A String of SuccessesDuring the week of May 25, 1963, musical acts of all descriptions occupied the 50 places on the British record charts. The Beatles were at #1 with "From Me To You" and ex-Shadows Jet Harris and Tony Meehan were at #2 with an instrumental entitled "Scarlett O'Hara." Scattered across the rest of the British Top 50 were songs by transplanted Scotsman Johnny Cymbal ("Mr. Bass Mann"), the Springfields ("Island Of Dreams"), featuring Dusty Springfield in her folk music phase, and Sweden's spacesuit-clad rock 'n' roll loonies, the Spotnicks, among others. Ensconced some 49 places down from the Beatles' single that same week was Parlophone R5030, "(Ain't That) Just Like Me," a debut recording by The Hollies. Eventually it would rise to #25, a modest but respectable first showing, and probably comparable to what the Beatles' "Love Me Do" would have done had Brian Epstein not helped cook the record books by purchasing a couple of thousand copies through his NEMS Record Shop. The group followed this up with another Coasters cover, "Searchin'," recorded July 25, 1963 in 13 takes, with one of the band's managers, Tommy Sanderson, playing the piano. It was released the following month, with the B-side, "Whole World Over," another Clarke-Nash original, appropriated from the April 4 session. This record did decidedly better, entering the charts on August 29, 1963, and eventually peaking at #12 in England. Naturally, in this prior to the Beatles' arrival in America, there was no U.S. release of either record, nor any consideration of an American issue. These were records conceived and sold entirely to a local and national market, though by the time of "Searchin'," with the Beatles on their third #1 single, it was becoming clear to everyone that there was real money and fame to be had for musicians from the north of England, at least in England. It was just after the recording of "Searchin'" that another line-up change in The Hollies took place, as drummer Don Rathbone left the band. "I think Don Rathbone left the band," Clarke said, "because he wasn't that good a drummer, and it was becoming obvious from our recordings." In a 1974 interview in Melody Maker, Clarke elaborated: "He was good enough for roadwork, but when we got in the studio he just didn't come up to scratch because it showed more on record than it did on stage." Rathbone, who hailed from Stoke-on-Trent, left the band in the late summer of 1963 to go into management, before leaving the music business. His replacement was virtually waiting in the wings, Hicks's old Dolphins' band mate Bobby Elliott, who had moved on from the Dolphins to playing with Shane Fenton (who later emerged in the 1970s glitter scene as Alvin Stardust) and the Fentones. The classic Hollies line-up was now in place. Elliott's arrival was more than a little fortuitous, for not only was Elliott--whose personal musical interests went more toward jazz than rock 'n' roll--one of the best drummers on the band scene in the north of England, but he had a good ear for songs and music in general. In later years, when The Hollies were going through musical and membership transitions that left their stage act a little less than tight, his playing would impart a laser-like focus to more than one concert. But more immediately, in the early fall of 1963, his and Tony Hicks's discovery of an old copy of "Stay" by Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs, unearthed at a junk shop in Scotland, gave the band the source for its third single. The October 11, 1963 session yielded a proper single in only eight takes (the band was getting better in the studio), and the November 1963 release charted immediately and became their first Top 10 success, rising to #8 in England. The B-side was a Clarke-Nash leftover from a May 1963 session with Rathbone still on drums, "Now's The Time." As a sign of the times, it became their first single to be released in America. By the late fall of 1963, some U.S. record companies were becoming aware that there was something stirring in England that could, although it was unlikely, catch on in America as well. "Stay" was the first Hollies record to benefit from these vague indications of interest in British rock 'n' roll, making its first appearance on this side of the Atlantic in January 1964, courtesy of a contract with Imperial Records negotiated by Ron Richards and Tommy Sanderson. By that time the Beatles' records were showing up in the States, along with a handful of other British releases. The Hollies' "Stay" was part of that handful, and it never charted in America, a situation with which the group would become familiar over the next year or two. The Hollies' relationship with Imperial would later prove frustrating, but at the time simply getting their records out in America was a breakthrough. The Hollies' fourth single, "Just One Look," was another cover, this time of an original by American singer Doris Troy that was first heard by the band at a party. "It just stood out as a great song," Tony Hicks remembers. The song was to become