Early Music Career
His early musical influences were skiffle, jazz, and blues, the mainstays of popular music in the early 1960s. Influential artists include Big Bill Broonzy, Huddy Ledbetter, Buddy Holly, Davey Graham, John Martyn, Alexis Korner and Long John Baldry. By the time he was sixteen Davis was hooked on the guitar and the American rhythm and blues music making its way across the Atlantic. With few opportunities to hear R&B in south Wales, Davis sought out any performance that came to town. When he heard a Dixieland band perform a skiffle version of the R&B song "John Henry", Davis formed a band called The Saints, with Bill Perks, who later changed his name to Bill Wyman.
When Davis moved to Birmingham, as a student he often performed on stage after his teaching work day was finished. While in Birmingham, he dated Christine Perfect, who later married Fleetwood Mac's John McVie. They busked and played in folk clubs with the Ian Campbell Trio. With Perfect on piano and Davis on 12 string guitar, they performed Canadian folk songs, such as "Spring Hill" and "Nova Scotia". They also interpreted W. C. Handy and Lead Belly songs.
Read more about this topic: Spencer Davis
Famous quotes containing the words early, music and/or career:
“He had long before indulged most unfavourable sentiments of our fellow-subjects in America. For, as early as 1769,... he had said of them, “Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for any thing we allow them short of hanging.””
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“Now the rich stream of Music winds along
Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong,”
—Thomas Gray (1716–1771)
“A black boxer’s career is the perfect metaphor for the career of a black male. Every day is like being in the gym, sparring with impersonal opponents as one faces the rudeness and hostility that a black male must confront in the United States, where he is the object of both fear and fascination.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)