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Staying with some of the "bad boys" of The British Invasion. Wildly popular and influential in their native UK, The Pretty Things were relegated to the more-or-less/ also-ran category. And it stuck with them for the better part of their careers - which was a shame because it wasn't true. The Pretty Things were true originals and, as legend has it, The Pretty Things and The Rolling Stones were very much in competition with each other even to the point of members crossing over briefly into each others bands.

With all that in mind - here is the rundown of what's up on the player tonight.

The Pretty Things - BBC Saturday Club - Jan. 8, 1966

1. Sitting All Alone
2. Midnight To Six Man
3. Buzz The Jerk
4. L.S.D.

The end of the week is coming. Play this one loud and get ready for Friday Night.

Continuing our week of "ye`-ye`practitioners of the 1960's; Jacqueline Taieb. Though probably less known than the likes of Francoise Hardy and France Gall, Taieb was nonetheless a very popular singer in the Ye`-Ye` tradition even if it was for a short time. Achieving a goodly degree of popularity from 1966-1970, Taieb decided to put her career on hold and focus all her attention on going back to school. She returned to singing in 1988.

Tonight's track is one of her hits from 1967. Le Coeur Au Bout Des Doigts was a good sized hit for her and a follow up to her debut smash 7 Hueres du Matin .

Since we're in the middle of Mardi Gras, I thought I would toss in my two cents by posting the incomparable Betty Harris who recorded extensively for Allan Toussaint's Sansu Records out of New Orleans in the 1960's.

She scored three huge hits during that decade, probably the most notable was her version of Solomon Burke's hit Cry To Me, which she recorded for Jubilee Records in 1963.

Tonight it's a track she recorded in 1967 for Sansu, I Can't Last Much Longer,which was a classic of the Northern Soul, or Deep Soul genre and by all intents and purposes should have been a huge hit for her. But no.

Although she didn't achieve a lot of chart success with her later efforst, her records have become collectors items and it was the Northern Soul revival in 2000 that once again brought Betty Harris back in the limelight where she has been recording and touring ever since.

Some stories do have happy endings.

Last week when I was posting Miles Davis' Jack Johnson, I mentioned how Davis was attempting to do for Rock what he had done for Jazz, and that was take it out of itself, free it up, lose the preconceived notions.

I indicated that it was something of a clarion call to a lot of musicians all over the world to begin experimenting and develop what became the Progressive Movement.

I don't think anyone took it more seriously than the Germans. From the late 60's and early 70's, bands were springing up all over Germany and one of those bands to become something of a divining rod for the genre were Faust.

From the get-go they were unconventional and completely unique. Over the years they've changed personnel, but they haven't changed direction. Commercial/Mainstream just hasn't ever been in their DNA, and for that they have continued to be pioneering and wildly influential with a huge quantity of bands still following their lead all over the world.

Tonight it's a track (actually two tracks since they blend into each other) from The Land Of Ukko&Rauni, a live album they recorded in 2000 while on tour in Helsinki.

Carousel II and wir brauchen dich no #7 come in at just a little under 11 minutes and, if you aren't familiar with them, and are waiting for "the tune" to start - sorry. They can be, and have always been to a lot of people, quite an acquired taste. I have loved them since the second I discovered them in 1971 and it hasn't changed in all that time.

We're going a bit out on a limb here tonight. If you like it I'll make sure we dive into more over the coming weeks/months.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained and think of the experience you'll have in the process.

I hadn't really heard from Squeeze in a while and I ran across this 2-CD compilation featuring all the BBC Sessions they had done from 1978 to 1994. I meant to put it up during my BBC Sessions Week a little while ago, but got sidetracked. And now seems as good a time as any.

Squeeze have always been a great band with one of the best songwriting teams (Difford and Tilbrook) in Pop Music putting out memorable track after memorable track. They were very big in the late 70's and early 80's, with a seemingly endless run of hit records. Changes in personnel and some lean times and they had almost dropped off the radar as the result when the band broke up in 1982 and reformed in 1985 and broke up again in 1999. In 2008 there was rumor of a reunion and at present there is talk of new material coming out soon.

Tonight is a reminder of just how great a songwriting team Difford and Tilbrook are with this acoustic session recorded at The BBC in 1992.

Here are the songs featured:

1. Take Me I'm Yours (Live BBC Session 1992) 3:13
2. Up The Junction (Live BBC Session 1992) 2:43
3. Pulling Mussels (From The Shell) / Labelled With
Love (Live BBC Session 1992) 7:23
4. Tempted (Live BBC Session 1992) 3:50

Classic Squeeze in a stripped down setting.

