Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
#9 UK, #10 USA Pop
At age 8 England’s Stephen Lawrence Winwood joined his father and older brother Muff in “The Ron Atkinson Band.”
In the early Sixties Little Stevie’s older brother let him join his group the “Muff Woody Jazz Band.” The group was local success.
Then by 1963 the brothers joined with guitarist Spencer Davis in “The Spencer Davis Group” and “I’m A Man” (Stevie was co-writer) is one of their resulting hits on both sides of the pond. Stevie could play the piano and sing lead at age 15 just like any of the adults in the industry and probably better than most! I didn’t even know he was but a teen, back in those days, just a few years older than I was: I just discovered this as an adult.
This was the last hit single by the “Spencer Davis Group” before brothers Steve and Muff Winwood left.
“I’m A Man” is another one of my many many favorites as a teen. Classic British Blues-Rock from the British Invasion era doesn’t get much better than this now does it?
Check out this awesome vintage live performance from 1967! This is why I heart YouTube!
BTW when Stevie sings the lyric about “got whiskers on my chin” I just gotta chuckle since he probably hadn’t even started to shave yet.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Joe Cocker covered a Beatles Pop tune and took it to #1 in the UK as a Blues/Rock soulful lament that is, IMHO, the definitive version of the Lennon-McCartney song! For some reason it only went to #68 Pop in the States.
“With A Little Help From My Friends” appeared on England’s John Robert Cocker’s debut LP on A&M Records in 1969. Also titled “With A Little Help From my Friends, ” the LP peaked at #35 in the USA.
Enjoy Joe’s live 1969 Woodstock rendition for as long as it lasts on YouTube. I know I do every time I watch it.
And here is the Beatles’ original rendition for your listening pleasure. This is one of Ringo’s few leads and I love it.
Eric Clapton & Friends in a 1999 benefit performance of the original version of Layla written by Clapton & Dave Gordon.
Song Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine - Derek & the Dominos’ album Layla was Eric Clapton’s dark night of the soul, and the title song was its masterpiece — an anguished plea to a forbidden love that was Clapton’s barely disguised letter to Patti Boyd, the wife of his best friend, George Harrison. Clapton had never sounded as pained as he did here, and he never sounded as tortured again — not even on “Tears in Heaven,” written after the tragic death of his young son. “Layla” is pure catharsis, followed by a coda written by Jim Gordon that is nothing less than bliss, the sound of love fulfilled. ( The rest of this review can be found here.)
The original version of Layla was “the little love song that could” in that it took it a while to really, really catch on as far as the charts go . According to this excerpt from the Layla Wiki Page:
The album ‘Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs’ opened to lackluster sales (the album never reached the charts in Britain), as, with Clapton unmentioned except on the back, it appeared to be a double album from an unknown band. Also, the song’s length proved prohibitive for radio airplay; as a result, an edited version of the song, trimmed to 2:43, was released as a single in March 1971 by Atco (U.S.). It peaked at only #51 on the Billboard Hot 100.
However, when “Layla” was re-released on the 1972 compilation The History of Eric Clapton and then released as a single, it charted at #7 in the UK and #10 in the U.S. Critical opinion since has been overwhelmingly positive. Dave Marsh, in The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll, wrote that, “there are few moments in the repertoire of recorded rock where a singer or writer has reached so deeply into himself that the effect of hearing them is akin to witnessing a murder, or a suicide… to me, ‘Layla’ is the greatest of them.”
n 1982 “Layla” was re-released as a single in the UK and was an even bigger success than in 1972, peaking at #4.
The song has since experienced great critical and popular acclaim. Two versions have achieved chart success, first in 1972 and again twenty years later. Here is the second Unplugged version.
Layla Unplugged performed live in 1992 (CD is on Reprise)
Now you know what comes next, so please vote. Will it be Derek or Eric?
covered a Beatles Pop tune and took it to #1 in the UK as a Blues/Rock soulful lament that is, IMHO, the definitive version of the Lennon-McCartney song! For some reason it only went to #68 Pop in the States.
