'The Hollies' from the beginning

[keithmantle]

Tonight on Sky Arts 1 11-50pm, well worth a look. (Look Through Any Window)

[alanbakewell]

It's been on a while back Keith and is most certainly worth watching / recording.

A very informative and entertaining piece.

Cheers, Alan.

[John Boyd]

Good morning all.
Just crashing this thread to say that a couple of months ago I took my 40 year old son to see the Hollies
on their NZ tour. Like me, he was knocked out by their performance. I think they were even better than
their last tour in 2012! We enjoyed all the hits and harmonies and a few new songs as well.
Great muscianship and impeccable vocals were wamly received by a full house of mature music lovers.
I'm very tempted to 'invest' in the multi CD set that I've seen advertised! Anyone have it?
On with the day.
Cheers,
JB

[dave robinson]

I've seen this about half a dozen times now and never tire of watching it. There are similar programmes in the series for other sixties bands, one notable one was for Herman's Hermits which in content about how they made their records is just as interesting as this one, I wish they had one for The Shadows, it would answer so many questions about detail of their gear and recordings.

[cockroach]

Me too- I bought the DVD- what a great documentary.

I think Tony Hicks has been shamefully overlooked considering he is such a brilliant guitarist- but then he played stuff that complimented the songs rather than indulging himself- and in the '60's a lot of players made a name for themselves by doing just that.

Bobby Elliot was/is a tremendous driving exciting drummer- Keith Moon with discipline!

And as the other blokes in the group said, when they were playing other people's songs, before they got hits with their own originals, Tony could certainly pick out a hit song!

[Monty]

The EMI six CD set; 'The Clarke Hicks Nash Years' covers almost everything cut between 1963 and 1968 (hopefully a follow up CD set possibly going from the 1969 to 1973 era may emerge in due course...?)

while EMI's; 'The Long Road Home' CD box set is an overview of the band's 'classic era' recordings with longtime lead vocalist Allan Clarke, featuring high harmonies from Graham Nash / Terry Sylvester (plus some other recordings with Mike Rickfors, Alan Coates, & the one song cut with The Late Great Carl Wayne)

Their last three albums; 'Staying Power', 'Then, Now, Always' plus the double live album; 'Hollies Live Hits: We Got the Tunes' all feature current Lead vocalist/acoustic guitarist Peter Howarth (who succeeded Carl Wayne following his sad shock death in August 2004 & has worked with Cliff Richard as a backup vocalist) & high harmony vocalist/guitarist Steve Lauri joining famous Hollie band members Tony Hicks, Bobby Elliott, plus longtime members bassist Ray Stiles (ex-Mud) & keyboardist Ian Parker.

Obviously They have a different vocal sound now with Peter Howarth's Lead vocals & 'Howarth-Hicks-Lauri' as harmony singers to the famous Hollies sound(s) on the big hits of 'Clarke-Hicks-Nash' and 'Clarke-Hicks-Sylvester' ....but the same use of strong lead vocals and tight vocal harmonies combined with strong guitarwork (both Hicks & Lauri) & powering drumming by Elliott on superior pop/rock material that has always been The Hollies trademark is still in place

note the way they take the 1965 hit 'Look Through Any Window' on the live album....with the fast free rockin' guitar style the way 'Lynyrd Skynyrd' might have tackled it...!!

Steve Lauri also plays some lead guitar too (featured as lead on songs; 'Weakness' & 'Break Me' on the 'Staying Power' album) while Hicks-Lauri do some harmony guitar playing the way Marvin & Farrar once did...

So "Classic Hollies" featuring Clarke with Nash/Sylvester , The 'Mike Rickfors' Hollies (1972-73) & the current Hollies (2004 onwards with Howarth & Lauri) are all well worth seeking out...

