{"id":351986,"date":"2026-01-04T17:14:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T17:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/351986\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T17:14:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T17:14:14","slug":"chris-spedding-the-life-and-times-of-british-rocks-best-kept-secret","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/351986\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Spedding: the life and times of British rock\u2019s best kept secret"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Spedding is one of the great unsung heroes of British rock \u2013 a man who produced the Sex Pistols<\/a>, played with everyone from Bryan Ferry to Tom Waits<\/a> and turned down a chance to be a Rolling Stone<\/a>. In 2015, Classic Rock looked back over the career of a man who should be much better known than he is.<\/p>\n

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\"Classic\n<\/p>\n

Chris Spedding strolls down Denmark Street, aka Tin Pan Alley, glancing at the guitar shops that will soon vanish beneath Cross Rail, and recalls how this central London street was once the epicentre of British rock\u2019n\u2019roll.<\/p>\n

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\u201cRegent Sounds Studio was here,\u201d he says, \u201cwhere the Stones and everyone else recorded. The Giaconda caf\u00e9 was a few doors down, and that\u2019s where all us musicians would gather. The Sex Pistols\u2019 rehearsal room was up there, on the far corner. When I first arrived in London in the early 1960s, Denmark Street was full of music publishers and I\u2019d come to them to get sheet music of the current hits for the dance bands that I was then playing in.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Spedding is British rock\u2019s unsung guitar hero. For almost 50 years he has lent his remarkable touch to hundreds \u2013 possibly thousands \u2013 of recordings. On top of his own dozen-plus solo albums, he can be found on recordings by household names (Elton John<\/a>, Bryan Ferry), critics\u2019 favourites (John Cale, Harry Nilsson) and cult heroes (Willy DeVille, Frankie Miller<\/a>). He helped launch the Sex Pistols and The Cramps, turned down an offer to join the Rolling Stones and he\u2019s even briefly been a Womble.<\/p>\n

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\"Chris\n<\/p>\n

Chris Spedding in 1982 (Image credit: Peter Noble\/Redferns\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Yet apart from his 1975 hit Motorbikin\u2019, this Zelig figure has never troubled the mainstream. As we walk through central London, no one appears to recognise the 70-year-old, despite his white, David Lynch quiff. Raised in Sheffield, he retains a Northern directness and is refreshingly free of affectation. This could go some way to explaining his lack of bitterness about not having had the same level of success as the likes of Beck, Clapton or Page \u2013 or their fortune.<\/p>\n

When we\u2019re seated in a nearby pub, Spedding explains: \u201cSome session musicians are bitter, but I had the good luck to have my solo albums as an outlet. Anyway, I never went that route of doing big guitar solos. To me, Jeff Beck<\/a> is the British rock guitarist I admire the most. He\u2019s a virtuoso. I\u2019m not a virtuoso. I\u2019m a guy who comes up with short, sharp, tasty licks.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Chris\n<\/p>\n

Chris Spedding (centre) with Sharks in 1972 (Image credit: Brian Cooke\/Redferns)<\/p>\n

Spedding was born Peter Robinson in Stavely, Derbyshire in 1944. He never met his father, an RAF pilot killed towards the end of WW2, and his mother had him adopted. His new parents, Jack and Muriel Spedding, renamed him and raised him in Sheffield and Birmingham. They were a musical family, with Chris singing in the church choir and studying violin.<\/p>\n

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The arrival of skiffle in 1956 quickly found the youth enthralled with rock\u2019n\u2019roll. A natural guitarist, he moved to London in 1961 and began playing in dance bands that performed the popular hits of the day. These large dance bands, now extinct but once a staple of British light entertainment, provided Spedding with a thorough musical training and were, he says, an incubator for many session musicians.<\/p>\n

Jeff Beck is a virtuoso. I\u2019m not a virtuoso. I\u2019m a guy who comes up with short, sharp, tasty licks.<\/p>\n

