SPENCER DAVIS GROUP – "Keep On Running"

Resurrection Watch: Soundtrack use includes Mr. Holland’s Opus and the opening of the Great Train Robbery hagiography Buster and there are ads for Walkers Crisps and evil old Shreddies. Can’t suggest a lot of cover versions: certainly Grant Smith & The Power, and possibly maybe Tom Jones and/or Tight Fit?

One other thing, what’s the deal with the reggae here? Chris Blackwell put it together, right?, and Jackie Edwards wrote it — but was it originally a Jamaican song that’s gone R&B or was Edwards dancing in the dark?

One simply great record–loved it from the first time I heard it. After two years of “British Invasion” recordings imported to these shores, this was, among them, an exciting dose of something new–not pop, not exactly rock, not psychedelia, something like R&B, but decidedly British and sounding like nothing American.

The SDG was surely one of the great if underrated Brit acts of the 1960s, sadly shortlived and ultimately overshadowed by Winwood’s work with Traffic. Still, their debut retains all its freshness and energy after all these years.

And if the lyric’s theme of mad pursuit doesn’t come across in the delivery, there’s the self-assurance that, when the pursuer sounds this good, the pursuee will slow down.

Doctor Mod

The intro was in later years ripped off by the Times for “I Helped Patrick McGoohan Escape.”

The bassline is one of THE most memorable ever too..

TOTPWatch: The Spencer Davis Group twice performed Keep On Running on Top Of The Pops;

16 December 1965. Also in the studio that week were; PJ Proby, The Barron Knights, The Kinks and The Shadows. Alan Freeman was the host.

30 December 1965. Also in the studio that week were; Hermans Hermits, Peter Sellers, The Hollies and The Walker Brothers. Pete Murray was the host.

Neither edition survives.

Don Letts played this on his radio show the other night and I had a proper listen to it for the first time in years – it’s one of those tracks that is so familiar it’s easy to miss what an exciting piece of music it is… Great drums, great bursts of noisy guitar.

Certainly The Tremeloes made a habit of them – Suddenly You Love Me is another example.

# 12 – Lineman, I sure hope that Tom does not have a swipe at any of those record (“Even The Bad Times Are Good” is another one from the Trems). But the Swede would get particularly scratchy if “Got To Give It Up” gets a slagging, a simply magnificent, stand-out effort from Marvin. The only flaw in it is when you play the whole track and you clearly hear some bloke saying “Is that what it is?” twice. Lobster Thermidor, I would imagine.

there’s a dub like emphasis on bass and drums in this that may link to Chris Blackwell’s Jamaican connections as well as the group’s own awareness of Bluebeat/Ska/Rocksteady and that allows the guitars, vocals and percussion to skitter across the beat in a way that suggests Post-Punk before it was invented. Perhaps appropriate that John Lydon and PiL have been recording at Steve Winwood’s studio lately.

Did not know that! The Murgatroyd Band!

Bye bye Spencer Davis.