John Spencer´s Louts - The Last LP (1978, vinyl rip)

John B. Spencer (1944 - 2002) was a british songwriter, guitarist, bandleader, novelist and occasional record producer.

From 1978 onwards, over more than a dozen albums and a handful of singles released on a variety of British and European labels, Spencer threw himself into the recording business. His music never sold anything like the numbers that his old shelf-stacking workmate’s group would, but Spencer made his mark on the British music scene, though Jerry Williams took Cruisin’ (On A Saturday Night) into the Swedish Top 10. As John Collis wrote in 1996, Spencer retained “a faithful constituency of followers” but increasingly that following included name musicians. The scene that nurtured and sustained his songwriting blurred folk, blues, R&B, punk and pub rock. His songs were grounded in the sterling examples of Woody Guthrie, John Lee Hooker, Leadbelly and any number of people who had dealt a good three-chord trick. Interpreters such as Home Service, Augie Meyers, Martin Simpson, Norma Waterson and Jerry Williams took his songs into the wider world. Likewise, the actress Susan Penhaligon, with whom he did poetry and music performances that brought his name to still different audiences. Fast Lane Roogalator - sons Syd and Tom with a little bit of Will Spencer - made an album of twelve of their father’s songs, including Drive-In Movies (about his love-hate relationship with the USA), Only Dancing (power chords reign) and One More Whiskey (one of Spencer’s great parting glasses). Fast Lane Roogalator (2004) was produced by Graeme Taylor, incidentally.

Between 1974 and 1978 he gigged and recorded with his group, the Louts, with Chas Ambler, Johnny G. (Gotting) and Dave Thorne. “It was a pretty anarchic band, but the LP doesn’t reflect that: it’s full of pretty songs. The live gigs were something else. It preceded punk by about four years. In fact just as we were breaking up we were starting to get a few punks arriving at our gigs figuring that as we were called the Louts we were a punk band. We weren’t a punk band: we were an anarchic band. Each gig was either diabolical or fantastic. There was no middle ground.” Spencer later fondly remembered an incident at a Louts’ gig at the Half Moon at Putney as defining the band’s attitude. He had it on tape. “You hear this American voice keep calling out, ‘Haul ass, Spencer! Haul ass!’ Eventually Johnny G. behind the drums shouts back - he didn’t have to shout because he had a mike - ‘We got your money, fuck off!’ To which this American from the back cries out, ‘You didn’t get all my money. I got in for half-price.’ To which Johnny G. shouts back, ‘Then you should have fucked off half an hour ago!’ That summed up the Louts live.” The Half Moon of yore also saw the soon-to-be Elvis Costello open for him. Or maybe it was them - the Louts - because that is what the passage of the years does to people’s memories and I can’t check with Spencer now and Costello isn’t answering my calls.

"The Last LP" was - and that is no joke - the first album I ever owned. Won it on a radio prize game some month before I bought my first record player. And then it was really on heavy rotation...
It´s an album with some very good reggae influenced pub rock from the late 70's with the very underrated John Gotting (Johnny G) on guitar. Still like that tunes...

Tracklist:

A1	Can't Buy My Soul
A2	Mary-Lou And The Sunshine Boy
A3	Crazy For My Lady
A4	That's As Mean As Mean Can Get To Be
A5	What You Do To My Heart
B1	My Old Lady (She's Got The Meanest Fact In Town)
B2	Cuba Libré
B3	Sweet Sensation
B4	Natural Man
B5	Can't Mean It
B6	No Expectations

John Spencer´s Louts - The Last LP (1978, vinyl rip)
(320 kbps, front & back cover included)