Chris Spedding<\/p>\n

And it was as a session musician that Spedding would first make his mark: in 1965 he got studio work playing with Dusty Springfield and Paul Jones. In 1967, Pete Brown, the poet best known for writing lyrics to several of Cream\u2019s songs, asked Spedding to join his band Battered Ornaments. The band recorded two albums, ousting Brown during sessions for the second, and Spedding suddenly found himself as the vocalist as well as the guitarist. His first concert as a frontman found Battered Ornaments opening for the Rolling Stones at their August 1969 Hyde Park concert.<\/p>\n

Jack Bruce<\/a> then hired him to play on his debut solo album Songs For A Tailor. Spedding also joined Nucleus, a pioneering jazz-rock band, and this launched his solo career.<\/p>\n

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Sharks : Sophistication (Live @ Basing Street 1974) – YouTube
\n\"Sharks<\/p>\n

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\u201cI got voted number two jazz guitarist [after John McLaughlin] in Melody Maker, so EMI wanted me to record a jazz album. When I listened to what I recorded, I wasn\u2019t happy \u2013 too much noodling \u2013 and asked them not to put it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

This refusal to be pigeonholed would define Spedding\u2019s career. His next move was to record a pair of solo rock albums, 1971\u2019s Backwoods Progression and 1972\u2019s Only Lick I Know, before joining former Free bassist Andy Fraser\u2019s new band, Sharks. The guitarist was also building up a healthy book of contacts. When Sharks supported Roxy Music, he came into the orbit of Brian Eno and Bryan Ferry, and he ended up playing on their respective debut solo albums.<\/p>\n

Despite an increasingly busy schedule, he found time to record a self-titled solo album in 1975. Produced by Mickie Most and featuring Motorbikin\u2019, it found Spedding enjoying his brief moment as a pop star.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I wrote Motorbikin\u2019 I went straight to Mickie\u2019s and played it to him and he said, \u2018That\u2019s a hit!\u2019 He got me out of my contract with Island Records and we got on with recording it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Chris\n<\/p>\n

Chris Spedding onstage in 1972 (Image credit: Fin Costello\/Redferns)<\/p>\n

Motorbikin\u2019 found Spedding rocking leathers on Top Of The Pops. It was a world away from his previous appearance on the show, when he appeared as a member of The Wombles, the kids\u2019 TV characters who turned into unlikely pop stars. He was dressed as Wellington. \u201cIt seemed like good fun,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m not at all ashamed of being a Womble.<\/p>\n

At the studio, Steve Jones checked out my guitars and Johnny Rotten checked out my girlfriend.<\/p>\n

Chris Spedding<\/p>\n

But session work remained a big part of Spedding\u2019s CV. He admits he \u201cgot lucky\u201d when he started out. The leading London session guitarists \u2013 \u201cthe two Jims, Jimmy Page and Big Jim Sullivan\u201d \u2013 were both increasingly preoccupied with more lucrative work. Spedding stepped into the breach they\u2019d left, his crisp, economical guitar playing complementing all manner of artists.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you were one of the top session guys then you could be working from eight am \u2013 when the jingle sessions were held \u2013 up to midnight,\u201d he says. \u201cI was young so could handle the long hours. Once, in the early seventies, I was backing Gary Burton at Ronnie Scott\u2019s and we\u2019d finish playing at three am. Then I\u2019d start sessions at eight am. And that was without chemical assistance!\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1975, a phone call offered an escape from session work. \u201cMy girlfriend answered and said, \u2018Mick wants to speak with you,\u2019 and I replied, \u2018I don\u2019t know any Micks,\u2019 but she recognised his voice and said, \u2018I really think you should take this call.\u2019 It was Mick Jagger asking me if I was free to tour with the Stones in August \u2013 but I had already committed to Roy Harper so turned him down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chris Spedding – Motor Biking TOTP 25th August 1975 – YouTube
\n\"Chris<\/p>\n

