The Hollies



"This is station management with an announcement. I wish to apologize for the disc jockey calling that song, which is, ‘A Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress’ by The Hollies, as ‘A Long Black Woman in a Cool Dress’ and ask forgiveness of any of our listeners who were offended. In cooperation with our friends in the music industry, the disc jockey who made those remarks has been properly disciplined and won’t be returning. For that reason, we recommend you do not eat any hamburger processed this week. We take music very seriously here. All the best music, KFVD, Los Angeles."

- Instrument of God

The Hollies are an English rock and roll group, formed in Manchester in the early 1960s. Named after Buddy Holly, they became known for their their distinctive vocal harmony style, courtesy of lead vocalist Allan Clarke, and guitarist/vocalists Graham Nash and Tony Hicks, with Terry Sylvester taking over Nash's end of the harmonies after the latter departed the band. Though the Hollies didn't quite achieve the same level of success as their contemporaries The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, they had a wide variety of hit singles in their native England and enjoyed some success internationally. They had a few hits in the United States, but they are perhaps best known in that country for being the group that Graham Nash was in prior to Crosby, Stills, and Nash. The Hollies were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010.

Well-known Hollies songs include "Here I Go Again", "I'm Alive", "Bus Stop", "Stop! Stop! Stop!", "Carrie-Anne", "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother", "Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress", and "The Air That I Breathe".


 * Stay with the Hollies (1964)
 * In the Hollies Style (1964)
 * Hollies (1965)
 * Would You Believe? (1966)
 * For Certain Because (1966)
 * Evolution (1967)
 * Butterfly (1967)
 * Hollies Sing Dylan (1969)
 * Hollies Sing Hollies (1969)
 * Confessions of the Mind (1970)
 * Distant Light (1971)
 * Romany (1972)
 * Out on the Road (1973)
 * Hollies (1974)
 * Another Night (1975)
 * Write On (1976)
 * Russian Roulette (1976)
 * A Crazy Steal (1978)
 * 5317704 (1979)
 * Buddy Holly (1980)
 * What Goes Around (1983)
 * Staying Power (2006)
 * Then, Now, Always (2009)