the earliest track by The Hollies that most Americans would know. Recorded on January 27, 1964 and released the following month, "Just One Look" was the record that established The Hollies once and for all as hit-makers, rising to #2 in England. In America, however, it barely scraped the charts, edging to #98 for a week, but the British success was still significant, a breakthrough for the band, and also gave a special benefit to Tony Hicks and Bobby Elliott. Up to this time, all of The Hollies' B-sides had been written by Allan Clarke and Elliott, who benefited as songwriters from the success of the A-side--the authors of a single's B-side collecting royalties on the same basis as the authors of the A-side. For the B-side of "Just One Look," however, at Ron Richards' urging, Hicks and Elliott delivered their one and only collaboration as songwriters, in the form of "Keep Off That Friend Of Mine." The singing on "Just One Look" was the finest The Hollies had committed to vinyl up to this time, with radiant harmonies and a powerful, soulful lead vocal performance by Clarke, crisp guitar playing, and drumming by Bobby Elliott that also managed to stand out amid all of this activity, with Eric Haydock providing a melodic yet rock solid performance at the bottom of it all on the bass. It was probably the classic, perfect record by the early Hollies, showing them off to best advantage, reshaping an American song in their image. "Keep Off Of That Friend Of Mine," by contrast, didn't reveal Hicks and Elliott as great unheralded songwriting talents, but it did give Hicks one of his best guitar showcases on record from this era. By this time, The Hollies were firmly established in the front rank of British beat boom bands, with a respectable record of success and a formidable stage act. Clarke's, Nash's and Hicks's voices were among the best in the business, and the instrumental trio of Hicks, Haydock and Elliott was like a steamroller on stage, flattening much of the local competition. A number of their early tours put them alongside acts like the Rolling Stones, where they held their own. By rights, the band should have been a sensation in the press as well, but somehow The Hollies were not accorded the kind of respect and attention that their northern peers--Gerry and the Pacemakers and the Searchers (the Beatles by then having no equals, in terms of success or exposure)--received. The group's problem was two-fold. The first lay in its image, which was somewhat indistinct--the group's only "gimmick" was its incredible harmonies, which somehow didn't make as good copy as the silly dance steps of their Manchester compatriots Freddie and the Dreamers, or the overbearing cuteness of the likes of Herman's Hermits. And somehow, Searchers spokesperson Chris Curtis was always being printed saying something deemed quotable, and Searchers bassist Tony Jackson was also treated as something of a "star" within the group, while The Hollies were seldom written up at all. The other problem rested with the way their work was perceived by the more serious critics and listeners. The Hollies were already "suspect" for the prettiness and upbeat nature of their work, which made them seem like nothing more than a pop outfit. They might've gotten past that problem however, if only a successful songwriter or two had emerged from their ranks very early on, as the Beatles had. But The Hollies' songwriting efforts were confined to the B-sides of their singles, and showed off the limitations of their abilities in this area. As it was, their fifth single, "Here I Go Again," was to feature an original (credited to "Chester Mann," as in Manchester) that had a very high haunt count in its verses and melodies, but it was just not considered enough. And as long as The Hollies specialized in covering established hits from America, they were going to have a credibility problem with more serious critics and listeners. Their first album, Stay With The Hollies, released in January 1964, the same month that they recorded "Just One Look," consisted entirely of covers and only seemed to exacerbate their problem. The fact that each of their first four singles were covers of American R&B, and two of them specifically songs by the Coasters, had alienated some listeners. Naturally, all English bands of the era did their own covers of some American R&B, and if all a group was interested in was potential chart action, that was no problem--a record either sold or it didn't. But the Beatles and, even more so, the Rolling Stones and the Animals, succeeded separating the sheep from the goats with their R&B covers. John Lennon's larynx-tearing performance on the Beatles' version of "Twist And Shout," and the group's only slightly less impassioned versions of "Please Mr. Postman," "You've Really Got A Hold On Me" and "Long Tall Sally"; the Stones' cranked-up, high-voltage renderings of Chuck Berry's "Come On" and the Valentinos' "It's All Over Now"; and the Animals' definitive cover of "House Of The Rising Sun" (which they got from a record by Josh White, not Bob