THE SPENCER DAVIS GROUP

“With Their New Face On”

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Many pop bands with prominent lead singers continue to record after the departure (or sometimes death) of their star frontmen. Think Them or The Doors. Or, in the case of this Lost Treasures post, The Spencer Davis Group. Everyone is familiar with the hits recorded with Steve Winwood on lead vocals—“Keep on Running,” “Gimme Gimme Good Lovin’,” “I’m a Man”—and indeed when Winwood left in 1967 to form Traffic, the band fell off the charts. But not the planet. Quite the contrary: more albums were recorded post-Winwood (five in total) than with the band’s classic line-up (a mere three). With Their New Face On was the first of these and, in my opinion, the best.

The Spencer Davis Group formed in Birmingham in 1963 at the height of the British beat boom. The original group was a three-piece: Spencer Davis on guitar, Steve Winwood on keyboards and vocal, Winwood’s brother Muff on bass and Pete York on drums. When Winwood quit, so did his brother, leading to a period of transition in the personnel of the band. First came Phil Sawyer on guitar and Eddie Hardin on keyboards and vocals. This was the line-up that recorded The Spencer Davis Group contributions to the soundtrack for Here We Go ‘Round the Mulberry Bush and that did the bulk of the work on With Their New Face On. But sometime late in the proceedings, Sawyer left, to be replaced by Ray Fenwick (also on guitar). Whether in the interest of fairness to Fenwick or due to some dissatisfaction with Sawyer’s work, much of the guitar playing and backing vocals on With Their New Face on was re-recorded, and the album was ultimately released in June of 1968.

The album is a fairly schizophrenic mix of British jazz-blues and psych-pop, with the album fairly evenly divided between the two approaches. The opener is nearly a title track (“With His New Face On”), a string-laden midtempo slice of psych-pop that has some great chord changes that are reminiscent of Mike D’Abo’s work from around the same period. It’s one of the best tracks on the album. “Mr. Second Class” begins with a feel that presages prog, but quickly shifts to a 4/4 march not unlike the Box Tops’ swansong, “Sweet Cream Ladies.” “Alec in Transit Land” is a pretty straight jazz instrumental, recalling the work of early Manfred Mann (with the exception of a lengthy, even tiresome, drum solo). “Sanity Inspector,” on the other hand, is a delicate piece of psychedelic whimsy, with the usual contrived lyrics that mix a character narrative with vague social commentary. It’s a charming curiosity. “Feel Your Way” is a solid guitar-driven blues-shuffle with a great vocal and organ solo by Hardin. “Morning Sun” mixes the blues influences with a soaring, soulful chorus, recalling Jackie Lomax’s first solo album on Apple. “Moonshine” walks the line between jazz-blues and freakbeat, with another terrific vocal (mostly) treated with deep slapback echo. “Time Seller” returns to psych-pop, this time with manic drums and sawing cellos throughout. Though a bit dated, it also features some clever, unexpected chord changes and strong stacked backing vocals. The closer, “Stop Me, I’m Falling,” approaches vaudeville at times, but is definitely the most creative track on the album, shifting arrangements, time signatures and tonalities at will, ending with a lengthy, pretentious recitation. I love it!

“Time Seller” (b/w “Don’t Want You No More”) was issued as a single well before the release of With Their New Face On. Neither the single nor the album was a hit and so, not surprisingly, no additional singles were taken from the album. As mentioned above, the group soldiered on for another four albums, though Hardin and York left in late ’68 to form a duo named, predictably, Hardin and York. Hardin later worked with Axis Point in the late ’70s. Sadly, he passed away in July 2015.

With Their New Face On was reissued on CD by RPM in 2002 under the title Time Seller. The reissue includes a bonus disc with a QuickTime documentary about the post-Winwood line-up.  If you are a fan of British blues and psych-pop, you won’t want to miss this one!

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Pop Pioneer and “Lost Treasures” writer, Peter Marston is the leader of long-running power pop band, Shplang, whose most recent album, “My Big Three Wheeler” has been described as “the Beatles meet Zappa in pop-psych Sumo match.”  Peter has a new project in 2015 under the name MARSTON.   They will have a track on the upcoming “Power Pop Planet – Volume 5” compilation shipping February, 2016.

You check it out at this link:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/shplang

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LINKS:

ALL MUSIC GUIDE:  http://www.allmusic.com/album/time-seller-mw0000396247

WIKIPEDIA:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_Their_New_Face_On

Blog Post:  http://spaceritual.net/hardin/sdg.htm

VIDEOS:

“TIME SELLER”

“LETTER FROM EDITH”

“DOn’t Want You Know More/Stop Me I’m Falling/With Their New Face On” (3 songs)