The Pretty Things - You'll Never Do It Baby

The same year that The Cops N' Robbers released their original composition, You'll Never Do It Baby, on the Flip-Side of a French only EP, The Pretty Things recorded the number for their second album. The number leads off side 2 of the Get The Picture LP. The Pretty Things modified the chorus structure and removed the piano and harmonica. The beat is slightly modified as well, making it less jazzy and more of a straight ahead, on the downbeat rock-n-roll number. Interestingly, The Pretty Things' drummer, Viv Prince, is not playing on this. A cat by the name of John Adler took over on this track as Viv was on his way out of the band at the time. 

Until next time, we'll see you On The Flip-Side!

Song of the Week: The Pretty Things - I Can Never Say

This is the third time we've featured The Pretty Things here at the best music spot on the web. The first instance was a feature on their song My Time. That post has some of the fewest hits in the history of this website. And by few, let me just say that if you took every person who hit on that post, you still couldn't field two baseball teams. Then we featured The Pretty Things doing Come See Me as part of our "Under The Covers" series. That one did better. Much better. We could field many, many baseball teams with that post. And even have enough people left over to serve hot dogs and popcorn.

Today we're back at it with one of The Pretty Things' lesser known tunes, I Can Never Say. In the United States it was The Flip-Side of two of their obscure singles: the April 1965 release of the radio unfriendly Honey, I Need and the Flip-Side of the July 1965 release of their cover of the Garnet Mimms and Solomon Burke standard, Cry To Me. Both singles were released on Fontana Records. I Can Never Say has a simple, but great shuffle to it as singer Phil May sings with a great raspy restraint. The song never takes off into anything else. Just that simple shuffle with a real understated feel. May's harmonica being the only lead instrument. Nice.

Until next time, we'll see you On The Flip-Side!

Under The Covers: Come See Me by The Pretty Things and J.J. Jackson

The Pretty Things

We have an odd twist on today's Under The Covers. That's because the "cover" was published before the "original." Come See Me is perhaps The Pretty Things' single greatest recording (with apologies to Rosalyn and Midnight To Six Man). The Pretty Things released the pounding number in April of 1966 for Fontana Records.

J.J. Jackson

Come See Me was written in part by soul singer J.J. Jacson, but his recording of it wasn't released until April of 1967 for the Strike label in the U.K., as featured here.  Another version was released in March of '68 on the Warner Brothers down label, Loma Records, under the title Come And See Me (I'm Your Man). It's more than likely that a demo was shopped around by the publisher and The Pretty Things picked up on the so-rare-that-it-wasn't-even-recorded soul number, and made it their own. I'm willing to bet that this is a new one to most On The Flip-Side readers. This writer MUCH prefers The Pretty Things take on Come See Me, but I'll let you decide.

Until next time, we'll see you On The Flip-Side!

Song of the Week: The Pretty Things - My Time

The Pretty Things were an enigma. Any garage fan knows them and knows them well. Their reputation among that crowd as an inventive and wild, pounding UK band that produced songs that could peel paint off of a wall is well earned. Songs like Rosalyn, Don't Bring Me Down, Come See Me and Midnight to Six Man (see video below) secured that reputation in stone. But ask anyone else, "what'cha think of the Pretty Things?" and you are going to receive a look as desolate and unforgiving as the Sahara desert itself.

The band bubbled up in London in 1964 after Dick Taylor left his night job as the Rolling Stones bassist to form his own group where he would allow himself to play lead guitar. Taylor and raspy throated singer Phil May would front the beat band infamous for stage shows of debauchery and drunken punch-ups in any number of far away countries. It was an act that would win mostly male fans and influence numerous other bands in countries like Holland, Sweden, Germany and Australia. In America, they did nothing. Barely even got a label to release their stuff. By 1967, like so many other British bands (The Yardbirds and the Zombies come to mind), the band began to shows signs of buckling under the pressure of constant touring and recording and generally bad management. And on that last point, following the success of Sgt. Peppers by the Beatles, The Pretty Things management decided the blues based band needed to do a big production psychedelic album. Oh Joy. That album is the over produced, string-laden, gimmick filled Emotions. I'll be honest with you, it's not my favorite album. But it does have some gems. And one of those gems is today's SOTW. The song is the last song on the album and it is the wonderfully understated My Time, a band composition. The song finds the band exploring pop sensibilities and, unlike much of the rest of the album, the horn arrangement is tasteful and appropriately used as ambience. Taylor's restrained but driving guitar work is front and center and John Stax's bass work (particularly at the end of the song) adds a wonderful dynamic to the song. And of course, their is Phil May's quizzical vocals that question the path he is on.

It's not the wild raver the band was known for, but, in my opinion, that is one of the reasons it works so well. Enjoy The Pretty Things performing My Time.

And here is a video of them on German TV performing (live) Midnight To Six Man.

Have a great week.