Dylan, as has long been reported)--all of these records raised the ante for any other British groups seeking to interpret American songs and get good press for it on top of good sales. The Hollies got the latter, but not always the former. That dubious arbiter of British taste, Screaming Lord Sutch, reviewing the group's single "Searchin'," in the August 31, 1963 Melody Maker, wrote: "I can't describe how much I hate it. It's a complete muck up of a great R&B thing. Horrible when you know the original. This record is absolutely diabolical. I loathe it and I hope it flops." Fortunately, the British public didn't share his disdain, and "Searchin'" did sell. To be taken seriously as well as sell records, however, a band had to do more than just pleasant or lively covers of American songs. To some onlookers, it was unclear at first just what The Hollies were trying to do with their covers, become ballsier competitors to Freddie and the Dreamers, or players in the bigger leagues, alongside the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Allan Clarke felt compelled to respond to this in the February 22, 1964 issue of Melody Maker: "[We do covers of American songs] because we like doing them, we think they sound good, and we do them our own way. We're not comparing ourselves with the Coasters but just the same we've done two of their numbers." More recently, Clarke still maintained, "They were simply good songs, and we did them differently." Still, the bookings poured in, regardless of the critics, and the band was working harder than ever. In April 1964, the band embarked on a seven-week tour of England booked in support of the Dave Clark 5, then riding the wave of success generated by their early hits. The group's fifth single, "We're Through," was their first original A-side, written by Allan Clarke, Tony Hicks and Graham Nash under their new collective pseudonym of "L. Ransford." The song garnered a favorable Melody Maker (September 12, 1964) critique from Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, appearing as a guest reviewer in the magazine's "Blind Date" column, in which a celebrity was asked to comment on new recordings without being told whose record it was. "Liked that guitar run," guitarist Jones remarked of Tony Hicks's playing. "I don't know who it is, but I'm pretty sure it's British. Great guitar solo, very light and pleasant. Not exciting but pleasant. Don't think it's a hit, but it's pleasant. If I were programming Radio Caroline, I'd play it quite a bit." The mix of voices, especially the placement of the chorus in relation to Clarke's lead vocal, and the different guitar sounds was quite a departure from any of the group's previous records, and if one listens closely to the beat and the rhythm guitar part, one can hear the forerunner of one of the band's most popular and enduring album tracks, "Tell Me To My Face."
Recorded on August 25, 1964, "We're Through" was released the following month, paired off with an original B-side, the somewhat harder rocking "Come On Back," and on September 26, 1964, the single entered the British charts at No. 27 and, during a relatively short stay, peaked at #7, a fact that, in the wake of "Just One Look's" #2 showing, discouraged the record company from pursuing any more original A-sides from the band at that time. As an original A-side, however, it was a milestone for the band, and portended better things to come for them. In January 1965, the group returned to outside sources with a new single, Gerry Goffin and Russ Titelman's "Yes I Will," which was brought to the band's attention by producer Ron Richards from a demo on which Goffin's then wife Carole King was singing. The record, cut in 16 takes on January 3, 1965, had a more elegant sound than their previous singles, with more sophisticated playing and singing. It was strongly reminiscent of the Beatles, the Roulettes and the Merseybeats, except perhaps more elegant in its singing than anything those groups would have achieved. The B-side, the "L. Ransford" original "Nobody," recorded in two takes during a December 15, 1964 session, was a somewhat bluesier than usual number, complete with a dominant harmonica--played by Allan Clarke, who did all of the harp on The Hollies' records--and a raunchy guitar sound for a change.
"Yes I Will" reached #9 on the British charts, and by this time, it was clear that The Hollies had staying power among the first wave of post-Beatles British Beat bands. Unlike some of the other first wave bands, whose popularity had reached a plateau or begun to recede--or which could only maintain their audience with the heaviest of publicity pushes--The Hollies' audience was not only consolidating but growing, and each single marked a new step forward, an experiment with a slightly different instrumental sound or vocal arrangement. Moreover, they were doing it without a huge amount of publicity--the band was not mentioned much in the music press during those early days. By the spring of 1964 in England, the shine was beginning to wear off the so-called Merseybeat sound