Reupload - The Pickwicks - Little By Little/ I Took My Baby Home

Period costume wearing beat group with two spiky, garagey efforts

Label: Warner Bros

Year of Release: 1965

Consisting of Alan Gee on guitar, Malcolm Jenkins on drums, Tony Martin on bass and Johnny Miles on lead guitar and vocals, Coventry's The Pickwicks were one of many sixties beat groups who utilised costumes on stage to strike an eccentric presence. Donning top hats, period costumes and pulling pompous faces, their inventive use of clobber got them noticed, but ultimately didn't score them a hit. Two Decca singles, "Apple Blossom Time" and "You're Old Enough To Be In Love" didn't chart, and this, their final hurrah on Warner Brothers, was equally luckless.

The A-side "Little by Little" is an incredibly minimal, almost garagey effort which isn't so spiky as to be uncommercial, but certainly isn't populist enough to break through. Nonetheless, its insistent keyboard riff and simmering attitude is enticing.

Of far more interest to most readers, I suspect, will be the flip, the Ray Davies composition "I Took My Baby Home". Clattering and crashing into the tune with aplomb, it's a lovely and uplifting two minutes. 

The Pickwicks - Apple Blossom Time/ I Don't Want To Tell You Again

Debut Beat Pop effort from eccentrically garbed Coventry bunch

Label: Decca

Year of Release: 1964

We've already covered The Pickwicks once on "Left and to the Back" when we took a look at their uptempo, searing garagey efforts "Little By Little" and their cover of Ray Davies' "I Took My Baby Home". 

Their debut release "Apple Blossom Time" was somewhat more conventional by comparison, being a more controlled and less frisky beat offering. It's an odd track for a sixties band to be covering, being penned in the twenties then performed by all manner of pre-rock and roll stars including The Andrews Sisters, Vera Lynn, Nat King Cole and Artie Shaw.  Its romantic imagery and sweet-natured lyrics seem rather tame and decidedly un-teen, but the group do inject it with a certain oomph and even add some squeaky keyboards which make it feel as if it indirectly invented Lipps Inc's "Funky Town". 

The Pickwicks - Little By Little/ I Took My Baby Home

Label: Warner Bros

Year of Release: 1965

Consisting of Alan Gee on guitar, Malcolm Jenkins on drums, Tony Martin on bass and Johnny Miles on lead guitar and vocals, Coventry's The Pickwicks were one of many sixties beat groups who utilised costumes on stage to strike an eccentric presence. Donning top hats, period costumes and pulling pompous faces, their inventive use of clobber got them noticed, but ultimately didn't score them a hit. Two Decca singles, "Apple Blossom Time" and "You're Old Enough To Be In Love" didn't chart, and this, their final hurrah on Warner Brothers, was equally luckless.

The A-side "Little by Little" is an incredibly minimal, almost garagey effort which isn't so spiky as to be uncommercial, but certainly isn't populist enough to break through. Nonetheless, its insistent keyboard riff and simmering attitude is enticing.

Of far more interest to most readers, I suspect, will be the flip, the Ray Davies composition "I Took My Baby Home". Clattering and crashing into the tune with aplomb, it's a lovely and uplifting two minutes. 

Rumours abounded for many years that Jimmy Page played on both sides of this single, but there's now some dispute over whether that was actually the case. Whatever, it's an innocent and joyous slice of vinyl, and isn't really talked about as much as it deserves to be.