Kevin Spencer (musician)

Last updated
Kevin Spencer
Origin Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Genres Pop, Rock
Occupation(s)Musician
Years active1998–present
Website kevinspencer.net

Kevin Spencer (born December 22) is a Canadian musician.

He began his career in music as a member of the Hamilton, Ontario pop band The Misunderstood, one of the 1996 CFNY New Music Search Finalists. [1] In 1997, after The Misunderstood broke up, Spencer moved to Vancouver, British Columbia as a hired musician for Rymes with Orange, penning the single Standing in the Rain. Later that year, after leaving RWO, Kevin joined the band Mudgirl, who had a North American radio hit with This Day, which garnered them a spot on Lilith Fair, medium rotation on MuchMusic, and consequently in Rolling Stone. [2] [3] [4] [5]

Between the years 1999 and 2001, he continued performing, recording and touring with Mudgirl, The Kim Band, Rymes with Orange, Mezzanine, and others contributing guitar, bass, drums, programming and voice. In September 2001, Spencer was recruited by Bernard Telsey in New York City to play the role of Roger Davis in the US production of the rock opera Rent . Completing over 550 shows, his contract ended in late 2004. [3] [4] Between the years 2005 and 2009, he toured and worked exclusively for musician/producer Daniel Lanois (U2, Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan).

He currently resides in Atlanta with his wife Krystee Manifold Spencer (HGTV designer/producer). He can be found touring and recording with America's Premiere 80s Tribute 'Electric Avenue - The 80s MTV Experience', as well as country artist Kristian Bush from Sugarland, among many other recording artists.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Band</span> Canadian-American rock band

The Band was a Canadian-American rock band formed in Toronto, Ontario, in 1967. It consisted of Canadians Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, Robbie Robertson, and American Levon Helm. The Band combined elements of Americana, folk, rock, jazz, country, influencing musicians such as George Harrison, Elton John, the Grateful Dead, Eric Clapton and Wilco.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Rolling Stones</span> English rock band

The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. Active across seven decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the rock era. In the early 1960s, the band pioneered the gritty, rhythmically driven sound that came to define hard rock. Their first stable line-up consisted of vocalist Mick Jagger, guitarist Keith Richards, multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones, bassist Bill Wyman, and drummer Charlie Watts. During their early years, Jones was the primary leader of the band. After Andrew Loog Oldham became the group's manager in 1963, he encouraged them to write their own songs. The Jagger–Richards partnership became the band's primary songwriting and creative force.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Victoria Williams</span> American singer, songwriter and musician (born 1958)

Victoria Williams is an American singer, songwriter and musician, originally from Shreveport, Louisiana, United States, although she has resided in Southern California throughout her musical career. Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the early 1990s, Williams was the catalyst for the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah McLachlan</span> Canadian musician (born 1968)

Sarah Ann McLachlan OC OBC is a Canadian singer-songwriter. As of 2015, she had sold over 40 million albums worldwide. McLachlan's best-selling album to date is Surfacing, for which she won two Grammy Awards and four Juno Awards. In addition to her personal artistic efforts, she founded the Lilith Fair tour, which showcased female musicians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeff Buckley</span> American musician (1966–1997)

Jeffrey Scott Buckley, raised as Scott Moorhead, was an American musician. After a decade as a session guitarist in Los Angeles, Buckley amassed a following in the early 1990s by performing cover songs at venues in East Village, Manhattan, such as Sin-é, while gradually focusing more on his own material. After rebuffing interest from record labels and Herb Cohen—the manager of his father, singer Tim Buckley—he signed with Columbia, recruited a band, and recorded what would be his only studio album, Grace, in 1994.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lilith Fair</span> Defunct American female-centric concert tour/music festival

Lilith Fair was a concert tour and travelling music festival, founded by Canadian musician Sarah McLachlan, Nettwerk Music Group's Dan Fraser and Terry McBride, and New York talent agent Marty Diamond. It took place during the summers of 1997 to 1999, and was revived in the summer of 2010. It consisted solely of female solo artists and female-led bands. In its initial three years, Lilith Fair raised over $10 million for charity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zak Starkey</span> English drummer

Zak Richard Starkey is an English rock drummer who has performed and recorded with the Who since 1996. He is also the third drummer to have appeared with Oasis. Other musicians and bands he has worked with include Johnny Marr, the Icicle Works, the Lightning Seeds, and the Semantics. Starkey is the son of the Beatles' drummer Ringo Starr.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paula Cole</span> American singer (born 1968)

Paula Dorothy Cole is an American singer-songwriter and producer. After gaining attention for her performances as a vocalist on Peter Gabriel's 1993–1994 Secret World Tour, she released her first album, Harbinger, which suffered from a lack of promotion when the label, Imago Records, folded shortly after its release. Her second album, This Fire (1996), brought her worldwide acclaim, peaking at number 20 on the Billboard 200 album chart and producing two hit singles, the triple-Grammy nominated "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?", which reached the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 in 1997, and "I Don't Want to Wait", which was used as the theme song of the television show Dawson's Creek. Cole was a featured performer in the 1996 prototype mini-tour for Lilith Fair, and also was a headliner for Lilith Fair in 1997 and 1998. She won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1998, and also became the first woman ever to be nominated for "Producer of the Year" in her own right in that same year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tobin Sprout</span> American artist and musician (born 1955)

Tobin Sprout is an American visual artist, musician, songwriter, and children's author. He is best known as a former member of the indie rock band Guided by Voices. He served as a secondary major songwriter and guitarist of the group from 1987 to 1997 and again from 2010 to 2014.

