Rhythm & Blues Years Set

Back in the '60s, the gritty, exciting music of the Pretty Things was rivaled only by the earliest releases by the Rolling Stones for sheer energy and audacity. Most Americans were deprived of the first EP and initial singles by Mick Jagger and company (when the band was actually led by Brian Jones and off-stage piano player Ian Stewart). Things were much worse with the Pretty Things, who were all but completely ignored by the US audience in their hard-rocking first incarnation. So why mention the Stones? Well, the bands' beginnings were intertwined. Early in their history, Dick Taylor was the Stones' bass player, but he wanted to play lead guitar. So he teamed up with vocalist Phil May to out-rock the Stones with songs such as "Rosalyn," "Honey I Need," "Roadrunner," "Don't Bring Me Down," "The Moon Is Rising," "Judgment Day" and others. The Pretty Things never quite caught on in the mid-'60s, but finally broke through in the psychedelic era (with albums like "S. F. Sorrow" and "Parachute"), Me, I love the early blues stuff and all their best is included in this amazingly complete collection. Nearly 30 years later, as mentioned by the other reviewer of this release, they teamed up with Yardbirds drummer Jim McCarty, Canned Heat bass player Richard Hite (brother of co-founder/lead singer Bob) and renowned Chicago harp player Studebaker John for a superb collaboration called "Pretty Things/Yardbird Blues Band: Chicago Blues Tapes 1991." Along with its hard-to-find sequel, it is a must-have for fans of the British blues. Yet in terms of the rough-and-tumble, anything-goes era of the British Invasion, nothing will ever top the Jimmy Reed/Bo Diddley/John Lee Hooker drenched music contained on this retrospective. Rock on!

I started out with "Silk Torpedo", which is terrific. I had to have more. These guys were very versatile and have covered many decades and genres. Worth having...especially their psychedelia and Blues, if you're into those kinds of things.

In 1991 and 1992, members of the Pretty Things joined with a member of the original Yardbirds and a member of Canned Heat to release two excellent CD's "The 1991 Chicago Tapes" and "Wine, Women & Whiskey". This CD, released in 2001 by Snapper Music, is a compilation of the Pretty Things' early recordings dating back to 1964. As such, this two disc set does not have the same sound quality as the newer releases mentioned. It does however, demonstrate that the Pretty Things, like so many of the early English bands, were heavily influenced by American blues music. There are some good pieces here most notably, "Judgment Day", "Don't Bring Me Down" and "Mama Keep Your Big Mouth Shut" but those bright spots are shaded by many mediocre sounding tunes. It appears that Snapper had to stretch to fill the two discs and would probably have been better off with just a single disc. I would recommend that you seek the two later disc's released by the Pretty Things Yardbird Blues Band.

It brought back really good memories, Pretty Things were my ideal R & B band as they were rough and ragged in their sound and approach. A lot of R&B bands in the sixties started off sounding like they had just learnt how to play their guitars with fast paced 'full on' R&B and ended up sounding too smooth as they refined their skills and that's when i would stop buying their records.A good example of this was 'Five Live Yardbirds' which is one of all time favourites.Anyway I digress !I like my 60's R&B to be rough and slightly discordant, even a bit shambolic, the 'Pretties' retained that sound all the way through their career even during their Psychedelic period.My only small criticism would be that they did'nt include 'House in the country' which was a great single.I would thoroughly recommend this CD

I remember The Pretty Things way back, and could never understand why they weren't as big as The Stones. Hearing this collection, I am no nearer the answer. From the great harmonica and guitar playing to Phil May's bluesy vocals, this collection is as good as anything Mick Jagger et al produced. One possible reason is that they were not as savvy as their contemporaries, but as music goes, this is a truly wonderful 2 CD collection of 34 tracks. Their progression to Psychedelia was very impressive too, with SF Sorrow a masterpiece of the genre. You will not be disappointed!

Brings me back the sixtys seen play in Dublin a few times great memories

Great group, harder and rougher than the Stones with a good sound . Varied songs, some covers and some self written, for the most part very good (only odd exception) can't all be perfect !!

Very good