An English rock and roll band from London, most successful during the 1960s. They pioneered a raw approach to rhythm and blues that influenced a number of key bands of the period, including the Rolling Stones.
The Pretty Things were preceded by Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys, which consisted of Dick Taylor, fellow Sidcup Art College student Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. When Brian Jones joined the band on guitar, Taylor was pushed from guitar to bass and the band changed its name to the Rollin' Stones.
Taylor quit the Stones several months later when he was accepted at the London Central School of Art, where he met Phil May and they formed the Pretty Things.
Taylor was once again playing guitar, with May singing and playing harmonica. They recruited Brian Pendleton on rhythm guitar, John Stax on bass and Pete Kitley, replaced by Viv Broughton and then by Viv Prince on drums.
The Pretty Things caused a sensation in England, and their first three singles — Rosalyn, Don't Bring Me Down and the self-penned Honey I Need — appeared in the UK singles chart in 1964-1965. They never had a hit in the US, but had considerable success in the UK and in Australia, New Zealand, Germany and the Netherlands in the middle of the decade. However, in the US they, along with The Yardbirds and Van Morrison's Them, were a huge influence on hundreds of garage bands, including the MC5 and the Seeds.
Their early material consisted of hard-edged blues-rock influenced by Bo Diddley (they took their name from Diddley's 1955 song Pretty Thing) and Jimmy Reed. They were known for wild stage behaviour and edgy lyrical content. Their song Midnight to Six Man defined the mod lifestyle. Around this time, the first of what would be many personnel changes over the years also began, with Prince the first to go late in 1965, replaced by Skip Alan. Pendleton left late in 1966 and was not initially replaced. Stax quit early in 1967. John Povey and Wally Waller (aka Wally Allen) (both former Fenmen from Bern Elliott and the Fenmen) joined to make the band a 5-piece once again.
After a flirtation with mainstream pop on the Emotions album in 1967, they embraced psychedelia, producing the concept album S.F. Sorrow during 1967-68. This album, released in late 1968, is one of the first rock operas, preceding the release of the Who's Tommy in April 1969 by a few months. It was recorded over several months during 1967 at EMI's Abbey Road Studios in London, during the same period when the Beatles and Pink Floyd were recording Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Piper at the Gates of Dawn respectively. These albums share a similar late-1960s psychedelic sound, and the Floyd and Pretty Things albums were both produced by the late Norman Smith, who had engineered most of the Beatles' recordings until 1966.
S.F. Sorrow was commercially unsuccessful, with no immediate release in the US. The album was subsequently picked up by Motown Records and issued with a different cover on its Rare Earth label. The work received only modest support from EMI and its depressing narrative probably did not help sales.
S.F. Sorrow was followed by the highly-acclaimed album Parachute, which kept the psychedelic sound and was named Album of the Year by Rolling Stone in 1970.
By late 1970, the group had gone their separate ways due to commercial failures, and Skip Alan was in a group called Sunshine. In 1971, Alan was driving with manager Bill Shepherd when he put on a tape of Parachute. Shepherd loved it and asked who the band was. When Alan told him it was his last group, Shepherd asked what had happened to them and vowed to get them back together. Within three months, Shepherd had assembled May, Povey, Alan, Peter Tolson and Stuart Brooks, and the group signed with Warner Bros. Records.
From this point on, the group enjoyed little commercial success, but won the devotion of a strong cult following, especially with critics and other rock musicians. Their material in the early 1970s tended towards blues, hard rock and early heavy metal, as for example the album Silk Torpedo, released in 1974. By this time they were being managed by Led Zeppelin's Peter Grant. In fact Silk Torpedo was the first album release on Zeppelin's own label Swan Song, which Grant and the band set up to release their own pet projects. Silk Torpedo also earned the band their first US album chart entry. 1980's Cross Talk saw them incorporating influences of punk and new wave into their hard rock sound. Like most of their records during this period, it was not a commercial success.
With a new manager, Mark St. John, they performed sporadically during the 1980s. By the end of the decade their profile had almost disappeared. May and Taylor reformed the band with a new lineup for a successful European blues tour in late 1990 with Stan Webb's Chicken Shack and Luther Allison. This line up regularly toured the European mainland, playing a revitalised set that showcased their earlier, rootsy blues and R&B material, until late 1994.
By 1995, they reformed the Cross Talk line-up with Frank Holland on guitar in place of Peter Tolson.
In mid 2007, the Pretty Things released their 11th studio album, Balboa Island on the Côte Basque record label. The album contains a number of Pretty Things originals, as well as paying homage to their R&B roots. Illness has caused the band to restrict live appearances with Jack Greenwood replacing Alan on drums in 2008, a year which also saw the death of former producer, Norman Smith.
The band has now decided that it should proceed as a touring band without Allen, Povey and Alan.