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"Gimme Some Lovin'"
Netherlands single picture sleeve
Single by the Spencer Davis Group
B-side	"Blues in F"
Released	28 October 1966 (1966-10-28)
Recorded	9–10 and 14 June 1966 21 September 1966
Genre	Blue-eyed soul R&B
Length	2:56
Label	Fontana (UK) United Artists (US)
Songwriter(s)	Steve Winwood Spencer Davis Muff Winwood
Producer(s)	Chris Blackwell Jimmy Miller
The Spencer Davis Group singles chronology
"When I Come Home" (1966) "Gimme Some Lovin'" (1966) "I'm a Man" (1967)
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"Gimme Some Lovin'" is a song first recorded by the Spencer Davis Group. Released as a single in 1966, it reached the Top 10 of the record charts in several countries. Later, Rolling Stone included the song on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs.

Other artists have also recorded versions of the song; group singer Steve Winwood later recorded it live with Traffic and a rendition by the Blues Brothers reached number 18 on the main US singles chart.

Background

As recalled by bassist Muff Winwood, the song was conceived, arranged, and rehearsed in just half an hour. At the time, the group was under pressure to come up with another hit, following the relatively poor showing of their previous single, "When I Come Home", written by Jamaican-born musician Jackie Edwards, who had also penned their earlier number one hits, "Keep On Running" and "Somebody Help Me". The band auditioned and rejected other songs Edwards offered them, and they let the matter slide until, with a recording session looming, manager Chris Blackwell took them to London, put them in a rehearsal room at the Marquee Club, and ordered them to come up with a new song:

"We started to mess about with riffs, and it must have been eleven o'clock in the morning. We hadn't been there half an hour, and this idea just came. We thought, bloody hell, this sounds really good. We fitted it all together and by about twelve o'clock, we had the whole song. Steve had been singing 'Gimme, gimme some loving' – you know, just yelling anything, so we decided to call it that. We worked out the middle eight and then went to a cafe that's still on the corner down the road. Blackwell came to see how we were going on, to find our equipment set up and us not there, and he storms into the cafe, absolutely screaming, 'How can you do this?' he screams. Don't worry, we said. We were all really confident. We took him back, and said, how's this for half an hour's work, and we knocked off 'Gimme Some Lovin' and he couldn't believe it. We cut it the following day and everything about it worked. That very night we played a North London club and tried it out on the public. It went down a storm. We knew we had another No. 1."

Personnel

The Spencer Davis Group:

• Steve Winwood – lead vocals, organ, piano, percussion
• Spencer Davis – rhythm guitar, vocals
• Muff Winwood – bass, vocals
• Pete York – drums

Chart performance

Legacy

In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked "Gimme Some Lovin'" at number 247 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Winwood later recorded live versions of the song with Traffic for Welcome to the Canteen (1971) and The Last Great Traffic Jam (2005). In an album review for Welcome to the Canteen, AllMusic's William Ruhlmann wrote 'the capper was a rearranged version of Steve Winwood's old Spencer Davis Group hit "Gimme Some Lovin'." '

"Gimme Some Lovin'" has been recorded by several rock and other artists. Pop artist Olivia Newton-John covered it for her 1978 album, Totally Hot, which an album reviewer called "as close to a drunken party as one will get on a Newton-John album". A performance for the musical comedy film The Blues Brothers (1980) "featur an arrangement notable for the horn section that replaces Steve Winwood's rumbling organ work", according to critic Bret Adams. Released as single by Atlantic Records, it reached number 18 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart, number 22 on the Canadian RPM Top Singles chart, and number 20 on the Dutch Single Top 100. In 1990, British group Thunder recorded it for their debut album Backstreet Symphony. AllMusic writer Alex Henderson commented: "Another high point of this CD is an inspired cover of the Spencer Davis Group's 'Gimme Some Lovin',' which Thunder changes from blue-eyed soul/rock to straight-up hard rock."

The song was heard at the beginning of Illumination's Sing.

