The Hollies

Formed during the height of the British Invasion, the Hollies ranked among its strongest and most profitable pop and rock outfits when they entered the recording studio in 1963. At first they leaned on R&B and early rock & roll covers that served as everyday fare for numerous British groups of the era. Before long they cultivated a sharper identity built around three-part vocal harmonies shaped by the Everly Brothers, bright ringing guitars, and instantly catchy songs supplied both by outside writers such as future 10cc member Graham Gouldman and by the band members themselves, who gradually took over most of their own songwriting. Their finest early singles radiate the same buoyant melodic spirit found in the first Beatles records, yet the Hollies never matched that band’s caliber—an observation, not a slight, since no one else did either—nor showed the same ability to evolve artistically. They did attempt to grow, however, gradually exploring more refined folk-rock textures and gentle psychedelic colors as the 1960s progressed, especially on their albums, which hold numerous overlooked gems.

Childhood friends from Manchester, Allan Clarke on lead vocals and Graham Nash on vocals and guitar anchored the Hollies in the early 1960s alongside bassist Eric Haydock. EMI producer Ron Richards discovered the band at Liverpool’s Cavern Club and signed them in early 1963. Guitarist Vic Steele departed before the initial session, making way for seventeen-year-old Tony Hicks. Drummer Don Rathbone stayed only through a pair of singles before Bobby Elliott took over; Elliott had previously played with Hicks in the Dolphins. These changes proved fortunate. Hicks added ringing guitar lines and songwriting skill, while Elliott emerged as one of pop and rock’s most accomplished drummers. Although their earliest singles featured R&B covers, the Hollies could not rival the Rolling Stones or the Beatles in that style and felt far more comfortable with pop and rock material that showcased their sparkling harmonies. Through the 1960s they delivered a remarkable string of U.K. hits, reaching the Top 20 nearly twenty times. Several strong mid-decade singles, including “Here I Go Again,” “We’re Through,” and the British chart-topper “I’m Alive,” barely registered in the United States, where the group remained outside the Top 40 until early 1966, when Graham Gouldman’s “Look Through Any Window” finally broke through. Eric Haydock exited under unclear conditions in 1966 and was replaced by Bernie Calvert.

The Hollies achieved their first major American breakthrough with the 1966 single “Bus Stop,” which became their initial Stateside Top Ten hit; “On a Carousel,” “Carrie Ann,” and “Stop Stop Stop” followed as sizable successes. In these tracks they offered a pleasing alternative for pop listeners who found the increasingly experimental work of bands such as the Beatles and the Kinks too challenging. At the same time, their production and harmonies remained polished enough to hold listeners beyond the teen and bubblegum crowd typified by acts like Herman’s Hermits. Their albums revealed a more thoughtful and ambitious dimension, especially from Graham Nash, yet never contradicted the fact that their real strength lay in expertly crafted pop and rock rather than weighty statements. Nash nevertheless sought recognition as a more serious artist, notably with the 1967 single “King Midas in Reverse.” Its modest sales suggested limited influence over the band’s direction, and subsequent singles returned to the reliable romantic vein. By 1968 Nash felt increasingly confined by the group’s commercial focus; at year’s end he departed for the United States to help form Crosby, Stills & Nash. His exit effectively closed the band’s most successful period.

In 1969 the Hollies attempted to balance artistic and commercial aims with an entire album of their own versions of Bob Dylan songs. Critics received it coolly, though it sold decently in Britain. Terry Sylvester, formerly of the Escorts and the Swinging Blue Jeans, replaced Nash, and the hit run continued for a time. “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” ranked among their largest worldwide singles. Even so, the group had reached a creative dead end. They had sustained an unusually long run at the top by refining rather than overhauling a mid-1960s formula, updating lyrics and arrangements just enough to avoid sounding outdated. Their albums, however, rarely possessed the depth to attract serious album buyers, and later singles, though occasionally successful, lacked the memorability of their best 1960s work. A gentle decline in the early 1970s was halted by “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress,” a Creedence Clearwater Revival-style rocker that reached number two in the United States in 1972. Timing proved awkward: by the time the song became a smash, lead vocalist Clarke had left for a solo career and was replaced by Swedish singer Mikael Rickfors. Clarke returned in mid-1973, and the band scored one final international smash with “The Air That I Breathe,” which peaked at number six in America in 1974. They continued releasing albums through the second half of the 1970s.