The Shads covered both 'The Air That I Breathe' & 'He Ain't Heavy...' as their 'Hollies tributes' while the (unissued) 1981 Hollies recording(s) of a Clarke-Hicks song; 'I Don't Understand You (Anymore)' was produced by Bruce Welch, and one version featured Alan Jones on bass & Cliff Hall on keyboards and was cut at Brian Bennett's home studio in a kind of Hollies/Shadows liason

Alan Jones also played bass guitar on a rare Hollies instrumental 'Driver' (1981) and back in 1965 future Shadows member (circa 1969-70) & M, W, & F keyboardist Alan Hawkshaw played piano on The Hollies album track' 'Put Yourself in My Place' ('Big Al' even taking a piano solo on the track)

A CD set of Allan Clarke's three solo albums cut for EMI between 1973 and 1976, including his non album EMI single cover of Bruce Springsteen's 'Born To Run' has just been re-issued.

Hollies Songwriting:

The Hollies WERE songwriting from the word go - initially 'Clarke-Nash' (from 1963 penning their first two hit singles' 'B' sides) but then from mid 1964 to mid 1966 they put all their joint songwriting efforts under the ficticious name 'Ransford' (like The Shads has done earlier on 'Gonzales' etc) - they actually wrote their 1964 no.7 chart hit 'We're Through' while both The Searchers and Paul & Barry Ryan later had a 1967 chart hit with a cover of The Hollies song; 'Have You Ever Loved Somebody'

In 1966 The Everly Brothers - with help from Hollies members and both future Led Zeppelin men Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones cut their album; 'Two Yanks in England' which was comprised of 75% Hollies original songs

The Hollies penned most of their second album; 'In The Hollies Style' (1964) and wrote their 'B' sides and a few EP tracks besides various other album tracks over 1963-1966

From Summer 1966 they dropped the 'Ransford' tag & wrote under the 'Clarke-Hicks-Nash' team banner (even solo composed songs were put under the full team banner like 'Lennon-McCartney' did) while Graham Nash co-wrote John Walker's 1967 solo hit 'Annabella'

Clarke-Hicks-Nash wrote three full sixties Hollies albums; 'For Certain Because...', (1966) 'Evolution' & 'Butterfly' (both 1967) and all their hit singles from 'Stop Stop Stop' (1966) up to 'Jennifer Eccles' (1968)

After Graham Nash left for CSN (& Y) in December 1968 they reverted to outside writers for a few singles tho' Allan Clarke co-wrote both chart hits; 'Hey Willy' & 'Long Cool Woman (in A Black Dress) - a USA No.2 hit - ' in 1971, and later he alone composed ; 'The Day That Curly Billy ...' in 1973, while the Tony Hicks song; 'Too Young To Be Married' (1970), which was only an album track in the UK, topped the charts as a single in Australia, and the Tony Hicks-Kenny Lynch composed album track; 'Long Dark Road' was a top thirty hit as a belated single in the USA in 1971 reaching no.26.

Later their second songwriting team of; 'Clarke-Hicks-Sylvester' composed all or most of five seventies Hollies albums from 1974 to 1978 on Polydor records, composing a number of overseas Hollies hit singles in that period..

[Fenderman]

Being a fan of the Hollies ive seen the documentry a few times and enjoyed it but for some reason it stopped at 1974 after 'The air that i breathe'. I'd liked to have seen it continue to the present day.

[Monty]

The DVD Documentary - shown on Sky Arts again recently - was aimed largely at the American market where sadly much interest in The Hollies tailed off after 'The Air That I Breathe' in 1974

The USA had few of their seventies Polydor albums released stateside - which were very strong re original material, from 1974 to 1978 - notably 'Hollies '74, 'Another Night', 'Write On', 'Russian Roulette', 'A Crazy Steal' and also their 1979 album '5317704' (which spells out the name : 'hollies' if typed out & viewed upside down on a pocket calculator)

after a rather 'mish mash' compiled USA album combining some 'Write On / Russian Roulette' tracks in 1976 (which got little or no promotion) nothing further by way of new albums was issued in the USA until about 1983, besides the unpromoted 1978 set 'A Crazy Steal' that sank in both UK and USA...

so to many Americans The Hollies effectively 'ended' in 1974...!