References

1. ^ "Willa Dean Parker and Rose Banks as successor to Homer Banks v. Mervyn Winwood, Spencer Davis, Steve Winwood, The Spencer Davis Group, Kobalt Music Publishing, And Universalsongs of Polygram International, Inc" (PDF). Loeb & Loeb LLP. In The United States District Court Middle District of Tennessee Nashville Division. 17 October 2018. Archived from the original on 7 February 2018. Retrieved 7 February 2018.
2. Uslan, Michael; Clark, Dick; Solomon, Bruce (1981). Dick Clark's the First 25 Years of Rock & Roll. Dell Publishing Company. p. 203. ISBN 978-0-440-51763-4.
3. Paymer, Marvin E. (July 1993). Facts behind the songs: a handbook of American popular music from the nineties to the '90s. Garland Pub. p. 247. ISBN 978-0-8240-5240-9.
4. Evans, Paul (2004). "The Spencer Davis Group". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. p. 220. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
5. Muff Winwood, quoted by John Bell, liner notes to Eight Gigs A Week: The Spencer David Group - The Steve Winwood Years (Island Records, 1996)
6. McDermott, John (1995). The Finer Things (CD set booklet). Steve Winwood. New York City: Island Records. p. 39. OCLC 32289434. 314 516 860-2.
7. Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970-1992. St Ives, N.S.W.: Self-published. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.
8. "The Spencer Davis Group – Gimme Some Loving" (in German). Ö3 Austria Top 40. Retrieved 16 December 2023.
9. "The Spencer Davis Group – Gimme Some Loving" (in Dutch). Ultratop 50. Retrieved 16 December 2023.
10. "The Spencer Davis Group – Gimme Some Loving" (in French). Ultratop 50. Retrieved 16 December 2023.
11. "Top RPM Singles: Issue 10042." RPM. Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved 16 December 2023.
12. "The Spencer Davis Group – Gimme Some Loving" (in German). GfK Entertainment charts. Retrieved 16 December 2023.
13. "The Irish Charts – Search Results – Gimme Some Lovin'". Irish Singles Chart. Retrieved 3 February 2019.
14. "The Spencer Davis Group – Gimme Some Loving" (in Dutch). Single Top 100. Retrieved 16 December 2023.
15. "flavour of new zealand - search listener". www.flavourofnz.co.nz. Archived from the original on 7 February 2019. Retrieved 19 April 2021.
16. Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p. 143. ISBN 1-904994-10-5.
17. Whitburn, Joel (1991). Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles 1955–1990. Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin: Record Research. ISBN 0-89820-089-X.
18. "500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2004)". Rollingstone.com. 11 December 2003. Retrieved 7 April 2011.
19. ^ Ruhlmann, William. "Traffic: Welcome to the Canteen – Review". AllMusic. Retrieved 17 August 2022.
20. Jurek, Thom. "The Last Great Traffic Jam – Review". AllMusic. Retrieved 17 August 2022.
21. "The Spencer Davis Group: 'Gimme Some Lovin' – Also Performed By". AllMusic. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
22. Viglione, Joe. "Olivia Newton-John: Totally Hot – Review". AllMusic. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
23. Adams, Bret. "The Blues Brothers [Original Soundtrack] – Review". AllMusic. Retrieved 1 October 2022.
24. "Blues Brothers: Chart History – Billboard Hot 100". Billboard.com. Retrieved 1 October 2022.
25. "RPM 100". RPM. Vol. 33, no. 20. 9 August 1980. Retrieved 16 December 2023 – via Library and Archives Canada.
26. ^ Henderson, Alex. "Thunder: Backstreet Symphony – Review". AllMusic. Retrieved 16 September 2022.

External links

• "Gimme Some Loving" by the Spencer Davis Group – Partial list of subsequent versions

• 1966 songs
• 1966 singles
• The Spencer Davis Group songs
• The Blues Brothers songs
• Olivia Newton-John songs
• Thunder (band) songs
• RPM Top Singles number-one singles
• Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
• Songs written by Steve Winwood
• Song recordings produced by Jimmy Miller
• Fontana Records singles
• United Artists Records singles
• Atlantic Records singles