Gimme Some Lovin' - Live 1966

Spencer Davis Group (Cherry Red Films) £16.99

Readers of a certain age may well remember seeing the Spencer Davis Group at the city centre's famed rock pub the Golden Eagle, where touslehaired teenager Steve Winwood sang and played piano like Ray Charles, but who wasn't legally old enough to buy alcoholic drinks at the bar.

Formed in 1963, when Davis, a Swansea- born Birmingham University graduate, teamed up with local boys Steve, his bassplaying big brother Muff and lanky jazz drummer Pete York from Redcar, the SDG were signed the following year to Chris Blackwell's nascent Island label.

Still without the promotion muscle for which he would later become famous, Blackwell leased the group to Fontana, where they scored number one hits with Keep On Running and Somebody Help Me. (Gimme Some Lovin' was held off the top spot by The Beach Boys' Good Vibrations).

At the height of their fame, they toured the UK with The Rolling Stones and The Who and even appeared in a movie, The Ghost Goes Gear. Cherry Red's release is said to be the first ever DVD to feature the original SDG line-up performing live. This so-called 1966 footage, (actually in early 1967), licensed by Davis himself, comes from a b/w TV show in Finland.

Lead vocals are handled by Winwood Minor, aside from Elmore James's Dust My Blues, where Spencer sings while Steve plays guitar.

During the interval, while the quartet munch their dinner, an interviewer quizzes the leader, wanting to know why he sings. "But isn't Steve the face of the Spencer Davis Group?" he asks tactlessly.

In truth, Spencer Davis is little more than a sideman in his own band, his guitar virtually inaudible, but Steve Winwood, spotty and wearing his school sweater, is truly magnetic here. After the break, he takes to the Hammond organ for I'm A Man, Ray Charles's Georgia On My Mind and Gimme Some Lovin', before returning to lead guitar for an explosive Keep On Running.

But within a couple of months the Winwood brothers had quit, Steve to form Traffic with Dave Mason, Chris Wood and Jim Capaldi, while Muff was to put down his bass, becoming A&R chief at Island and CBS, until his recent retirement.

Spencer Davis, on the other hand, just kept on running. He enlisted 18-year-old organist Eddie Hardin and guitarist Phil Sawyer, aged 20, to take their place.

The new line-up is featured on the remainder of the DVD, a drab documentary from later in 1967, shot by German director Thomas Struck. We see them onstage, being interviewed by DJ Simon Dee, in the recording studio, putting down a milkshake commercial to the tune of I'm A Man, and in several offduty moments. But with a commentary in German, it helps if you're a real fan.