Nuggets II: Get Yourself Home by The Fairies

The success of Rhino’s 1998 Nuggets boxset justified a follow-up. The sequel covers the rest of the world since the first volume only chronicled the USA.

Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts from the British Empire and Beyond, 1964–1969 emerged in 2001. It features music from countries such as Iceland, Uruguay, and Japan. I’m profiling and rating each of the 109 tracks, working backwards.

Track 101 – Get Yourself Home by The Fairies

From: Colchester, England

7

Credits

PERSONNEL/NICK WYMER: vocals * MICK WEAVER: lead guitar * JOHN ACUTT: rhythm guitar * FRED GANDY: bass * JOHN “TWINK” ALDER: drums
Produced by JIMMY DUCAN (sic)
Recorded in London, England
HMV single #POP-1404 (1965)

The Fairies

The Fairies began as Dane Stephens and the Deep Beats. They were led by John “Twink” Alder, a drummer with an extensive resume that includes work with Tomorrow (‘My White Bicycle’), The Pretty Things, and Stars (a short-lived band with Syd Barrett).

In 1965 it took some guts for men to walk around with shoulder-length hair and high-heeled Chelsea boots. Doing that and calling your band The Fairies may have bordered on the suicidal. But, taking a page from The Pretty Things’ book, that is precisely what this Colchester, Norfolk-based band did.

Originally known as Dane Stephens & the Deepbeats, they became The Fairies in 1964, debuting with a single on Decca that July.

Mike Stax, Nuggets II liner notes

The Fairies only recorded three singles. Dane Stephens fronted the band on their first single, a cover of Dylan’s ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright’.

With Dane Stephens, our shows were not only blues but soul numbers, touches of jazz as well. He was an amazing singer, very very special. Had a great voice, played amazing blues harp, the Fairies were just about to break big.

Dane Stephens was involved in a fatal accident while he was driving the group van – without any license or insurance. He served time in jail, so we lost him for a year and got Nik Wymer from Nix Nomads instead. We had been actually about to break at that point, there was no doubt about it. We had Mickie Most producing us in the studio, we had a single out and another one on the way, an agent who was getting us booked back again everywhere – we were good, a really good R&B band.

Twink, interview with Bevis Frond

Get Yourself Home

John Dee, the road manager for The Fairies, wrote ‘Get Yourself Home’ for The Pretty Things. But The Pretty Things rejected it, so The Fairies recorded it. Conversely, the Fairies previously rejected Dee’s song “Don’t Bring Me Down”, which became a 1964 hit for the Pretty Things.

The verdict

Perhaps unsurprisingly, for a band led by a drummer, Twink dominates ‘Get Yourself Home’. His drum fills take most of the spare space in the arrangement. This approach gives the band a unique sound, while Nick Wymer’s intense vocals are also appealing. It’s enough to elevate a relatively pedestrian blues-rock song.

The Fairies only recorded one more album before splitting up. Twink explained that “We became like the Pretty Things when Nik Wymer came along – mostly because Nik looked and sounded so much like Phil May… and then after [Dane Stephens] came out Nik left and we got Dane back but we were really trying to recreate something which we’d already lost.”

Read More

• Nuggets Song by Song
• 1960s Album Reviews

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