Jeremy Spencer “Coventry Blue”

(jeremyspencer.com) I am not down with pretentious “fans” who insist on not liking the most popular stuff, beyond any logic or audio evidence. If you love Nirvana, yet swear “Bleach” is better than “Nevermind,” then you don’t love Nirvana or/and you are lying. There’s a thousand examples of this, but the one that I am actually most sympathetic with is the absurd argument that “Rumours” pales next to the Fleetwood Mac earlier stuff driven by Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer’s blues sensibilities. Sure, it’s hard to rank anything over “Rumours,” but I’ll be damned if I don’t kinda prefer to hear the odd play between the blues enthusiasts and the more ambitious elements of the band. While the once mysterious Green returned to the scene a few years back, Spencer remained a mystery man for decades before sticking his no-longer-long-haired head out of his turtle shell in the mid-00’s with some straight up blues, and he followed it up a couple of years back with an album that added some intimacy, folk, Americana, coffeehouse, and spiritualism into the slide guitar mix. The new album continues with more mellow, grooving, beautiful, passionate takes on American roots music. I love the fragile, yet strong and dedicated, quality of Spencer’s mature voice. And he can still play! And dollars to donuts, I bet this is better than the next Fleetwood Mac record!