Jim Spencer

About Jim Spencer

Jimmie Rodgers Spencer was born in 1944 in Glasgow, Kentucky, and was raised on his family’s farm. He spent his adolescent years in Indianapolis with his mother, enrolling at the University of Indiana in Bloomington in 1962. Recorded at the University’s Radio and Television building, "Lovelight" b/w “Daddy's Little Angel” was credited to James Spencer and the Herd and released on Dink Burgess's Pic Records in 1965. Herd shows became disruptive affairs, with Spencer agitating and entertaining in equal measure. Spencer soon enlisted in the Navy, where he served as a signalman, communicating with other ships via flag semaphore and Morse code. Landscapes would be Spencer’s first foray into folk, followed by 2nd Look in 1974. Perhaps Spencer’s freakiest flag would be 1975’s self-titled recording by Major Arcana, featuring a puzzling album jacket courtesy of underground cartoonist Dennis Kitchen. Each year, Spencer would make more ambitious installments into his shape-shifting portfolio. He produced Inside The Shadow by local band Anonymous in 1976. The following year, he dedicated his children’s album, The Most Beautiful Song In The Forest, to his young daughters. By the time he released the disco double-sider “Wrap Myself Up In Your Love” b/w “The Blues Are Out To Get Me” in 1979, no one could quite anticipate where Spencer’s creativity might take him next. Early collaborator John Voyles struggled to describe Spencer: “Beatnik? No. Punk? No. Underground? Yes, but whose?”