In the UK they drifted off Radio One onto Radio Two with any new singles - and after 'Air' probably cut too many slowish ballads on their singles which failed to register with the wider public - where as some uptempo and powering seventies album tracks MIGHT have given them more hit singles !

a album of 'Buddy Holly' songs flopped in 1980 in the UK - it wasn't done in a Rock & Roll style and appealed to neither Holly or many Hollies fans, getting hostile reviews (despite being an interesting re-interpretation of Buddy's songs in many various styles) - this album seemed to cause Polydor to 'give up' on the band too as their contract was not renewed (as ten years later just as with The Shads too !)

It does appear that Polydor only really saw them as an 'oldies' commerical pop act after 1974 too (sound familiar to Shads fans ?) as they only ever properly promoted the 'Hollies Live Hits' album in early 1977 - which duly hit No.4 in the UK album chart despite the band having had no hit single since 'Air' in 1974 (although they continued to have chart hits overseas, most notably in Europe & New Zealand for most of the seventies, even a few chart hits in Germany in the early 80's too)

EMI saw their 'hit' potential (just as with the Shads in 1977) and quickly did another '20 Golden Greats' set of The Hollies past hits in 1978 that made No.2 so The Hollies had BIG charting UK albums two years running in the later seventies despite no current hit singles or any chart success with their then new studio albums....but their concert audiences remained faithful (as with The Shads) and after Terry Sylvester & Bernie Calvert left the band together in mid 1981 a brief reunion with old friend Graham Nash (on leave from his CSN commitments) saw the 'Holliedaze' hits medley (1981) chart in the UK (Nash did TOTP with them to promote it), then 'Stop in The Name of Love' (with Nash) was a top thirty hit in the USA in 1983, they also cut a reunion album on WEA Records 'What Goes Around...' and did a USA tour (a Live album of a concert on that tour with Nash was issued much later)

they successfully toured the UK, Europe & down under throughout the 80's releasing the odd single on EMI (doing the 'Find A Family' ITV show song) but it was when on of their most famous old hits was used in a TV commercial they enjoyed a return to the wider public attention

The re-issue of 'He Ain't Heavy..' (used in a beer commercial) put them back at number one in 1988 and renewed interest in the group who thereafter continued touring successfully until Allan Clarke finally retired at the end of 1999, with Tony Hicks & Bobby Elliott of the 'classic Hollies' left running the band.

one of their album songs, a majestic cover of the Judee Sill song; 'Jesus Was A Crossmaker' (sung by Terry Sylvester back in 1972) was later used in the film 'Elizabethtown' (as the film's Director loved it) while Allan Clarke's 'Long Cool Woman (In A Black Dress)' has been used in films & on TV...

After Clarke's retirement Ex-Move singer Carl Wayne then fronted them from 2000 until his sudden shock death from throat cancer in August 2004
(Wayne having duly fully re-established them as a concert & touring act)

Peter Howarth & Steve Lauri joined the band within a week of each other & they have continued to be a successful act since then, once more releasing new albums for EMI & touring UK, Europe and most recently Australia & New Zealand.

[LANKY]

I've seen the Hollies live at least half a dozen times since 1974 with various line-ups and what I like about them is that they've remained a proper working group in that they tour relentlessly, they give the audiences what they want in terms of the hits, but they also keep things fresh by introducing new material. They also have a great shared sense of humour on stage. Tony Hicks is one of the great unsung heroes on guitar - as someone else said, he isn't flashy and doesn't usually play long solos (except for Long Cool Woman where I've seen him really let go, throwing in quotes from other songs like "Shakin' all over"). Tony also obviously has a picture in the attic - whatever he's on, I'll have some). By the way, while we're talking about great Sixties groups that are still going strong, how about a thread on the Searchers? John McNally is a pretty nifty player too, and what I've said about the Hollies pretty much goes for the Searchers too.

[Fenderman]

I'd say Tony Hicks is criminally underrated on guitar, when anyone mentions guitar greats the same old names are trotted out but i don't ever remember Tony Hicks ever been mentioned. Listen to his acoustic solo on 'Too young to be married' which knocks me out every time, he's also an accomplished songwriter and wrote many tracks for them from about 1969 onwards.