 * Album Title Drop: A Crazy Steal takes its title from a line in "Hello to Romance".
 * Artistic License Ships: "Row the Boat Together" features a man from Tokyo who claims that he "used to handle a junk back home". Junks were Chinese, not Japanese.
 * The Band Minus the Face: After lead singer Allan Clarke left the band in 1971, they hired an unknown Swedish singer named Mikael Rikfors to replace him. Rikfors was solid in the studio, but live shows were another matter. Rikfors completely lacked Clarke's charisma on stage, and his sound was so different from Clarke's that when the band tried to play their old hits, the results sounded strange and awkward. The albums recorded with Rikfors are highly regarded, but were commercial failures that sounded nothing like the trademark Hollies sound. The band eventually reunited with Clarke, and Rikfors was let go.
 * Clarke retired from the music business in 1999 and was replaced by Carl Wayne, then finally Peter Howarth. They've recorded two albums with Howarth, which have largely been rejected by the fanbase for not sounding much like the Hollies.
 * Belly Dancer: "Stop! Stop! Stop!" is about a man who is so obsessed with a belly dancer that he tries to grab her in the middle of her performance.
 * Black Sheep Hit: "Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress", an Homage to Creedence Clearwater Revival, is harder than their usual material. It also differs from the band's usual output in that the lead guitar was played by Allan Clarke as opposed to usual guitarist Tony Hicks, and it contains a solo vocal from Clarke, as opposed to the group's trademark harmonies.
 * Cover Album: Hollies Sing Dylan, an album of Bob Dylan covers, and Buddy Holly, an album of Buddy Holly covers. The group's first album, Stay with the Hollies, contained 14 tracks, only one of which was an original composition.
 * Cross Referenced Titles: The band followed up their album Hollies Sing Dylan, a Bob Dylan covers album, with Hollies Sing Hollies, an album containing entirely original compositions.
 * Cut and Paste Translation: Like most British groups of their album, the Hollies were subject to having their UK albums chopped and rearranged for the American market. Unlike the Beatles and the Stones, however, the Hollies saw this practice continue well into the 1970s. For instance, their US label did not even bother to release their 1976 albums Write On and Russian Roulette separately. Instead, they released Clarke, Hicks, Sylvester, Calvert, and Elliot, which combined seemingly randomly picked songs from both albums - and then for good measure tossed in their cover of Bruce Springsteen's "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)", despite that song having already been released (even in the US) on their 1975 album Another Night.
 * First and Foremost: "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" has been recorded by many artists, but people continue to associate the song with the Hollies.
 * Greatest Hits Album: Numerous ones. The Hollies were always regarded as mainly a singles act in the United States. Thus, most Hollies CDs that you'll find in American stores today are compilations of some sort.
 * Hilarious Outtakes: 25th Anniversary Collection includes studio chatter at the beginning of a few songs. Before "Ain't That Just Like Me", Graham Nash playfully whispers "Bastard!" to Hollies producer Ron Richards under his breath, and Richards retorts back "I heard that!" The intro to "Yes I Will" contains an exchange where Tony Hicks complains about a microphone stand being placed too low, to be told by Nash to "sit on a chair, then!"
 * Long Runner Lineup: The lineup of Allan Clarke (lead vocals), Terry Sylvester (guitar, vocals), Tony Hicks (guitar, vocals), Bernie Calvert (bass), and Bobby Elliott (drums) qualifies under Type 5, lasting from 1968-1971 and 1973-1981.
 * Magnum Opus Dissonance: Graham Nash's big Sgt Pepper-style production, "King Midas in Reverse", made only a small dent on the UK singles charts. The band's next single, "Jennifer Eccles", a lightweight pop number they pretty much wrote as a joke, became a huge hit. Nash was not pleased.
 * Market-Based Title: Most of their albums were retitled in their US editions with whatever their distributor felt was the most popular song on that album. The most blatant offender was Butterfly, issued in the US as Dear Eloise/King Midas in Reverse.
 * Nobody Loves the Bassist: The bass tended to be mixed very low in the Hollies' recordings. According to producer Ron Richards, this was because he didn't consider Bernie Calvert a very good bass player.
 * No Export for You: The band's second album with Mikael Rikfors, Out on the Road, was originally released only in Germany. The band decided not to issue it in the UK or the US due to Allan Clarke's imminent return. To date, it hasn't been given a widespread release in either country, though fans who are keen to get it can purchase an imported version.
 * Non-Appearing Title: Confessions of the Mind alone contains three of them: "Survival of the Fittest", "Confessions of a Mind", and "Separated". "I Wanna Shout" is an example also, depending on which version you come across. Some pressings list the title as "We Wanna Shout", which is the actual sung phrase.
 * Other examples include "Crusader", "Lullaby to Tim", "Ye Olde Toffee Shoppe", "Postcard", "Elevated Observations", "Soldier's Dilemma", "Marigold Gloria Swansong", "Lizzie and the Rainman", "Rubber Lucy", "The Day That Curly Billy Shot Down Crazy Sam McGee", "Mexico Gold", "Hello Lady Goodbye", and "Soldier's Song".
 * Not Staying for Breakfast: Happens to the singer in "Hello Lady Goodbye" when a long-term girlfriend breaks up with him this way, even going so far as to clean her clothes out of the closet and taking her favorite chair with her. The guy tries to get over it by having a one night stand with a woman he meets in a bar, then realizes he's found love again when the woman he took home with him last night is still there in the morning.
 * Revival by Commercialization: "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" reached No. 1 in the UK in 1988 (almost 20 years after its original release) after being featured prominently in an advert for Miller Lite beer.
 * Self-Titled Album: They had two separate albums called Hollies, released in 1965 and 1974. The latter is often referred to as Hollies '74 to avoid confusion. The 1979 album 5317704 also counts, since in 7-segment font this spells "hOLLIES" upside-down, and the album art reflects this.
 * Something Something Leonard Bernstein: It takes several listens to decipher all the lyrics to "Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress".
 * Step Up to the Microphone: During Graham Nash's days in the band, he and Allan Clarke pretty much split the lead vocals 50/50. When Nash left, Clarke took over as the primary singer, but other band members would get the occasional lead vocal. Terry Sylvester usually sang one or two songs per album, and Tony Hicks sang lead on "Pegasus", "Look at Life", and "Born a Man".
 * Together Umbrella: "Bus Stop"
 * Unintentional Period Piece: Most of the Hollies' music is timeless, but every song on Russian Roulette screams "late 1970s". Of course, that does not make it a bad album by any means.
 * Vocal Tag Team: In the early days, Allan Clarke and Graham Nash would trade off lead vocals. For an example within a single song, "Carrie-Anne" features Nash, Tony Hicks, and Clarke each singing different parts of the song.