6 Years Ago Today, We Said Goodbye to This Countercultural Icon With “The Longest Hair in Britain”

As lead singer of British pyschedelic blues-rock band the Pretty Things, Phil May left his mark on other visionaries. He inspired the likes of Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie, and Bob Dylan. Openly bisexual, an unabashed user of mind-altering substances, and boasting “the longest hair in Britain,” May became a countercultural figure. This was largely thanks to the band’s 1968 album S.F Sorrow, credited as one of the first-ever rock operas. On this day (May 15) in 2020, Phil May died at a hospital in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, England, due to complications from hip surgery. The 75-year-old musician had fallen off his bicycle earlier that week.

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Phil May was born Philip Wadey on November 9, 1944, in Dartford, Kent. Later, he adopted the surname of the uncle who raised him. In 1963, May and former Rolling Stones guitarist Dick Taylor formed the Pretty Things while students at Sidcup Art College in the greater London area.

Releasing their self-titled debut album in 1965, the band took its name from the Bo Diddley song “Pretty Thing”. The Pretty Things scored a Top 10 hit on the UK singles chart with “Don’t Bring Me Down”.

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Phil May Was Used to His Outsider Status

The Pretty Things released 13 studio albums. Their final project, Bare as Bone, Bright as Blood, dropped just a few months after Phil May’s death in September 2020.

Despite never achieving success in the United States, the rockers built up a fan base in their native UK, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, and the Netherlands. (However, they were eventually banned from New Zealand after setting fire to a bag of rotting crayfish on a plane.)

May didn’t seem too fazed by the band’s lack of mainstream recognition. He told the Guardian in 2018, “By the time the Pretty Things hit the TV screens, I was used to being abused and spat at and getting into punchups, because it had happened when we were art students. We’d done our apprenticeship at being outsiders.”

Besides, he once added, “If we’d had gotten to America, and had the same effect in America that we were having in Europe, I think we’d be dead. We would have been finished. It would have been too much to take on board.”

The Pretty Things underwent multiple lineup changes across the years. However, May remained at the helm until its retirement in 2018. He also briefly recorded with another group called Phil May and the Fallen Angels.

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