Track Listing

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
11. Sittin' And Thinkin'
12. I'm Blue (Gong Gong Song)
13. She Put The Hurt On Me
14. I'll Drown In My Own Tears
15. I'm Getting Better
16. Goodbye Stevie
17. Strong Love
18. Georgia On My Mind
19. It Hurts Me So
20. Oh! Pretty Woman
21. Look Away
22. This Hammer
23. Please Do Something
24. Keep On Running
25. Let Me Down Easy

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
11. Since I Met You Baby
12. Mean Woman Blues
13. Dust My Broom
14. When A Man Loves A Woman
15. Neighbour Neighbour
16. On The Green Light
17. Stevie's Blues
18. Take This Hurt Off Me
19. Stevie's Groove
20. I Can't Get Enough Of It
21. Waltz For Lumumba
22. Together Till The End Of Time
23. Gimme Some Lovin'
24. Back Into My Life Again
25. I'm A Man
26. Blues In F

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7575 in Music
• Released on: 1996-03-18
• Number of discs: 2
• Format: Box set
• Running time: 150 minutes

Customer Reviews

Mono, glorious mono!
Yes, not only is the correct (UK) version of 'Gimme Some Lovin' included on this superb set, it is, like all of the tracks, in mono. In other words, as we originally heard them, with no dreadful 'electronically created stereo' which afflicts many a 1950 and 1960s re-release.

If you were a fan of the band back in those truly halcyon days, you have to buy this. It is beyond any consideration of mere nostalgia, as it stands the test of time admirably.

However, what didn't work then - their cover of 'When A Man Loves A Woman' - still doesn't. For once, Steve Winwood bites off more than he can chew. He sounds strained and it is very uneasy listening.

That still leaves many classics and near-classics to enjoy. Buy without hesitation, while it's still available!

Fantastic!!
This is a must for Steve Winwood fans and also Blues and Rhythm & Blues enthusiasts. This album captures the seventeen year old Winwood's introduction with The Spencer Davis Group which epitomised the band's peak period and also, in my opinion, the finest moments of Winwood's career. This is Steve at his best doing what he does best. There is not one bad track on this double cd and the version of "Dust My Broom" is outstanding, although there are so many brilliant tracks it is difficult to single out one for particular favouritism.

The Compleat Stevie Years
The great thing about this 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 a US remix 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