Initially spotted busking around Dundee, Spencer Tracy signed to Virgin Records in 1986. After objections from the estate of the actor Spencer Tracy, the band was obliged to change its name. Gary Clark recalls this as "a real last-minute crazy, fearful moment... The album was done, the artwork was done... We were just told, 'If you try and use this, you will be sued.' And so the label just went 'Nope. Change it. Now.'" For their new name, the band chose Danny Wilson, taken from a 1952 Frank Sinatra film called "Meet Danny Wilson" (itself a favourite film of the Clark brothers' father).