Jeremy Spencer grew up in London, and in the 60s began playing blues music, becoming a talented slide guitarist and pianist. In 1967 he was recruited by Peter Green as a member of his new blues group, Fleetwood Mac, which he had formed after leaving John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. Spencer shared guitar and vocal duties with Green, and though at first he was a good fit in the band, before long he began to become isolated from the rest of the group. Spencer's songs were mostly based around the sound of his idol Elmore James, with little variation, and he rarely contributed to Green's songs. When Danny Kirwin was brought in as a third guitarist, Spencer's seperation from the others greatened, and he did not perform at all on the band's magnum opus Then Play On except for a small bit of piano.Nevertheless, he remained a key component of the band's live shows, which were often split between a set led by Green (without Spencer), and a set where Spencer led the band through a series of blues and rock & roll covers. One of his most notable songs during this period was the raucous rock & roll number "Somebody's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonite", which was the b-side to Green's #2 hit "Man Of The World" (available on the Fleetwood Mac compilation Green Shadows). The band also originally planned Then Play On to be accompanied by an EP with Spencer at the helm, though unfortunately this never happened.
However Spencer did release a solo album in 1970, the first member of Fleetwood Mac to do so. The backing band on Jeremy Spencer was the rest of Fleetwood Mac (though Peter Green actually only appears on one song), and Spencer sang and played guitar and piano. It was a tribute to the music he loved, mostly blues, 50s rock & roll and doo-wop. In fact he took the chance to mimic some of his heroes, with humorous yet effective parodies of Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley. Spencer had always been good at musical impersonations, and actually performed similar routines as part of his live act with Fleetwood Mac. One of the funniest numbers on the album was "Mean Blues", a parody of the British blues boom the band were a part of themselves.
At the time of the album's release, the fate Fleetwood Mac situation was soon to take some surprising turns. Peter Green left the band later that same year due to an apparent mental breakdown, leaving Spencer and Kirwan to share the frontman duties. Together they managed to put together the surprisingly effective Kiln House, before Spencer himself left the band and joined the religious organization The Children Of God, of which he is still a member today.
|> Jeremy Spencer And The Children (1972)
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