Gimme Some Lovin, Spencer Davis Group (1966)

In Eric Clapton's new autobiography, which I highly recommend, he describes Steve Winwood thusly, "Musically, he was like an old man in a boy's skin." For those of us in the States basking in the fruits of the British Invasion, channeling Ray Charles was a good thing!

Stevie played guitar in his father's band when he was 9, so maybe he comes by it naturally, but when he and his band broke into the American consciousness in 1966 at 17, people were blown away that he was so young, so soulful and so white. And it was not an anomaly; the group followed up the next year with I'm A Man, before Winwood decamped to Traffic and Blind Faith.

Gimme Some Lovin was a sublime assault on all of the senses, with a pounding rhythm that that revved you up and made you want to dance all night. Spencer Davis Group emerged just as I was obsessively savoring the soul music that was coming from Detroit and Memphis; "blue-eyed soul," as it was sometimes called, was a new twist on that, and there would be a lot more of it to come from both sides of the pond.