I've been remiss in getting this posted sooner, but got sidetracked the past couple of weeks with Fundraiser Session posts and my foray into World Music last week. My friend Mig Schillace (who also plays drums for The Black Ships) sent this over right after the final mix had been done and it is nothing short of astonishing.

If I hadn't been keeping tabs on the progress of this band over the past several months, I would have been speechless after listening to this latest offering from the band. But I know how much work they put into this and the long hours spent getting this down, and it has been more than worth it. The Kurofune EP clocks in just over 20 minutes. It's an incredible journey and one I really advise you take as a whole.

The Black Ships have been getting a great word of mouth almost since their inception. They are rumored to be getting ready for a Summer tour and I hope at some point they make it to the States. Like so many of the great Visionary bands of the last fifteen years (Portishead, Massive Attack, Radiohead), The Black Ships carries on in that tradition and brings their own point of view into play. I have a feeling they will go down phenomenally well here.

They're one of the reasons I still have faith in the future of Music.

So it was with shock and sadness that I learned tonight of the passing of Gil Scott Heron. The man who changed the playing field, who introduced the world to a new kind of poetry, a new kind of catharsis, a new kind of awareness. I remember when I first heard The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, how it turned my head around. There had been nothing like that before. Nothing as clear. Nothing as precise. Nothing as real. Gil Scott Heron turned on the laser beam and in that four minutes made us all understand what the problem was in no uncertain terms. He sliced through all the bullshit and made it real and this new style of poetry exploded from every corner.

He's been called The Grandfather of Rap. And in a way it's true. But he was heading into uncharted territory. He was the first. They had no name for it back then. But everyone who came after him knows it was Gil Scott Heron who got the ball rolling and made it all happen.

Tonight, as a tribute to the man and the artist I'm putting up a track from his 1973 album Winter In America. Peace Go With You Brother says it all.

You will be sorely missed - and we are so blessed to have witnessed you for the short time you were here.

Continuing our Post-World War 2 Jazz excursion with the immortal Dizzy Gillespie, the man who turned Jazz inside out and freed everybody up in the process. Tonight it's his 1947 classic for RCA-Victor Manteca, a track he co-wrote with Cuban percussionist Chano Pozo, a primary figure in Gillespie's exploration of Afro-Cuban rhythms. Pozo was only briefly with the band, as his untimely death in 1948 robbed the Jazz world of a major contributor. But Pozo's influence carried on for decades and it was this new aspect of Jazz that stayed with Gillespie. And this 1947 original explains why. Incidentally, it's off an original 78 and not from the CD reissue, so it might sound a bit different.

It's been recorded by Dizzy Gillespie many times over the years - but this is the first one, recorded on December 1947 and it features Chano Pozo on percussion.

With the heavy influence of Blues on the UK, and bands like John Mayall' s Bluesbreakers achieving massive appeal, another band at the forefront were The Savoy Brown Blues Band, later shortened to just Savoy Brown. Initially getting together in 1965, going official in 1966 and grabbing a label deal with Decca Records (Deram, the adventuresome subsidiary) in 1967. Being produced by Mike Vernon, who was responsible for numerous bands of the period including the early Fleetwood Mac, Chicken Shack and Duster Bennett (among so many others) and garnering a healthy following throughout the UK and Europe. What came out of their deal with Decca was their first album Shake Down. It did very well, although it wasn't issued in the U.S. (which was too bad as it was a great album and with a slightly different lineup). At this point there was shakeup in band personnel, with their first singer Bryce Portius, leaving and being replaced by Chris Youlden, whose voice made an unmistakable impression on their sound. With the new lineup in place, they went back to the studio and cut their first singles. The result is tonight's track, Taste And Try, Before You Buy. Again, never released in the States. It wasn't until their third album Blue Matter which came out in 1969 that they finally got exposure in the U.S. - after that, their popularity and non-stop touring of the U.S. made them much more of a household name here than in the UK.

The number of people in and out of Savoy Brown over the years probably rivals John Mayall's incarnations and just as many went on to achieve great names for themselves. And like Mayall, Savoy Brown are still together (although the only original member is Kim Simmonds) and still gigging around.

But if you wanted to hear them as they were back almost at the beginning, here's your chance.

As long as we're spending time on the other side of the Atlantic tonight (don't forget our French Radio extravanganza via France Musique on Mid-Week Concert earlier today), I ran across Lys, a band from Brittany who have since settled in the UK, but are touring almost non-stop around Europe. They just finished playing the Insorock Festival in Belgium last week and are embarking on a tour of France which coincides with the release of their new single.

Tonight we have Look In Your Eyes, a track cut live during a club date last year. Nice energy from this band and by the looks of it, a nice taste of why they are getting good word of mouth from the press.