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In the spring of 1976, an American friend insisted Spedding accompany her to the 100 Club, a former jazz and R&B sweatbox on London\u2019s Oxford Street, to see an unknown and unsigned new band. There were 15 people in the audience at the start, and by the time the band finished playing, there were five people left, including Spedding. The friend who invited him to the gig was Chrissie Hynde, whom he\u2019d met when working in Paris with John Cale. And the name of the band playing that night? The Sex Pistols.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had something that was lacking in rock music then,\u201d he says. \u201cThey reminded me of what I had first heard in the music of Elvis and the 1950s rockers. So I went to their rehearsal space in Denmark Street and then took them to Majestic Studios in Clapham. We got three songs recorded in five hours. That\u2019s the end of my involvement with the Pistols. There are lots of rumours that I played on Never Mind The Bollocks but it\u2019s not true. I did give their demo to Chris Thomas and that set in motion him producing them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, the punks recognised a kindred spirit in Spedding \u2013 in attitude, if not in age. He played the 100 Club\u2019s first Punk Festival and recorded Pogo Dancing with The Vibrators. Chrissie Hynde sang backing vocals on his 1977 album Hurt, and Slits singer Ari Up credited Spedding with encouraging her to make music. The latter was the daughter of Spedding\u2019s one\u2011time girlfriend Nora Forster, a glamorous German heiress who would later become John Lydon\u2019s wife.<\/p>\n

Bryan Ferry – Let’s Stick Together – YouTube
\n\"Bryan<\/p>\n

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\u201cAt the studio, Steve Jones checked out my guitars and Johnny Rotten checked out my girlfriend,\u201d he says with a chuckle.<\/p>\n

It seemed like good fun. I\u2019m not at all ashamed of being a Womble.<\/p>\n

Chris Spedding<\/p>\n

But Spedding was reluctant to take on the mantle of Punk Godfather. While he loved the energy of the movement, he found himself viewed as being \u201ctoo old\u201d. Instead, he relocated to New York \u2013 no less vibrant than London, but much more accepting of anyone over the age of 21. There, he began checking out the scene at punk club CBGB, which led to him producing the first demo by unhinged rockabilly punks The Cramps.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of my NYC friends considered them hicks because they weren\u2019t from New York,\u201d he says, \u201cbut I loved their sound and told them to get to England where they\u2019d find an audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

He teamed up with another CBGB veteran, Robert Gordon, and the duo forged a powerful rockabilly sound that, on occasion, they still reunite to perform.<\/p>\n

Settling in Los Angeles, the next two decades found Spedding playing on sessions for Tom Waits, Paul McCartney, Roger Daltrey and Joan Armatrading, among many others. Spedding says he loved the California lifestyle and session work, and enjoyed maintaining a low-key solo career. Yet in 2006 he decided to resettle in England. This was partly down to the LA session scene being in decline, while his most regular touring work was with Bryan Ferry, Roxy Music and War Of The Worlds. But he also finally met his birth mother. \u201cIt all suggested I should be here,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\"Chris\n<\/p>\n

Chris Spedding performing onstage with Bryan Ferry in 2011 (Image credit: Tim Mosenfelder\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Which brings us to today. Spedding\u2019s new album, Joyland, finds him rifling through his contact book once more. Bryan Ferry, Arthur Brown and Andy Fraser all appear on the album, as does ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr. But while Joyland is a testament to Spedding\u2019s undimmed creativity and longevity, it begs one question: why isn\u2019t he better known?<\/p>\n

At a recent 100 Club performance \u2013 with Malcolm Bruce (Jack\u2019s son) on bass \u2013 he played a dynamic set that ranged across his career. Yet the venue was only half full. And this for a guitarist whose fingerprints are on so much remarkable music of the last half-century.<\/p>\n

Typically, Spedding isn\u2019t one to assign blame. For this modest man, making music is both the means and the end. \u201cI never feel like I\u2019ve done my best work. If I ever do feel that about one of my albums perhaps then I\u2019ll be ready to retire.\u201d<\/p>\n

Originally published in Classic Rock issue 208 (February 2015)<\/p>\n

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