Thanks largely to Clarke, the Hollies began covering Bruce Springsteen’s songs earlier than most peers, yet even their graceful reading of “Sandy” could not reverse their fading visibility. Many late-1970s releases leaned toward the disco and dance-rock styles then dominant, although the group never fully abandoned its harmony-vocal identity. Under different conditions they might have reinvented themselves as the Bee Gees did after 1974, but fortune did not favor them; both longtime fans and disco listeners largely ignored this output. Their American label, Epic Records, apparently concluded that the Hollies would never sell large quantities of albums no matter how strong their singles were, and therefore reduced promotional support, essentially letting the contract run out. Ironically, Epic declined to issue the one late-1970s album that might have appealed to both old and new audiences—the concert set originally titled Hollies Live—which later drew enthusiastic reviews in the United States as a Canadian import. By the early 1980s the band appeared to have reached an impasse, with Sylvester and Calvert departing abruptly.

The Hollies attracted fresh American press attention in 1983 when Graham Nash rejoined for the Atlantic album What Goes Around…, yet even this proved short-lived. A newer generation of critics, often skeptical of veteran British Invasion acts updating their sound for the 1980s, reacted especially negatively to the group’s cover of the Motown classic “Stop! In the Name of Love,” released as the album’s single. In a curious twist, What Goes Around… received more coverage than any previous Hollies album in America, though most reviews were tepid or unfavorable. More than a decade after Crosby, Stills & Nash’s commercial peak, even Nash’s profile had diminished, and many of his remaining American fans showed little interest in his return to the Hollies. The project generated substantial print and radio exposure, yet public response remained muted; an autograph session at Tower Records in New York’s East Village ended an hour early because few fans appeared. Ticket sales for the accompanying tour also fell short of expectations, forcing the dates into smaller venues.

The Hollies kept performing live and making records, but demand for new material had evaporated, and by the 1990s they stopped producing studio albums. As the twenty-first century approached, Allan Clarke, after nearly forty years as the band’s lead singer, found his voice no longer functioned with its former strength and chose to retire, leaving Hicks and Elliott as the sole remaining core members. Clarke’s initial replacement was Carl Wayne, the former lead singer of the Move, who performed with the Hollies for the next several years. In 2003 EMI issued a comprehensive six-CD box set titled The Long Road Home: 1963–2003 that surveyed every phase and major lineup in the band’s history and included numerous previously unreleased tracks.

Wayne’s death in 2004 prompted another personnel change. In 2006 the Hollies released their first studio album in twenty-three years, Staying Power, built around Hicks and Elliott and featuring Peter Howarth on lead vocals along with Ian Parker on keyboards, Steve Laurie on guitar, and Ray Stiles on bass. Though distribution outside Britain remained limited, the album offered a satisfying modernization of the group’s classic sound while preserving enough of its traditional pop and harmony elements to please longtime listeners. A live DVD recorded at a December 2006 concert in Belgium appeared in 2007, the same year that saw substantial portions of the band’s earlier catalog reissued on CD, primarily by EMI. The Hollies returned with another studio album, Then, Now, and Always, in 2009. The following year they received one of their highest honors with induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. They continued touring in the United Kingdom and Europe; the 2012 trek yielded the live album Hollies Live Hits: We Got the Tunes!, released in 2013. In 2014, marking fifty years as a recording act, the band issued the three-disc anthology 50 at Fifty, which traced their career across fifty songs and included one new track, “Skylarks.”