First UK Release: Philips BF 1401 / 320189 BF. Side A
First UK Release: Philips BF 1401 / 320189 BF. Side B
A Pretty Girls Everywhere
B Doin' the Jerk
by The Walker Brothers
Released: February 26th, 1965. Label: Philips
Pretty Girls Everywhere was the Walkers Brothers’ debut single. Written by American R&B singer-songwriter Eugene Church for his group, The Fellows, their original release was a US top 40 hit in 1958. Its lyrics talk about the girls of the title being everywhere they go: at the beach, the park, the show and the rodeo. The Walker Brothers’ version, released seven years later, has John Maus singing the melody, with Scott Walker and Gary Leeds providing harmony.
The B-side, Doin’ the Jerk, is Walker’s first songwriting credit. Opening with a horn section-filled introduction, its lyrics celebrate a contemporary dance craze. The song is performed by an early incarnation of the band in the 1965 film, Beach Ball, directed by Lennie Weinrib, who became the original voice actor for Scrappy-Doo in the 1970s animated Scooby Doo series. In the film, Walker is filmed in suit and tie on lead vocals, with John Maus on guitar, and Al “Tiny” Schneider on drums, a member of the band before the arrival of Gary Leeds. The film also features performances by the Righteous Brothers and The Supremes.
The song failed to chart.
Credits
A. Pretty Girls Everywhere 2:30
Written By Eugene Church, Thomas Williams
Arranger Shorty Rogers
Producer Nick Venet
B. Doin’ the Jerk 2:25
Written By Scott Engel
Arranger Shorty Rogers
Producer Nick Venet
Interview Excerpt
Melody Maker - 5 January 1974
by Michael Watts
Early on, when Stewart and he were in high school, they made demos for a man named Mark Taylor, who later, around ’63 and ’64, when the Walker Brothers were making it big, sold the stuff to Ember (he thinks). This seems to have been the basis of records that were released in the States on Tower, Challenge and Orbit. Maus and he, however, did record together for Smash, which was part of Mercury Records. With Nik Venet and Jack Nitzsche producing they cut “Love Her,” an old Everly Brothers single, at the end of ’63, which was released here in ’64 when they came over.
At the same session they’d also cut a Eugene Church number, “Pretty Girls Everywhere,” selected by Venet and arranged by Shorty Rogers; this was their first British single as the Walker Brothers. Thereon, it was Scott who picked most of the material, it seems, including Jerry Butler’s “Make It Easy On Yourself,” their first number one.
This was when Butler was on Vee Jay and being cut by Gamble and Huff – neat pattern if Gamble and Huff had produced Walker.
They were tremendously influenced, of course, by Phil Spector’s production of the Righteous Brothers, though Walker says that was Jack Nitzsche’s doing; it was Nitzsche who’d suggested “Love Her.”
“In fact, I wasn’t the lead singer, John was. They said, ‘who sings the lowest?’ And they were told, well, Engel does.’ So after Love Her’ that became the formula of how the thing was done.”
Interview Excerpt
San Diego Troubadour, March 2020
by Mike Alvarez
Drummer Al Schneider Has More than a Few Stories to Tell!
It was in pop music where he would make his greatest mark. Prior to his involvement with the Everly Brothers, he played with the Walker Brothers, performing at Gazzarri’s on La Cienega, a dinner club counterpart to the famous establishment on Sunset Boulevard. “They weren’t really brothers but they looked enough alike. There was a night we were playing this club as the Walker Brothers and it just wasn’t happening. We were gonna break up. Bill Gazzarri came into the club and offered us a job that night.
We started doing a TV show called Ninth Street West, which morphed into Hollywood a Go Go. We were playing there five nights a week and then working the TV show. We had lines around the block! I mean it was heaven. The Walker Brothers stepped on too many toes. Bill Gazzarri had some pretty powerful friends. From Miami, from Chicago… you know what I’m saying. The Walker Brothers signed too many contracts when they were underage. So they’re kind of getting the cold shoulder all around. They decided to go to England on spec. The guy that offered them the deal to go to England had one caveat: they had to use his kid to play drums. I’ve always understood it business-wise, but to this day it hurts because I just got left in the lurch.
They went to England on spec without anything concrete but they had to take Gary Leeds, who was kind of more like them anyway. Tall, skinny, and could wear Spandex pants. I mean, when I got between the two Everly Brothers they were both six feet tall and skinny. It looked like the number 101! For a three-year period there were three groups in England that were at the top: the Beatles, the Stones, and the Walker Brothers.
The Walker Brothers Trio, Los Angeles, 1964