Jeremy Spencer
|
Jeremy Spencer |
|
Shopping CDs by Jeremy Spencer at amazon  DVDs by Jeremy Spencer at amazon  books about Jeremy Spencer at amazon  rare music at Gemm.com  rare music at Music Stack  |
 |
More info
 search the web for Jeremy Spencer  pictures of Jeremy Spencer   Unused Search button  Spare search button |
 |
 |
|
| Jeremy Spencer | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | July
4, 1948
Hartlepool, County Durham, England |
| Genre(s) | Blues Rock and Roll |
| Affiliation(s) | Fleetwood Mac |
| Years active | 1967 - present |
Jeremy Spencer (born 4 July 1948, in Hartlepool, County Durham), is a British musician, best known as one of Fleetwood Mac's first guitarists, joining the band in July 1967. His speciality was the slide guitar, and he was strongly influenced by blues musician Elmore James. He remained with the band until February 1971, when he joined a religious cult called the Children of God, of which he is still a follower (now known as The Family).
Contents
|
In the summer of 1967 Spencer came to the attention of ex-Bluesbreakers guitarist Peter Green, who was looking for another musician to join him in his new Fleetwood Mac project. Green had recruited drummer Mick Fleetwood and temporary bassist Bob Brunning, and wanted a second guitar player to fill out the sound onstage. Spencer was then playing with blues trio The Levi Set, and was already an accomplished slide guitarist and pianist. He fitted in well, and soon after his arrival the band's intended bassist John McVie eventually joined.
This line-up of Fleetwood Mac recorded two albums of
traditional blues songs, with Spencer contributing many variations on
the Elmore James theme, plus a few songs of his own. Green became
frustrated because Spencer did not seem willing to contribute to
Green's songs, whereas Green always played on Spencer's recordings
where necessary.
Since Spencer's musical contributions to the band were too narrowly
focused, Green and Fleetwood brought in a 3rd guitarist, 18 year-old Danny
Kirwan, after 1968's
Green and Kirwan found that they worked well together
musically, quickly developing the style that provided hits such as "
On stage however, Spencer was certainly an integral part of the band, with a raucous routine of old blues songs which were extremely popular with audiences. Spencer was an incredibly gifted mimic, providing excellent impersonations of Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, John Mayall and whoever else he felt like sending up at the time. He was also often given to occasional suggestive behaviour onstage, particularly at early concerts, which sometimes landed the band in trouble with promoters and venue owners, and got them banned from London's Marquee Club. This wild onstage atmosphere was caught in Spencer's recording "Someone's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonite", which was chosen as the B-side to the gentle "Man of the World" single in 1969.
Away from the stage, Spencer was often quiet and withdrawn, and other band members recall him often reading the Bible in his hotel room, strongly at odds with his on-stage persona.
Spencer became the first member of Fleetwood Mac to release a
solo album, simply titled
When Green left Fleetwood Mac in mid-1970, the band were in a state of flux and there was a possibility of not continuing. However, the band held together, and both Spencer and Kirwan worked on new songs, which appeared on the Kiln House album released in the late summer of 1970. For the first time, the defining Elmore James songs were absent on Kiln House, instead this album featured more of Spencer's 1950s parodies, including Buddy Holly tribute "Buddy's Song". Another song, "One Together", touched on the many different personas that Spencer used onstage, perhaps at the expense of his own.
During a tour of the United States in February 1971 with
new keyboardist
Christine McVie now having
joined the band, Spencer grew disillusioned with the situation and
often mentions an incident when the band were listening back to a
recording of an old concert. When he heard himself singing he said,
"That sounds horrible. It sounds like shit."
According to one account, given by Mick Fleetwood, Spencer apparently
had difficulty recovering from a mescaline-induced trip he had experienced
very early on the US tour. Shortly before a journey of the band from San
Francisco to Los Angeles, LA experienced a major
earthquake. Being in a fragile mental state and filled with strong
negative premonitions,
Spencer was very apprehensive about having to travel to LA. He
unsuccessfully pleaded with Fleetwood to cancel this leg of the tour.
Shortly after arriving in LA, and on the day of a gig the group was
scheduled to perform at the Whiskey A Go Go, Spencer left the
hotel room he shared with Fleetwood, to visit a bookshop on Hollywood
Boulevard. Spencer did not return, however, forcing the cancellation of
that evening's concert, while the band and members of their entourage
went searching for him. Some days later, he was found to have joined
the religious group the Children of God, and he declared
that he no longer wanted to be involved with Fleetwood Mac. Despite
appeals from the band's Manager,
Despite many rumours of brainwashing and forced induction into the organisation, Spencer has always maintained that he joined the organisation of his own free will. He had been approached by a young man named Apollos, who engaged Spencer in conversation about God, and invited him to a nearby mission where other members were staying. During the evening, Spencer became convinced that this change of direction was the best course for him to take, and by the time Fleetwood Mac found him, his mind was made up. Despite his continued confidence that he made the right choice, he has said that the manner of his departure from the band was regrettable - "The way I left was wrong and a mistake. I should've told them right away but I was desperate."
