Beat Instrumental 1970

[THD]

Attachements to this Text of which is below


Jeremy Spencer

THE name Elmore James is quite
probably engraved on the heart of
Jeremy Spencer, slide guitarist with
Fleetwood Mac, a small man (5 ft. 4^ in.),
light-weight (7 stone 7 Ib.), brown-eyed.
For it was listening to the guitar style of
Elmore that set off Jeremy on a pop scene.
Jeremy was born in West Hartlepool,
County Durham. His dad is a superinten- ,
dent of the R.S.P.C.A., a piano player in
his spare time. Jeremy started on guitar
in 1964 . . . mainly because he liked the
fretboard sound of people as the Shadows '
and Buddy Holly.
But there was always Elmore James
lurking in the background. Says Jeremy;
"I wanted to play like him. I had a
Spanish guitar first of all, tried to tune it,
then went to an electric Hofner, with a
tremolo arm—1 thought that's how he did
it, but I broke a lot of strings that way.
"Then I had a Harmony H75, a big
one. Then a Fender. A Telecaster. Then
I borrowed a guitar, a Jennings cello
body—the best I ever had, but I had to
give it back. Now I use a Gibson. But
my pride is an old model, same as Buddy
Holly's, and I only wish I could use that
on stage.
"So Elmore James was the big fad.
I like the sound of Albert King, for
instance, but I'm not really just a guitar
fan. I go more for the sound of records...
the voice and the general sound. I've
enough records at home. Maybe 200
albums and, the real pride, about 200 of
the old rock singles. Guys like Fabian,
Tommy Roe, the Crickets—without
Holly.
"Sometimes I get asked for advice.
I don't know what to give. People like to
get technical—I suppose I'd say don't
get technical. But I copied somebody, or
tried to, but that wouldn't be my advice.
Anybody who says he wasn't influenced
by somebody else, though, is talking
through his backside. But I suppose I
should talk about slide guitar technique.
Well, the advice is to keep it simple,
otherwise it sounds like a whiny mess.
"Over my own work with Fleetwood
Mac, well—I don't really like playing
my own stuff. Except the 'B side' on
Man Of The World—-I was very pleased
with that. But there are some of our
records that I really didn't like.
"I did some stuff with Chess Records
in America and I suppose I liked that
best of all. But then that was the nearest
I got to sounding like him."
Him, of course, was Elmore James.
Everybody has an idol. Jeremy sticks to
his. Which is fair enough.