INTERVIEW
life
You can
see The
Pretty
Things
at this
years
Bestival
(Sunday)
Photo: Dick on Ventnor seafront
Dick Taylor still plays with his ‘60s band,
Pretty Things. That wasn’t his first group, but,
as he tells Roz Whistance, he has no regrets
SO he looks like he’s lived a bit, but Dick
Taylor isn’t what you expect a rock n roller
from the 60s to be. His preferred drink is
coffee, he’s articulate and he’s gentle – so
that debunks instantly the preconceptions
about booze, drug-fuzzy brains and
showyness. But the biggest surprise is the
lack of arrogance – that he is as interested to
hear about you as he is willing to talk about
himself. One definition of a gentleman,
surely.
Dick Taylor wasn’t with the Rolling Stones
when they found fame and fortune: we’ll
come back to that. He was and is guitarist
with the Pretty Things, a rhythm and blues
band which had a string of hits in the 1960s,
and which is now enjoying a resurgence of
popularity.
It is a little daunting to meet a mature rock
n roller, especially when you read his was
Article by Roz Whistance
the first British band to be busted for drugs,
and that when they perform they are always
in sinister black mafia garb: so, almost
re-enacting the scene in Love Actually when
the new girl at No 10 is so determined not
to swear in front of the Prime Minister that
the inevitable words slip out, I inadvertently
call his band the Pretty Faces. Dick bursts
out laughing – I’m not the first, apparently.
“It’s just as well we didn’t call ourselves the
Small Things,” he says generously.
We meet at the Spyglass Inn in Ventnor,
where in a little while fellow guitarists will
start to gather for the weekly guitar club.
Not famous people, they haven’t so much
as touched the hem of the likes of Bowie
or Jagger, but enthusiasts with talent. “It’s
highly successful,” says Dick. “What’s
The Island's most loved magazine
really good is that quite a few form little
groups from it. We do an “open mike”
night every month, and trios, little bands
which have formed as a result of the club
perform.” He adds, more regretfully: “It
would be good to be pulling young people in
– it tends to be people not in the first flush
of youth.”
Again the conventional idea of a rock
’n’ roller is battered. Dick has the
egalitarianism of a musician who is
interested in others: - invited to criticise
today’s music scene he is keen to express
admiration, saying there are lots of good
bands on the Island. “There was crap music
in the ‘50s, there was crap music in the ‘60s.
But in every decade there’s good music
about.”
But if music today isn’t barren, bereft
of ideas, what explains the increasing
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