The Hollies, and the sexy woman in the black dress

Hey yeah, what a song this was, in the early-mid 70s.
The Hollies went a little bit different here didn't they, and went a little bit naughty as well lol.
What a song though ehh, it really is memorable, to this day!.

 

Great band the Hollies. Reminds me of the early 80s when all the ‘classic’ radio stations seemed to spring up, and the 60s and 70s stuff was all they played. Great time to be young.

 

So that's where Noel nicked it from....15 secs in

 

A really good live band.I remember seeing them in Blackpool with the original line up. Before Graham Nash left to join CSN.

 

Watched a great documentary about them before and after Nash left. Fantastic harmonies.

 

Isn't the lead singer called Alan Clarke lol, nothing to do with footy though.

 

I think so. Another lad who sang was tony hicks i thimk was his name . Great band

 

When I worked for a firm in the City one of our messengers was an older bloke who was in The Fortunes for a while. One morning he was feeling a bit worse for wear and said he’d been at a party the night before at one of his old musician mate’s house but said we wouldn’t know him, being that we were all in our 20s/early 30s. So I said “go on, try me”, cos I’ve been big into music of the late 50s and 60s since I was a young kid. When he said Tony Hicks my eyes opened wide. I told him how much I loved The Hollies and that my mum had a big crush on Mr. Hicks when she was a teenager. Tony Hicks never seemed to get old. When The Hollies were in the spotlight again in the late 80s, he looked exactly like he did in 1965.

There’s a great documentary on the band that someone earlier alluded to. It’s called Look Through Any Window and regularly pops up on Sky Arts. If you like any of their songs you’ll enjoy the film, especially the bit where Graham Nash is in the booth recording his vocals for On a Carousel. Makes the hairs stand up on the back on your neck. Common perception is that the band were pretty much finished when Nash left, but that’s not true at all. Sorry Suzanne, Gasoline Alley Bred, Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress, I Can’t Tell the Bottom From the Top (with a young Elton John on piano), He Ain’t Heavy He’s My Brother, The Air That I Breathe and their cover of Springsteen’s Sandy were all recorded after Nash left. Personally, I prefer all of those records to anything CSN did.

 

Not only did The Hollies cover Springsteen’s Sandy but Allan Clarke also covered Born to Run as a solo artist.

 

Chuff me, did Don Revie know about this?

 

I was genuinely waiting to see who’d make some kind of reference

 

Good track. Surprised I've not heard this before. Reminds me of Creedence a bit.

 

Wow you've never heard this before ehh lol.
I think it was in the glam era of 73-74, and its got me wondering if it was just a one off.
Or did they go through a phase, an album maybe, of different style songs like this.

 

I once met Alan Clarke at a gig played in Northampton at the Black Lion Inn on St Giles street. We had a bit of a festival of local bands and it was called something like The Summer Psych Out. He took time to speak to me and he said he thought i was alright at guitar, he was there to see his son Matthew's band called Chose Oblivion that's if i remember it correctly. Alan came across as a really nice bloke. The other famous lad who was there was Jason Pierce out of spiritualized and Spacemen 3 who had just split up he spoke to me too, and told me i played like Eddie Hazel which i found a bit of a stretch, good days although it was over 30 years ago.

 

I'd really like to hear that, Clarkie singing Born to run, in that smooth Hollies style.

 

Here you go,