and the bands specializing in it, and it was clear that a lot of groups that had sold records with relatively little effort up to that point were going to face an increasingly competitive musical environment. The Hollies were staying ahead of the curve, continuing to evolve as a recording act, and outclassing their competition onstage. In March 1965, with "Yes I Will" still ensconced at #11 on the charts, the group began its biggest tour of England yet, booked with the Rolling Stones. Interviewed in Melody Maker on March 27, 1965, Hicks explained the difference between the group's live and studio sound, which mostly involved the guitars. "We don't use a rhythm guitar onstage--we think they blur the sound, get in the way. I'm happy to say a lot of people, including Americans, have complimented us on our clean instrumental sound. I believe this is why." Indeed, the group's records in some ways sold it short in terms of its sound onstage, which was far more powerful than the singles would have indicated. Onstage, the group resembled acts such as Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, and Screaming Lord Sutch's Savages, as much as it did the Beatles, Hicks's guitar and Eric Haydock's bass, coupled with Elliott's drumming, making up one of the tightest, loudest instrumental ensembles this side of the Who. Hicks also placed himself in a somewhat conservative light in the same article, separating himself from Keith Richards's comments in the same piece about lessons not being necessary for a would-be guitarist. "Unlike Keith Richard, I do believe in budding guitarists having lessons. I took two years of classical guitar lessons, and I still find them helpful." In April of that year, The Hollies made their first visit to the United States, a week-long engagement at the Paramount Theater in Brooklyn, on a bill hosted by comic Soupy Sales and starring Little Richard, among others. During this same visit, they also made their first appearance on the network music showcase Hullabaloo. In May 1965, the band recorded "I'm Alive," a song written by American Clint Ballard Jr., which became their first British chart-topping hit in July, before giving way the Byrds' debut single "Mr. Tambourine Man." In America, by contrast, the song did no better than #107, an embarrassing state of affairs for the band, which it hoped to do something about when it visited the United States in the fall of that year. Stylistically, however, the song showed the group in a much stronger light than its previous singles. Additionally, during the summer of 1965, the Clarke-Hicks-Nash songwriting team, working as "L. Ransford," achieved what, at the time, seemed like a major breakthrough. The three were signed to a publishing contract by Dick James Music and given their own publishing imprint, Gralto Music (for GRaham, ALlan, and TOny--Clarke: "And when Graham left, it became Alto Music). In songwriting, the prestige of the publishing house with which one signs is a badge of success, much as the status of a record company can be for a recording artist. And in 1965 Dick James was the most important publisher of rock 'n' roll music in England, having signed up John Lennon and Paul McCartney at the outset of their careers and never looked back. Unfortunately, as Bobby Elliott explained in a recent interview, the terms of the Dick James contract ultimately proved less-than-satisfying. "We were very young at the time, and I don't think anyone was finally happy with what they got. Uncle Dick hadn't looked after us very well at all." Clarke echoed these sentiments, saying, "It was the same with us as it was with Elton John and a lot of other people during that period. When you're very young, and someone comes to you with an offer of 1000 pounds each as an advance on songwriting, which certainly seemed like a lot of money then--in fact, it was a lot of money--the tendency was to take it." Still, regrets aside, this era seemed to herald a golden age for memorable original hits by The Hollies, including "Stop Stop Stop," "Pay You Back With Interest," "On A Carousel," "Carrie Anne," "King Midas In Reverse," "Dear Eloise" and "Jennifer Eccles," as well as numerous album tracks of extraordinary beauty. That period, from 1966 thru 1968, saw Clarke, Hicks and Nash become one of the strongest songwriting teams in English rock, capable of holding their own against the likes of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. In July 1965, The Hollies announced that they would make their first venture into cabaret, playing both the Princess and Domino Clubs in Manchester on the night of July 30. Their 25-minute sets evidently went over well, with offers of return engagements and favorable coverage in the music press. Cabaret shows were very lucrative, as Nash later observed, although the group subsequently came to avoid doing them because the setting tended to take the edge off of a performance. As Clarke later observed, the audience wasn't as demanding of excitement as a real concert audience, but at the same time the band was often competing