THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,974) Micky Jones & Tommy Brown — “If I Could Be Sure”
You want to know what Micky and Tommy is? Before Spooky Tooth, before Foreigner, there was the State of Micky and Tommy, and Micky was Mick Jones (see #1,753). Micky and Tommy wrote and performed this song for the French flick Tumuc Humac, a stunning ballad, delicate and ethereal. Not a power ballad, just a powerful ballad.
Richie Unterberger tells us of Micky and Tommy:
It’s not well known, but long before he joined Foreigner — and even before he was in Spooky Tooth — Mick Jones made quite a few records with Tommy Brown, the pair working in France for much of the period. . . . encompassing recordings billed to several different monikers, including the State of Micky & Tommy, the Blackburds Nimrod, the J&B, and Thomas F. Browne. It may be that the singles they released as the State of Micky & Tommy, obscure as those 45s are, are the best known of the lot, especially “With Love from One to Five[]” . . . . [Their recordings are] fair, though not exceptional, music that reflects the British mod, pop/rock, and psychedelic trends of the time with occasional hints of French and Continental influences. “With Love from One to Five” is typical if classy 1967 orchestrated psychedelic pop; “Nobody Knows Where You’ve Been” strongly recalls the arrangements on Sgt. Pepper’s cuts like “Within You, Without You”; and “Frisco Bay” is nice dainty, dreamy pop with beatific Summer of Love lyrics and the lightest hints of raga-rock. All of those songs were found on singles credited to the State of Mickey & Tommy; the ones billed to the Blackburds are more like soul-flavored British mod rock that could serve as incidental film music, while Nimrod’s 1969 single “The Bird” . . . is a fairly strong relic bridging psychedelia with early progressive rock. The best track, however, is the relatively unheralded 1966 single “There She Goes” by the J&B, a quite haunting, dramatic song that’s a bit like a mini-soundtrack to a story of Swinging London heartbreak.
https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-state-of-mickey-tommy-mw0001671650
In Deep Music Archive adds that:
As guns for hire in the French Sixties scene, you couldn’t land a better gig than writing for celebrity superstar couple Sylvie Vartan and Johnny Hallyday. Not only did Micky And Tommy write for these artists but they also played guitar and drums respectively in Johnny Hallyday’s backing band. . . . Somewhere in the distant past, two hip kids went to France and had the time of their lives, one of them went on to be a superstar the other drifted into obscurity.
You can find more details of their career here: https://techwebsound.com/artist/?artist=519.
Tumuc Humac was directed by Jean-Marie Périer, who “was at the heart of the pop explosion of the 1960s, capturing homegrown stars such as Jacques Dutronc and Johnny Hallyday – along with the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Miles Davis – for the French magazine Salut les Copains. (https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2016/jun/29/jean-marie-perier-pop-photographer-in-pictures) Check out some of his cool photos of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, etc. here: https://www.faheykleingallery.com/artists/jean-marie-perier.
As to Tumuc Humac, Letterboxd tells us the plot:
When Marc, with the help of a juvenile court judge, is old enough to leave the welfare system, he leaves mainland France for French Guiana to try and find the only relative he knows, his grandfather, who was deported to the penal colony of this French overseas territory. During his odyssey, he meets Françoise, a young woman with whom he falls in love, and experiences many adventures.
I’ve never seen it, but it’s not supposed to be particularly good.
Here is Johnny Hallyday:
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