Eight Gigs a Week: The Steve Winwood Years [Extra tracks, Import]

Spencer Davis Group | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 25, 1996)
• Original Release Date: 2002
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Extra tracks, Import
• Label: MSI:UNIVERSAL/POLYGRAM
• ASIN: B00000740V
• Also Available in: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #24,701 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. Dimples

2. I Can't Stand It

3. Jump Back

4. Here Right Now

5. Searchin'

6. Midnight Train

7. It's Gonna Work Out Fine

8. My Babe

9. Kansas City

10. Every Little Bit Hurts

See all 25 tracks on this disc

Disc: 2

1. Somebody Help Me

2. Watch Your Step

3. Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out

4. Midnight Special

5. When I Come Home

6. High Time Baby

7. Hey Darling

8. I Washed My Hands In Muddy Water

9. You Must Believe Me

10. Trampoline

See all 26 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE Essential SDG Collection, July 22, 2002

By 

Steven R. Seim "Steve Seim" (Beaver Dam, WI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Eight Gigs a Week: The Steve Winwood Years (Audio CD)

The Spencer Davis Group may be the most underrated group in the British Invasion. The band had a tight, swinging sound, a nice balance between guitars and keyboards, and a tasty selection of musical influences - not to mention rock's greatest white-soul singer (Stevie Winwood). Their albums featured some of the best British blues and R&B, along with pop-rock to rival what the Beatles were doing at the same time (this was pre-"Sgt. Pepper," after all). Perhaps one day the SDG will finally get their due.

This collection tries to do just that. It contains all of the band's commercially released material from the essential Steve Winwood years, both album tracks and non-LP singles, along with several rare outtakes and live cuts. While that may sound like a lot for a casual fan, it amounts to only two highly listenable discs. Considering that this was a band that rivalled both the Beatles and the Stones as the best British Invasion band throughout the early to mid 1960s, this collection is essential listening for British rock fans.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Steve Winwood Years Anthology, April 19, 2001

By 

J. E FELL "boogaloojef" (Carterville, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Eight Gigs a Week: The Steve Winwood Years (Audio CD)

This 2 cd anthology contains the complete Stevie Winwood recordings with the Spencer Davis Group. It also adds a couple of unreleased live tracks and some rare non-lp b-sides. The Spencer Davis Group was one of the best R&B groups of the British Invasion. Winwood's tenure in this group is overshadowed by his work in Traffic, Blind Faith and his solo career. But his talent is present even in these early recordings. Most feature his soulful vocals, his impressive organ playing and underrated guitar work. The contains his two biggest hits with the band "Gimme Some Lovin'" and "I'm A Man". The band at this point was tight and played with real energy and feeling. This set contains many cover tunes like "Dimples", "Watch Your Step", and "Every Little Bit Hurts" which are energetic versions. These are contrasted with some burning slow blues and ballads like "I'll Drown In My Own Tears" or "When A Man Loves A Woman". It also contains more jam oriented material like "Stevie's Groove", "Stevie's Blues" and "Blues In F" which highlight the bands instrumental prowess. The latter tracks were sort of precursors to his great work in Traffic. Other notable cuts include singles like "Keep On Running", "Somebody Help Me", and "When I Come Home". This compilation is a welcome addition for fans of Steve Winwood or the British Invasion, and Hammond organ aficionados. Don't let the price deter you from purchasing this anthology, it is well worth the money to have all Winwood's tracks together on one set.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Compleat Stevie Years, September 8, 2005

By 

Laurence Upton (Wilts, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Eight Gigs a Week: The Steve Winwood Years (Audio CD)

The great thing about this mono 2CD set is that it contains virtually everything by the Spencer Davis Group during Stevie Winwood's tenure with the band. When they re-launched in 1967 with Time Seller they were essentially a different band.
None of the three albums released during this period ever made it to CD, so much of the material is on CD here for the first time. The first album was Their First Album, the second was The Second Album and the third was... Autumn '66. Apart from some uncredited backing vocals from Millie on the Ikettes' I'm Blue and a similarly anonymous chorus on Garnett Mimms and the Enchanters' Look Away, everything you hear on the albums is pretty much the band themselves.
They had nine singles, with some throwaway but highly atmospheric and indispensable non-album B-sides, and a 1965 EP of exclusive material, all nicely gathered up here. There are also two previously unreleased live-in-the-studio tracks (Kansas City and Oh, Pretty Woman - this is the Albert King blues, not the Roy Orbison hit), and Stevie's Groove, a very mod-friendly Hammond organ instrumental knocked up in five minutes and only to be found on a rare German B-side (the A-side, an atypical traditional beer-drinking song sung in its native German at the request of the citizens of Hamburg, is the only release not to be included, apart from the US rework of Gimme Some Lovin'). Their contribution to the film Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush, an instrumental called Waltz To Caroline, turned up on an Island label "Best Of" in 1968, retitled Waltz To Lumumba, along with the Back Into My Life Again from their final Jimmy Miller sessions and unreleased because it was "too commercial" - well, this was the sixties.
Stevie was born in May 1948 and was therefore barely sixteen when they made their first record, but had been performing live since he was twelve and his voice had an extraordinary maturity and soulful quality. The influence of Ray Charles is quite clear and I'll Drown In My Own Tears and Georgia On My Mind, both superb renditions, were presumably learned from his versions.
Their choice of material, ranging from the Soul Sisters, Brenda Holloway, the Malibus, the Coasters, Prince La La, Ike and Tina Turner, Rufus Thomas, Little Richard, Jimmy Hughes, Roy Alvin, Bettye Lavette, Bobby Parker, Bessie Smith, Stonewall Jackson, Leadbelly, the Impressions, Ivory Joe Hunter, Elvis Presley, Elmore James, Percy Sledge and Don Covay, shows their immersion in then hard-to-find current and older American music, some of it brought to their attention by manager and producer Chris Blackwell and Scene club proprietor and UK Sue label supremo Guy Stevens, though their own material (and songs tailor-made for them by Jackie Edwards) for singles tend to be the most polished productions. Keep On Running, Somebody Help Me and Gimme Some Lovin' were all number one hits in the UK, and their swansong I'm A Man, probably their finest single recording, was a top ten hit. Only their first single Dimples failed completely to chart in 1964 and that found itself in competition with John Lee Hooker's 1956 original, re-released while he was in the UK to promote it.
Although this collection begins in 1964 and all the most recent material is on the second disc, the running order is far from chronological, with the two 1966 albums spread over both CDs in seemingly haphazard fashion so some listeners may care to re-program their CD players at least once for an authentic listening experience