Spencer and his then-wife Fiona moved to the USA to settle in
with the Children of God, and he soon formed a new band within the
organisation and played free concerts around the country. An album was
recorded,
In 1979, he recorded the album Flee with the newly-formed Jeremy Spencer Band, again without commercial success. During the 1980s he was living in the Philippines, where he met his current partner, a German woman named Julie. During the 1990s he worked in India doing charity concerts, and some recordings from these gigs were available for download from his website. Spencer now lives in Ireland and still works for the Children of God (now called the Family International), mainly as a book illustrator and story writer. He always continued to play music, often just for his own amusement, but recently he has appeared at various blues and gospel conventions, and in 2006 he released a brand new album, Precious Little, which was recorded in Norway. The album showed a return to the blues and the slide guitar style that he became famous for whilst he was with Fleetwood Mac, albeit with a more gentle touch.
He was inducted into the
Spencer has many children of various ages, and some of them have formed a band in England called JYNXT. The band members are: Nat, Koa, Tally, and Rick Spencer.
More recently, Jeremy has been in contact with his former Fleetwood Mac bandmates Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, and according to McVie, the 3 have been having informal jam sessions with Rick Vito at Fleetwood's home.
Children of God/The Family International has been at the centre of much controversy over the years, particularly over allegations of child sexual abuse. However, due to the private nature of the organisation and its members, some of the facts are difficult to uncover. While Spencer has not been charged with or convicted of crimes relating to child abuse, he was identified by senior British judiciary the Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Sir Alan Hylton Ward as a Family leader involved in sexual abuse against his daughter and other minors.
Following are excerpts from the Judgment of Lord Justice Ward [1], the result of a 1992-1995 child-custody trial involving The Family in England.
THE ORAL EVIDENCE OF CHILD / ADULT ABUSE
The Family stand condemned by their own experts. Dr Melton agreed that there had been sexual abuse of children and teenagers by adults within The Family to a greater extent than outside it. Dr Millikan agreed. So do I. It is not necessary to burden this judgment with all the oral evidence that was led in this regard. This summary will have to suffice:
1. MB. Her first encounter was with her step-father in Paris when she was 7. He made her masturbate him. She was sent to Greece to join "Music with Meaning" and from then on it was constant sexual activity. She said: "Paul (now the European CRO) immediately started sexual interaction with us doing everything except penetration. I began to realise I was expected to be "revolutionary", that is to say sexually to service the different men aged 25 to 30 plus." Among the men who abused her there was Jeremy S.. From the end of 1983 to August 1987 she was with Berg.
8. MS. Her father is Jeremy S. [Jeremy Spencer] of Music with Meaning. Her mother is Dawn, a European Shepherd. … She said in her affidavit:
At the age of 6 she had to use both hands to masturbate Timothy in his 20's or 30's, ex-Vietnam veteran. At the same age she had to "help her father [Jeremy Spencer] out" which meant caressing him and mutual masturbation. From the age of 7 her step father made her masturbate him. She later told Mary Malay about her step father but not about her father because she liked him: "at least," she said, "he did not beat me".
…
THE LEADERS' INVOLVEMENT IN SEXUAL ABUSE
8. Jeremy S. [Jeremy Spencer]
His own daughter with understandable reluctance complained that he abused her as I find he did. He also abused MB. Music with Meaning was a particularly corrupt and corrupting organisation. He played a central part in it.
On July 13, 2007, a woman named Celeste Jones (then 32) gave an account of her life as a child in the Children of God to the Daily Mail. Jones, a clinical psychologist, lives in Somerset, England, and has an eight-year-old daughter. She spoke of having been forced to perform suggestive dances on videotape from the age of six, of being molested through her childhood, and of being repeatedly raped from the age of 11. She also recounted being put into forced isolation when she came forward with what happened, and of having been subjected to beatings. Jones said this of Spencer:
The former Fleetwood Mac band member Jeremy Spencer was a member of the cult. On the regular dates we had, he would play a tape of saxophone music. The routine was, by now, familiar - undress, pray, kiss and then perform lewd acts for him.
– Celeste Jones
| Fleetwood Mac |
|---|
| Current members: John McVie - Mick Fleetwood - Stevie Nicks - Lindsey Buckingham |
| Former members:
Christine McVie - Peter Green - Jeremy Spencer - Bob
Brunning - Danny Kirwan - |
| Discography |
|
Studio albums: |
|
Key Singles/Songs: "Black
Magic Woman" - " |
|
Compilations and box sets: |
|
Live albums: |
| Related articles |
|
Say You Will Tour |
| videos lyrics discography biography article music mp3 gallery pictures |