Spencer Davis, the veteran British rocker whose 1960s beat band featuring a teenaged Steve Winwood spawned the transatlantic megahit “Gimme Some Lovin’,” has died.
The guitarist passed away Monday at age 81 while being treated in a hospital for pneumonia, his agent told the BBC.
Davis co-founded The Spencer Davis Group in 1963 with a 14-year-old Winwood and older sibling Muff Winwood after seeing the brothers perform at a Birmingham pub.
They had their first No. 1 single with “Keep on Running” in 1965 and released the blues rock classic “I’m a Man” before Winwood left the group in 1967 to form Traffic.
The Spencer Davis Group’s smash hits featured Winwood on vocals, but the band was named after Davis because he was the one who “enjoyed doing interviews,” Muff Winwood told Mojo in 1997.
“If we called it the Spencer Davis Group, the rest of us could stay in bed and let him do them,” Muff reportedly said.
Davis continued performing after both Winwood brothers departed, reforming the Spencer Davis Group in the 1970s and touring as recently as 2017.
He also worked as an A&R executive at Island Records in the mid-1970s, promoting the likes of Bob Marley, Robert Palmer and Steve Winwood in his solo career.
“He was a very good friend,” Bob Birk, who worked with Davis for more than 30 years, told the BBC.
“He was a highly ethical, very talented, good-hearted, extremely intelligent, generous man,” Birk said. “He will be missed.”
