Photo courtesy of Barry Patton
BP - Barry Patton
Barry Patton
For songwriters nowadays, DIY recordings are the norm. Fifty years ago, it was unusual for local artists to record, press and promote their own LPs, yet it happened in Milwaukee, notably by Sigmund Snopek and his contemporary and occasional collaborator, Jim Spencer.
Spencer died in 1983, but for those who knew him, his legacy as one of the city’s most engaging artists and interesting humans never ended. One of his many collaborators, Barry Patton, will perform Spencer’s songs at Linneman’s on July 9. The trigger for Patton’s set—he’ll be the special guest in the middle of the club’s open mic—is the 60th anniversary of Spencer’s first single for an Indianapolis indie, Pick Records. The A side was Beatlesque. Patton describes the B side as “rumble music from the ‘50s.” It was an early hint at the diversity that marked Spencer’s musical journey.
When Spencer arrived in Milwaukee circa 1969, acoustic guitar in hand, he found a peg for hanging his hat in the city’s burgeoning folk music milieu. However, he was never satisfied by doing only one thing and contained too many multitudes for easy labelling.
Huge Body of Work
Patton met Spencer while writing music reviews for Milwaukee’s underground paper, the Bugle American. In recent years he has become an archivist of Spencer’s enormous body of work, which included four LPs, several singles and numerous small press poetry chapbooks as well as countless unreleased tracks. Some of his work has attracted international attention. His forays into dance music have been anthologized and covered in Europe. Brooklyn’s She She She recorded Spencer’s silken, soulful dance number “Wrap Myself Up in Your Love.” Some of his folkier material has been released digitally by Chicago’s Numero Group; but it took a Spanish label, Guerssen, to finally tackle one of Spencer’s most sought-after albums. Original pressings of Major Arcana have been selling for big bucks on eBay and inferior bootlegs have circulated. Guerssen has issued the definitive edition last year.
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Patton cowrote with Spencer and performed in his ever-morphing live lineups whose members included bassist Brian Ritchie, pre-Violent Femmes. Patton remembers his first gig with Spencer at a long-defunct South Side biker bar, the Purple Onion. “It was a very scary place,” he recalls. “I learned that it didn’t matter who was in the crowed. Jim could get them in the palm of his hand.”
The Spencer archive includes psychedelia, folk rock, country and blues and even reggae as well as acoustic balladry. In the late ‘70s, perhaps inspired by bluesman Boz Scaggs’ shift to disco, Spencer began serious collaborations with local soul and funk artists. “He was into everything,” Patton recalls. “He was a craftsman who was open to every genre. He dabbled in many things and dabbled well. His songs featured intelligent lyrics with strong melodies supported by interesting chord changes.”
Patton has been culling through scraps of paper Spencer left behind, finding verses and choruses, songs begun but never completed, and finishing them. Patton will perform some of those along with a few of his own numbers at Linneman’s.
“Jim is part of Milwaukee’s musical legacy,” Patton continues. “He was one of the most important writers to come from Milwaukee—he wasn’t born here but plied his trade here. For younger musicians, he left an example for expressing yourself through sensitive music—not played by the rules.”
Barry Patton and his son, bassist Evan Patton, will take the stage around 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, July 9 at Linneman’s Riverwest Inn, 1001 E. Locust St.