Samuel Clarke "Sandy" Pearlman was an American music producer, artist manager, music journalist and critic, professor, poet, songwriter, and record company executive. He was best known for founding, writing for, producing, or co-producing many LPs by Blue Öyster Cult, as well as producing notable albums by The Clash, The Dictators, Pavlov's Dog, and Dream Syndicate; he was also the founding Vice President of eMusic.com. He was the Schulich Distinguished Professor Chair at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University in Montreal, and from August 2014 held a Marshall McLuhan Centenary Fellowship at the Coach House Institute (CHI) of the University of Toronto Faculty of Information as part of the CHI's McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brad (band)</span> American rock band

Brad was an American rock band that formed in Seattle, Washington in 1992. Their sound was influenced by the wide variety of influences brought by its members, including Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam, Regan Hagar, Shawn Smith, and Jeremy Toback.

<i>Being There</i> (Wilco album) 1996 studio album by Wilco

Being There is the second studio album by the American rock band Wilco, released on October 29, 1996, by Reprise Records. Despite its release as a double album, Being There was sold at a single album price as a result of a deal between lead singer Jeff Tweedy and the band's label Reprise Records. The album was an improvement for the band in both sales and critical reception, in contrast to their debut album A.M. (1995). Taking its name from the 1979 film of the same name, the self-produced album featured more surrealistic and introspective writing than on A.M. This was due in part to several significant changes in Tweedy's life, including the birth of his first child. Musically, it juxtaposed the alternative country styles songs reminiscent of Uncle Tupelo with psychedelic, surreal songs. It was the only Wilco album with steel guitarist Bob Egan, their first with multi-instrumentalist Jay Bennett and their last with multi-instrumentalist Max Johnston.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moth (band)</span> American alternative rock band

Moth is a US alternative rock band from Cincinnati, Ohio formed in 1989. The band has released five albums including a major label release on Virgin Records. They have done live performances on The Late Late Show, AOL, and Mancow's Morning Madhouse, numerous national tours and a UK tour. They have received critical acclaim from Rolling Stone, Blender, Spin, Billboard, Alternative Press, Stuff, CMJ, Guitar World, The New York Times, and Los Angeles Times.

<i>Bridges to Babylon</i> 1997 studio album by the Rolling Stones

Bridges to Babylon is the twenty-first studio album by the English rock band the Rolling Stones, released by Virgin Records on 29 September 1997. Released as a double album on vinyl and as a single CD, it was supported by the year-long worldwide Bridges to Babylon Tour that was met with much success.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chuck Leavell</span> American musician

Charles Alfred Leavell is an American musician. A member of the Allman Brothers Band throughout their commercial zenith in the 1970s, he subsequently became a founding member of the band Sea Level. He has served as the principal touring keyboardist and musical director of the Rolling Stones since 1982. As a session musician, Leavell has performed on every Rolling Stones studio album released since 1983 with the exception of Bridges to Babylon (1997). He has also toured and recorded with Eric Clapton, George Harrison, David Gilmour, Gov't Mule and John Mayer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colm Ó Cíosóig</span> Irish musician (born 1964)

Colm Ó Cíosóig is an Irish musician, best known as the drummer for the alternative rock band My Bloody Valentine, of which he was a founding member.

Orange Bicycle was an English psychedelic pop band, which existed between 1967 and 1971. The band played a style influenced by The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and the hippie counter culture. Previously, they acted as support, and backing band for the duo Paul and Barry Ryan as well as completing sessions for other vocalists, recording over 100 BBC Radio One sessions and appearing on UK TV.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rymes with Orange</span> Canadian alternative rock band

Rymes with Orange is a Canadian alternative rock band which formed in 1991 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. This independent band have released four albums: Peel (1992), Trapped in the Machine (1994), Crash (1999) and One More Mile (2003). They have had three Top 10 singles on Canadian Rock Radio, with sales of over 70,000 units worldwide, and have toured Canada, New Zealand, the U.S. and the U.K., all while maintaining independent status.

Shannon Worrell is a singer-songwriter based in Charlottesville, Virginia. Known for a series of critically acclaimed albums in the 1990s culminating with an appearance on the Lilith Fair tour and for collaborations with fellow Charlottesville-based musicians Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds, Worrell's acoustic songwriting has been described as "subtly orchestrated chamber pop" and "like a lean country cousin of the Throwing Muses."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pete Sears</span> English rock musician

Peter Roy Sears is an English rock music musician. In a career spanning more than six decades, he has been a member of many bands and has moved through a variety of musical genres, from early R&B, psychedelic improvisational rock of the 1960s, folk, country music, arena rock in the 1970s, and blues. He usually plays bass, keyboards, or both in bands.

References

  1. Mowat, Bruce (Dec 16, 1993). "Sympathy for the Misunderstood". The Spectator.
  2. Powell, Betsy (Jan 28, 1997). "The dirt on Mudgirl: Montreal native behind band's fast-track rise to A-list status". The Spectator. p. B10.
  3. 1 2 "Rent actor didn't look far to find struggling artist character". Duluth News-Tribune. February 28, 2003.
  4. 1 2 Oland, Dana (December 2, 2002). "Rent reinvents bohemia". The Idaho Statesman.
  5. Ali, Lorraine (Sep 4, 1997). "Back-Stage: Lilith Fair". Rolling Stone. No. 768.