Look Away/Keep On Running/This Hammer/Georgia On My Mind/Please Do Something/Let Me Down Easy/Strong Love/I Washed My Hands In Muddy Water/Since I Met You Baby/You Must Believe Me/Hey Darling/Watch Your Step
Another unimaginative LP title from The Spencer Davis Group, The Second Album includes the UK No. 1 Keep On Running. Cynics suggested that they should more properly have been called the Stevie Winwood Group. (UK:3)
"Mostly filled with covers of 60s blues standards it's pretty much left up to Stevie Winwood and the band to provide their best interpretations to separate them from mediocrity. The opening Look Away and Keep On Running are the most pop sounding songs. The best song may be the heavier Hey Darling where the band stretches it out a little and we get a good listen to Winwood at his grittiest. Oddly enough it is also one of only two songs Davis and Winwood wrote on this album. Certainly this is a worthy album that deserves as much attention as anything The Rolling Stones had done up until this time."
"The Second Album showed that the group were following a pattern of releasing commercial songs as singles while limiting the R 'n' B songs to albums. Stevie Winwood is of the same class as Eric Burdon with his vocal range, maybe even better. Very much an underrated band in the 60s. There is no one out there today that can even come close to Stevie Winwood."
"When I was a kid Keep On Running (and other SDG hits) was playing everywhere. Jukeboxes in the pubs, bands in the clubs, on the radio, and Stevie Winwood's voice was as exceptional then as it still is today. This tune was also one of the first times we heard a fuzz tone on a guitar."
"On The Second Album, SDG sounds like more than just a bash ‘em out, rock ‘n’ soul band reproducing their live show in the studio. The performances are intimate creations, with even the simplest arrangements sounding purposeful and thought out. Winwood’s impossibly advanced vocal and keyboard work (for a teenager) is mostly responsible. Check out his amazingly ageless take on Ray Charles’ Georgia On My Mind. He wasn’t legally allowed to drive the band van to gigs, but Stevie could steer the good ship SDG like nobody else ever would."
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