I’m going to see The Pretty Things in December. The concert
is in a venue called Indigo at the O2 in London. It is billed as the ‘Final Bow’
concert because they say it will be the last gig of their 55-year career. I
have never seen the Pretty Things before or bought one of their albums until
now. The reason I thought it might be fun to go to this gig is because Van Morrison
is a special guest along with Dave Gilmour of the Pink Floyd and the actor Bill
Nighy. I know Bill is a big fan of Van’s because I sat next to him at a Van gig
at Nell’s club in London three years ago. Van Morrison and Phil May of The
Pretty Things are great friends and mutual admirers. Van once called the Pretties
‘One of the greatest R&B bands of all time’. Phil said Van was, “the dog’s
bollocks” and said, “He’s like a bloke who really knows where he is and doesn’t
take any bullshit”. Backstage at the Philipshalle in Dusseldorf in 1998 before
a Rockpalast Christmas Special for German TV Phil told The Independent newspaper
that Van was headlining and made sure his old pals The Pretty Things were on
the bill. "I see Van quite a bit," explained Phil. "Whenever
he's in London, we go out for a drink and he's helping us totally out of
friendship and, I think, respect”.
The Pretty Things were formed in 1963 by Phil May and guitarist
Dick Taylor who had recently left the Rolling Stones. They were one of the
earliest of the British R & B bands. Van around this time was in London
playing in the Manhattan Showband. I think it was seeing and hearing R& B
groups like The Downliners Sect and the Pretty Things that inspired Van with
the look and the sound he wanted when he formed his band Them shortly
afterwards. That might explain Van’s long friendship with Phil. Although I didn’t
buy any of their records I do remember the Pretty Things early hits such as Rosalyn,
Don’t Bring Me Down & Honey I Need. If the concert in December is a
retrospective of their entire career I expect it will be their early blues
numbers that Van will sing with them rather than their later psychedelic songs.
Anyway, to cut to the chase, I thought I better get acquainted
with some of the Pretty Things music so that I would enjoy the concert in
December. I ordered their 1968 album S.F Sorrow which arrived in the post a
couple of days ago although I didn’t get to play it till this morning. I chose
this album because I have read that it is a lost classic of British psychedelic
music that never received the acclaim it deserved. Also, one of my oldest
friends has been telling me for ages how brilliant it is. The CD comes in a
very attractive package with a very informative booklet which explains the
history of the album. Because they had a very limited budget for the making of
the album the band did all the design work themselves. Phil did all the artwork
for the cover and Dick Taylor did the photography. The album was produced by
Norman Smith at Abbey Road studios where he was also working with Pink Floyd on
their Saucerful Of Secrets album at the same time. The Beatles were working on
The White Album in the same building and according to the sleeve notes the band
used to ‘borrow’ George Harrison’s sitar which figures prominently on some
tracks. The sleeve-notes are essential for following the story of Sebastian F
Sorrow. (Nobody knows what the F stands for) On the couple of occasions when
the album was performed live on its release Arthur Brown read the notes between
songs to explain the story. I expect on the night of the upcoming concert it
might be Bill Nighy who performs this duty. S.F. Sorrow could be described as
the first rock-opera and could well have inspired Pete Townshend to write
Tommy. Sadly, in the USA it was released after Tommy which might explain why it
was so overlooked at the time.
On first listen I must say I really like the album and I
think it will grow on me with further plays. I won’t go through the whole album
track by track but when I first played it, the opening song Sorrow Is Born
reminded me a little bit of The Move. Favourite songs on first listen include Bracelets
Of Fingers in which I could hear echoes of Traffic and The Moody Blues. I
really liked the sitar sound as well. I was reminded of Peter Frampton’s early
work with The Herd on some songs and even The Beatles Lucy In The Sky but that
was the sound of the times I suppose. Some songs are quite folkie such as
Private Sorrow and Loneliest Person and some nice acoustic sounds such as on
The Journey. The guitar sound on Old Man Going does sound very Tommyish to me. The
album uses all the latest technology of the time such as phasing and mellotrons
which are quite frenetic on some tracks. Percussion & drums by Twink are
very much to the fore on songs such as Baron Saturday. The weird sound effects
that Norman Smith conjures up show what a great producer he was. Phil May
described him as the sixth member of the band. There are also four bonus tracks
on this CD which to my ears are just as good as the rest of the album.
I am very glad that I finally bought this album
fifty years after it’s release and I’m really looking forward to hearing it
performed live in December. If you are going as well then I’ll see you at Indigo
on December 13th at the O2.
