Although his name is not recognized by most rock fans,
Dick Taylor was an important figure in 1960s British rock as lead guitarist and frequent songwriter for
the Pretty Things, and has deep ties to the general birth of the British blues-rock scene. A teenage friend of
Mick Jagger, he attended the same grammar school in the London suburb Dartford, and began playing with
Jagger in the early '60s in the group Little Boy Blue & the Blue Boys.
Keith Richards started playing with them as well, and the group evolved into
the Rolling Stones, adding
Brian Jones. There were getting to be too many cooks in the kitchen, and
Taylor left the band sometime in 1962, though he might have been able to keep his membership if he'd been willing to switch from guitar to bass. Instead he formed another heavily R&B-influenced rock band,
the Pretty Things, with singer
Phil May, who (like
Taylor and
Richards) attended Sidcup Art School.
Taylor's spiky lead guitar, as well as his deft introduction of some acoustic textures into some of their songs, were key factors in
the Pretty Things' exciting brand of R&B-rock in the mid-'60s. Though they only had a couple of big British hits, and were virtually unknown in America, they have been belatedly, and properly, recognized as one of the finer and raunchiest British Invasion bands (see
Pretty Things entry for more details).
Taylor and
Phil May were the group's main songwriters, often writing together (and often drawing other collaborators into the songwriting as well, from within and without the band) on such standout
Pretty Things tracks as "Midnight to Six Man" and "L.S.D." By the Summer of Love,
Taylor and
May were the only remaining original members, and both were similarly important in inspiring the band's transition from R&B to psychedelia, particularly on the album S.F. Sorrow.
Taylor, unfortunately, left
the Pretty Things after S.F. Sorrow. Shortly afterward he produced
Hawkwind's first album, and did some production with the far more obscure
Cochise and
Skin Alley. He was out of the music business for a while before joining for a
Pretty Things reunion gig in the late '70s, and has played with them ever since, on their tours and recordings of varying frequency.
–
Richie Unterberger, Rovi