing, it wasn't scary because everybody loved it. It went down well, so I thought 'That's all right, I think I'll do a bit more of that.' And that's when Spencer Davis Group took off. We started doing London gigs, Europe, we put a record out…
To his credit, Spencer was fantastic about me getting the attention. There was never any bad vibe about that, and you can imagine that there could easily have been. It may have been there but I never picked it up from him. Really, we'd started to earn good money, like £100 a gig, and we'd started to get success, so it wouldn't have made sense to complain about it.
That was a great time for us. It was a series of peaks, like making it in Birmingham, then going down to London and playing Cook's Ferry, then touring the country, then on to Europe and bigger audiences. and it seemed to keep climbing.
John Glover (roadie) : Muff was the business head of the band. He was the one I dealt with to sort out the fights and hotels.