SPENCER DAVIS GROUP – “Keep On Running”
About the only thing in this compact, well-tailored song that I don’t like are the occasional whoops and cries in the background. Everything else is precisely right: what’s so impressive about this record is how finely balanced its elements are. (Yet another working definition of ‘good pop’, that.) The pace is galloping but not so fast that the vocals can’t stretch out a little, their hint of languor reminding us who’s in control in this chase. Steve Winwood shows what a meaty singer he is without overplaying the fact beyond the needs of the song. There are handclaps that soften the shock of the fuzz guitar, which slices neatly into the track and leaves before we’ve had enough of it.
8
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?
Grant Smith & The Power ! Alan, you must be in Canada….Ihadn’r heard that name in ages…along with Mandala, Rogues , Jon & Lee and the Checkmates, Tom & Ian and the Soul Set.
Ressurrection , indeed,
Brian
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
Brian, though I’ve had reveries of, say, Toronto on occasion, that was a half-memory confirmed by Goog… (shh: you know — the search engine that’s about to take over our lives).
The intro was in later years ripped off by the Times for “I Helped Patrick McGoohan Escape.”
I love this , too. ANd I also love th whoops and shouts in the back ground ala Frat Rock. It sounds like a good time in the studio.
Alan – sorry I just thought that such a niche reference to Grant Smith ( he’s still around , y’know ) was a dead give away to the blue eyed soul thing that happened in Toronto in the sixties.
Of all of that the most famous was Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks ,played at Le Cog D’or ( near where the Hard Rock Cafe on Yonge Street is now ) but who later, after a stint with Dylan at Big Pink, became The Band.
We were all quite amazed at the transformation, to be honest.
Brian
The bassline is one of THE most memorable ever too..
What lets it escape disposability is the crack in Winwood’s voice.
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.