{"id":564144,"date":"2026-03-27T10:37:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T10:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/564144\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T10:37:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T10:37:12","slug":"gimme-some-lovin-by-spencer-davis-group-the-story-behind-the-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/564144\/","title":{"rendered":"Gimme Some Lovin’ by Spencer Davis Group: The story behind the song"},"content":{"rendered":"

They say the greatest songs almost write themselves. Roy Orbison claimed Oh, Pretty Woman took him half an hour. Tony Iommi<\/a> came up with the riff to Paranoid while the rest of Black Sabbath<\/a> were at lunch. Keith Richards supposedly dreamt (I Can\u2019t Get No) Satisfaction in a Florida hotel room.<\/p>\n

The Spencer Davis Group\u2019s classic Gimme Some Lovin\u2019, covered by everyone from The Blues Brothers<\/a> to The Grateful Dead<\/a> and Thunder, came together in less than an hour.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThe classic \u2018wrote it on the back of a fag packet\u2019 story was often true,\u201d recalls Muff Winwood, then the band\u2019s bassist. \u201cSometimes there\u2019s that little bit of magic that you can\u2019t put your finger on, but it happens and it just works. Gimme Some Lovin\u2019 came really fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Article continues below <\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

So fast, in fact, that Island Records boss Chris Blackwell was convinced the band were wasting his time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d been rehearsing at the Marquee,\u201d Muff laughs, \u201cand he came down at midday but we weren\u2019t there. We were down the road in a caf\u00e9 in Wardour Street, and Chris found us in there. He went berserk: \u2018What the fuck do you think you\u2019re doing with your careers? You\u2019ve got work to do and you\u2019re lazing around here!\u2019 So we said: \u2018Just wait until we\u2019re finished, then come back and listen to what we\u2019ve done.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d done Gimme Some Lovin\u2019 in ten minutes and couldn\u2019t believe how good it was. So we\u2019d packed up and gone for lunch. Of course, when Chris came back and heard it his jaw just dropped. It just sounded like an instant hit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Spencer Davis Group were on a roll by the end of 1966. The Birmingham four-piece\u2019s electrifying mix of jazz, soul and R&B had already scored them two No.1 hits \u2013 Keep On Running and Somebody Help Me \u2013 and their first three albums had all gone Top 10.<\/p>\n

Sign up below to get the latest from Classic Rock, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

They were led by Spencer Davis, a Welsh disciple of folk and blues, but their star talent was Muff Winwood\u2019s younger brother Steve, then only 18 but with a voice like Ray Charles.<\/p>\n

Both previous big single successes had been written by Jamaican songwriter Jackie Edwards; now it was time for them to come up with their own songs. Blackwell brought in Brooklyn-born producer Jimmy Miller, ostensibly to \u2018Americanise\u2019 their sound, and packed them off to rehearse at the Marquee.<\/p>\n

Once there, said Spencer Davis: \u201cMuff played this bass riff at me. I thought it was nice, so I added some ascending chords while I told him to keep playing it. I started playing minor chords, but Steve went: \u2018No, play majors.\u2019 Then \u2013 bang! \u2013 it worked. There were no lyrics at that point.\u201d<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

The Spencer Davis Group – Gimme Some Lovin’ (1966) – YouTube
\n\"The<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

The end result thumps along to Muff\u2019s bass line, Steve\u2019s growling Hammond riff and a raw vocal delivery. It\u2019s an exhilarating three minutes of prime 60s pop. Officially the songwriting credits are split three ways \u2013 Davis and the Winwood brothers \u2013 but Davis contends that \u201cthe person who actually came up with the bulk of the lyrics was a guy called Paul Metcalfe, who\u2019s no longer on this earth. Paul was a graphic designer. He and Steve hung out as pot-smoking buddies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The music itself owes more than a little to (Ain\u2019t That) A Lot Of Love, written by Stax soul star Homer Banks and Willa Dean Parker. The similarity in the bass lines is unmistakable.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I came up with the bass line,\u201d Muff says, \u201cthen somebody played me the Homer Banks song and said that I\u2019d copied it. But I hadn\u2019t even heard that record,\u201d he insists, \u201ceven though it\u2019s extraordinarily similar. I could have heard it subconsciously in a club somewhere, but I know that the two records are almost identically timed as far as release dates go.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a point that Davis, particularly, is keen to redress. \u201cAm I guilty by association, or the innocent receiver of stolen goods?\u201d he argues. \u201cI\u2019d like to put that record straight. Listen to the Homer Banks song. When The Rolling Stones<\/a> did Rock And Roll Circus<\/a> [December 1968], Taj Mahal<\/a> played that song. I saw the film in Hollywood, and when I heard them do it I thought: \u2018Are they all looking at me?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI do remember seeing the Homer Banks single, broken in half, pinned on the wall behind Blackwell\u2019s desk in Oxford Street where his office was. I never understood the significance of that until I got a copy of the Homer Banks song. In all innocence, all I\u2019d done was add a further chord to it. I have no qualms about all this, because I believe that people prefer to read the truth.”<\/p>\n

Taj Mahal – Ain’t That A Lot Of Love (Official Video) [4K] – YouTube
\n\"Taj<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

The band\u2019s former drummer, Pete York, remembers the unorthodox input of producer Jimmy Miller: \u201cFor Gimme Some Lovin\u2019, Jimmy came into the studio with this great big African drum, sat on the floor and pounded on it. At the end, when there\u2019s that big note to finish, he hit it with this huge beater. He wanted it to sound as big and as thick as possible, bigger than anything I had in the drum set.\u201d<\/p>\n

The single was a huge success, just missing the No.1 spot in the UK and marking the band\u2019s first US Top 10 entry. Six months later, Steve Winwood<\/a> \u2013 who has since called the song \u201cthe bane of my life, because I\u2019ve got to do it all the time\u201d \u2013 announced he was leaving to form Traffic with his after-hours jamming buddies Chris Wood, Dave Mason and Jim Capaldi.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Davis was quick to correct what he perceived as another contentious point of authorship. \u201cWhen Gimme Some Lovin\u2019 first came out,\u201d he said, \u201cthere was only one name on it, which was Steve\u2019s. But I said no, this is wrong. I don\u2019t know how you go about putting these things right without people saying it\u2019s acrimony or sour grapes, but you don\u2019t want a situation years later like the one Procol Harum<\/a> went through.<\/p>\n

“If people can\u2019t agree at the beginning, you just walk away. It\u2019s so good to get things like this off your chest.”<\/p>\n

This feature originally appeared in Classic Rock 142, published in March 2010.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They say the greatest songs almost write themselves. Roy Orbison claimed Oh, Pretty Woman took him half an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":["post-564144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}