with the food and, especially, the alcohol, for the audience's full attention. In August 1965 they band did a tour of Germany, and then set its sights on America again. Neither their first tour of the United States, nor their record releases in the States had been successful for The Hollies, and the group went over in September 1965 intending to do something about the latter, if at all possible. In addition to Chicago engagements on the same bill with the Supremes and the Animals, they were scheduled to spend a week in New York City for an appearance on the ABC music showcase series Hullabaloo, and, as Hicks described it in the British press at the time, "confront their record company" about the difficulties they'd had selling their music in the United States. The group's relations with Imperial Records were never very good, according to Elliott. Not only weren't the band's records getting over to the American public, but the executives from the label were less than supportive, somewhat surprising since The Hollies were the only major British pop act on the American label.
October saw their new single, the Graham Gouldman-authored "Look Through Any Window," reach #4 in the United Kingdom, while their accompanying album, Hollies, reached #8. For the song's B-side, the group cut a version of Clarke and Nash's very first song, "So Lonely." For their next single, The Hollies reached out to the Beatles repertory, in the form of George Harrison's "If I Needed Someone," which they cut in November 1965. Recorded at the supposed suggestion of George Martin, the song proved to be the most controversial of the group's early singles: No sooner was it released in December, than Harrison denounced The Hollies' version as "soul-less," and the press attacked the group for allegedly riding on the coattails of the Beatles. As Clarke pointed out in a recent interview, however, he genuinely loved the song, and they did do it differently from the Beatles, especially Elliott's drumming, which was highly complicated and animated. Additionally, at the time, through a misunderstanding, it was thought that the song wasn't going to be released by the Beatles--at the time that The Hollies' record was cut, the Beatles' own version hadn't surfaced commercially. As a #20 single in England, "If I Needed Someone" was a setback, and an unhappy one, although people who hear The Hollies' version today generally seem to appreciate it. Their next record, "I Can't Let Go," was a discovery of Tony Hicks's at the offices of Dick James Music, one of two songs that he came away with (the other was John Phillips's "California Dreamin'," which had not yet emerged as a Mamas and the Papas song, which they never cut). Cut on January 13, 1966, "I Can't Let Go" was released the following month and seemingly restored the group's good fortune, rising to #2 in England and #42 in America. "I Can't Let Go" also marked the final appearance on a Hollies single of bassist Eric Haydock. The group went on a tour of Europe soon after the recording of "I Can't Let Go," including its first appearance in concert in Warsaw, Poland. At the time, Haydock was becoming disaffected from the rest of the band, according to several of those who were present--he had first shown signs of problems on the U.S. tour the previous fall, when he'd resisted remaining in the country to perform amid a problem with the band's work permits. When The Hollies had returned to England, the band had found him unwilling or unable to perform at various scheduled gigs. Initially they were told that Haydock was having some sort of emotional problems, but then they'd learned that he was out enjoying himself with friends during the evenings that he was supposed to be playing or, barring that, convalescing. At around the same time, Haydock began to raise questions about the way that the group's earnings from its live shows were being handled by its management, and he was out-voted in terms of what, if anything, to do about it. As it turned out, there was later discovered to be some irregular handling of the band's accounts, and a change was made. By that time, however, it was too late, both from a personal and professional point of view, for any reconciliation between Haydock and the rest of the group. Haydock had begun fading out of the group before his firing in April 1966, and for a time the band relied on various replacement bassists, including Beatles acquaintance Klaus Voorman, whom they couldn't afford to engage full-time. Jack Bruce even sat in on the May 10 recording session for the movie title-song "After The Fox," with co-author Burt Bacharach at the piano as well. On May 18, 1966, it was announced that Bernie Calvert (born September 16, 1942), the former bassist with the Dolphins, was The Hollies' new bassist. Calvert's tenure with The Hollies is the subject of some controversy for fans. Many don't consider him to have been a good bass player, at least compared to Haydock, whose playing had a much higher profile on the group's records. Ron Richards seemed to bear this out in his contribution