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The Jeremy Spencer Imposter
In his book, Bob Brunning talks about meeting a Jeremy Spencer imposter.
To be able to pass himself off as JS even for a short time this guy would presumably had to have had a number of attributes: a Midlands accent (which could be faked), a severe lack of height (which couldn't) and if he was playing gigs at least some modicum of ability. Was anything else ever heard or known about this guy? |
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I've never heard of this. I knew there was a Peter Green imposter who had lots of guys fooled (including Queen's bassist).
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On and on it will always be, the rhythm, rhyme, and harmony. THE Stephen Hopkins |
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#4
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From memory, this guy was playing gigs (in Europe?) as JS, BB met with him and actually took JS's parents along to a show. BB mentions a PG impersonator, but this was just some guy in a pub using his likeness to get free drinks. When confonted he confessed and shot off. I hadn't heard of anyone playing gigs as PG. |
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On and on it will always be, the rhythm, rhyme, and harmony. THE Stephen Hopkins |
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The Spencer fake is an interesting story - Brunning talks about it briefly. He says that in the early 1980s he begn to receive phone calls from his musician friends saying that Spencer had reappeared. The were were also reports to this effect in the London Evening Standard newspaper. Brunning contacted the guy and met him in a pub. He says, "I wasn't wholly convinced, but he went a long way towards persuading me that he was Spencer with his astonishingly authentic recollection of the most intimate details of early Fleetwood Mac experiences. He certainly had far more than a passing resemblance to Spencer."
Still "extremely suspicious", Brunning contacted the Evening Standard, whose reporter grilled "Jeremy" for two hours before finally assuring Brunning that this was the right guy. Brunning then organised a gig with his De Luxe Blues band and "Jeremy" in London. They played three songs, and "Jeremy" insisted on playing with his back to the stage. In the audience were Jeremy Spencer's parents, plus their solicitor, who insisted after the show that Brunning go back on to tell the audience that the guitarist was not the real Spencer. Brunning elected to get drunk instead. The Evening Standard hauled the fake Jeremy into their offices and confronted him with an ex-girlfriend of the real Jeremy's, and she confirmed the hoax. The guy's name was Andrew Clarke, and he'd been impersonating Jeremy for over a decade jamming with Rory Gallagher at Montreux, and earning a fortune for the Children of God. He claimed that the organisation forced him to do it to capitalise on Jeremy's fame. Brunning found the whole thing very strange... unsurprisingly Maybe if this guy was forced to do it by the Children of God, it might explain how he knew so many intimate details. Maybe Jeremy was in on it! |
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Besides the size, let's be honest, Jeremy had fairly unique teeth. I wish I could have seen this guy's act.
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On and on it will always be, the rhythm, rhyme, and harmony. THE Stephen Hopkins |
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One of Simmons' secretaries found him in a pub and she told Simmons, who phoned him. When challenged, the man "became quite offensive and bluffed his way out of the whole thing". He doesn't exactly say that he met the guy, but he does say that he looked a lot like him, with the same kind of beard, and that he even had his picture printed in a magazine of some sort. "He didn't run up any financial credit on the name. I guess he just enjoyed being Peter Green!" It's about time we had another impostor - who fancies being Danny or Bob Weston or something? |
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#13
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EDIT: I found the thread! http://ledge.fleetwoodmac.net/showthread.php?t=16307
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On and on it will always be, the rhythm, rhyme, and harmony. THE Stephen Hopkins Last edited by SteveMacD; 03-16-2006 at 10:00 PM.. |
#14
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Don't know whether Bob Brunning's fake Peter Green is the same one as Martin Celmins describes in his book - the "Egg & Potato Man". (Anyone from the UK care to comment on this nickname? I've always been curious whether there's a particularly British dish that the name refers to.) That imposter - real name Patrick Harper - is said to have been active around 1992-4. According to Celmins, Harper conned a number of music industry people and was on "the brink of securing a respectable record deal as 'Peter Green'". The edition of Brunning's book that I have has a publication date of 1990 & 1998 - maybe that's a later edition than yours, bretonbanquet? So it's possible that the edition I have could have been updated to discuss the "Egg & Potato Man".
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#15
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"Event took on an even more bizarre twist when in 1992, an Essex farmer, Patrick Harper, nicknamed The Egg & Potato Man, began claiming to be Green on the comeback trail, dumping Queen drummer Roger Taylor amongst others into leading support. "I saw him one day," Green claims, a touch hazily. "He looked like a Hell's Angel - a bit taller than me, looking kind of strange. I heard a rumour that he went into EMI and to call his bluff they offered him a quarter of a million pound record deal, and he said, No, I better not." |
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