to the notes of Epic Records' 20 Song Anthology, remarking that Calvert was not a good bass player, and that Richards deliberately buried his sound in the mix of their songs once he joined the group. The group's first major project with its new line-up wasn't a Hollies record at all, but something more unusual. The group had been selected to work on the new album by Clarke and Nash's longtime idols the Everly Brothers, writing new songs and recording behind the duo along with session guitarist Jimmy Page. The resulting album, Two Yanks In England, recorded in the midst of a long fallow period in their history, is generally regarded as the best of the Everly Brothers' long-players of the 1960s prior to Roots. On May 18, 1966, The Hollies recorded the song that was to become their long-awaited American breakthrough single, "Bus Stop." Written by Graham Gouldman, and featuring an opening that was worked out on stage with help from Klaus Voorman when he was sitting in with the band, "Bus Stop" rose to #5 in America as well as making it to the same spot on the English charts. By this time, the band had blossomed as songwriters and recording artists. Its next album, For Certain Because, was their most elaborate yet, its songs, all originals, filled with unusual instrumentation, including marimbas, kettle drums and other exotic sounds. In many respects The Hollies' equivalent to the Beatles' Rubber Soul album, For Certain Because was the first album by the group in which not a single track was filler, and on which every track could have been either a proper A-side or B-side of a single. Indeed, one song off of the album, "Pay You Back With Interest," was issued as a single by Imperial in America after the band signed with Epic, while another, "Tell Me To My Face," was later covered very successfully in the 1970s by Dan Fogelberg and Tim Weisberg, and remains in The Hollies' repertory in 1996. Other songs, such as "Clown," were more personal compositions by Graham Nash, who was starting to develop a distinctly individual approach to songwriting. Some time during 1966, Bobby Elliott also began to develop his art further, recording three solo tracks, part of a suggested larger project that never came to fruition, in conjunction with fellow drummer Bob Henrit of the Roulettes. This was a golden era for The Hollies as a performing unit as well. In concert, they worked on the same bill with acts such as the Spencer Davis Group and the Small Faces, and their music onstage had achieved a level of sophistication equivalent to the kind of songwriting they were doing. Their next single, "Stop Stop Stop," was the first Hollies song to feature the sound of a banjo, something that Hicks rather regrets today. "We used it on that record and I've had to carry the banjo around on tour for close to 30 years," he said, jokingly, "because we've never stopped playing it in concert." The record's success, achieving the #2 spot in England and #7 in America, was all the more remarkable as an original A-side. Their follow-up record, "On A Carousel," was written during the group's tour of America, and recorded on January 11, 1967. Released the following month, it reached a by-now routine #4 in England, and #11 in America. "Carrie Anne" had been started by Hicks in 1965, while the band was on tour in Norway, and started out in the wake of the Byrds' "Mr. Tambourine Man," with Hicks writing to the phrase "Hey Mr. Man." Two years later, it was finished in its familiar form and recorded on May 3, 1967, in only two takes. Released later the same month, it ascended to #3 in the United Kingdom and #9 in America. By this time, The Hollies were considered one of the top groups in England, and so successful with their own compositions that Ron Richards and EMI were willing to allow them some new latitude. Additionally, the group, and Graham Nash in particular, was availing itself of all of the new forms of musical and extra-musical indulgence that London allowed them in the spring before the Summer of Love. After the Beatles released Sergeant Pepper in June 1967, The Hollies decided to try their hand at psychedelic music with a new song, largely written by Nash, called "King Midas In Reverse." The group's most elaborate recorded work to date, "Midas," which was recorded on August 3 and 4, 1967, was filled with all kinds of sound effects and surprising timbres, a string section that sounded positively unearthly in its density and texture, and a festive mood that made it one of the most cheerful pieces of psychedelia ever issued. It took some persuading to get Ron Richards to release "Midas" as a single, and once it was out, it never did more than brush the charts in England or America, reaching #18 at home and #51 in the States. Although it was a disappointment for Nash, who liked the song well enough to perform it acoustically during his early years with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, "Midas" was only a small part of the most beguiling period in The Hollies' history.
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