The Hollies - Head Out of Dreams (6 CD Compilation)

It's not a 'demo' it's a fully completed version featuring GB on lead vocal and keyboards

Gary almost joined The Hollies then (Clarke was away from the band again doing his solo thing in the USA) but Gary got the chance to run a pub (!) which he then wanted to do, so the version was re-cut with Terry Sylvester taking lead vocal (and on 'Boys in The Band') to save on studio time as Clarke returned and quickly did the lead vocals on the other songs for the album 'Five Three One...' released in 1979

They left GB's end vocal on the fadeout on their second version of 'Harlequin'

re 'Stormy Waters' and 'Mexico Gold' songwriters - neither are well known, it's very likely Tony Hicks spotted both at song publishers - note 'Loving You Ain't Easy' is credited as written by 'unknown' (!) - it's highly likely Tony was still doing occasional visits to song publishers and chanced upon those - he found 'Just One Look', 'I Can't Let Go' and most famously 'He Ain't Heavy, He' My Brother' during his visits to publishers and probably still made such visits from time to time

Tony was strong at spotting songs many had never heard of - they found 'Magic Woman Touch' from 'The Greatest Show on Earth' album and 'Jesus Was A Crossmaker' from then little known Judee Sill (Judee's own version produced by Graham Nash !)

few in the UK had heard of Emmylou Harris when The Hollies covered her 'Boulder To Birmingham'

Allan Clarke too was good at spotting new talented songwriters - he was a very early 'champion' of Bruce Springsteen songs (recording 'If I Were The Priest' in 1974, 'Born To Run' in 1975, plus 'Blinded By The Light' just before Manfred Mann's Earthband hit version in 1976), he also covered Gerry Rafferty's early song 'Mary Skeffington' on his first solo album in 1972 (before Rafferty hit big with both the Stealer's Wheel band then solo with 'Baker Street' etc) while of course young Elton John (who played piano on two big Hollies hits and an album track) was signed to their Gralto Music Publishing in the late sixties before his career really took off.

 

Does anyone else have really poor sound quality on the final track on CD 5: "Let Her Go Down"? Even though I have tin ears, I can hear how hissy it is. Is this a needledrop, or is the master tape really this bad? It's very unfortunate, because otherwise I think that is a very fine track indeed.

 

It's definitely a needledrop; you can hear the clicks in the left hand channel, but the chorus sounds even worse, like it's from a 96kbps mp3 or something. Hadn't got that far in the set, but it is extremely noticeable.

I was also wondering - is the recording of 'Born A Man' on this set exactly the same as 'I Was Born A Man' on the Changin' Times set? I was sure that Mikael Rickfors sings the version on Out On The Road, but both versions I have in my mp3 library are the same Tony Hicks vocal.

 

Tony Hicks sings lead vocal on both versions - it's almost the same but probably was remixed for the 1973 'B' side of 'Curly Billy'

I get the impression that Hicks and Sylvester's voices are a little more prominent in the harmonies on 'B' side version where as Rickfors voice has more prominence equal to the others in the harmonies on the album version

 

Cor, Russian Roulette isn't bad at all, is it? I've even grown to like 'Wiggle That Wotsit'. They'd obviously been listening to Chicago VI as there're a few echoes of that.

 

Hollies bassist Bernie Calvert loathed 'Wiggle That Wotsit' - he said;
'I cringe every time I hear it...!'

to be fair it's the very 'seventies' Disco-ish lyrics that are weak
- 'rub-a-dub-hug-me', and 'shing-a-ling-a-ling-me...' etc - groan !

the 'wotsit' refers to a dancer's backside (female here) - tho' some have mistakenly taken it to refer to some other part of the male anatomy !

musically it's a pop song dressed in disco frills (mainly the keyboards) even tho' it's tempo is too slow to work as a full on disco number for dancing to (unlike say the brisk 'Draggin My Heels' - which charted as a single in Canada)

but it does have some strengths - great funky style Hicks guitarwork, driving percussion, and indeed a Chicago like guest brass section together with assertive Clarke lead vocal and tight Clarke-Hicks-Sylvester harmonies

'Wiggle' while failing to chart in the UK nevertheless actually did chart as a single in four countries reaching a very respectable no.11 in New Zealand, plus making no.19 in Sweden, no.22 in Belgium and no.23 in Holland so it wasn't quite the disaster some Hollies fans think....

as an album 'Russian Roulette' is an overlooked mid seventies gem - never released in it's proper form in the USA and effectively non promoted by either the group or their record company Polydor in the UK (thus it failed to chart and quickly ended up in deletion bins in stores - unlike 'Hollies Live Hits' just after which with TV promotion made no.4 in the UK album chart)

The 'Russian Roulette' album has some great songs, plus an interesting mix on the vocals placing Allan Clarke's lead voice central with Tony Hicks and Terry Sylvester's harmony voices on each stereo channel which clearly displays 'who does what' in the 'mark 2' Hollies vocal sound ('Be With You' is the harmony showcase number that most clearly features this aspect - plus has a salute to The Herd's sixties hit 'Paradise Lost' too)

the album has all original Clarke-Hicks-Sylvester songs written and performed in specific styles - '48 Hour Parole', 'Louise' and the title track are the out and out rockers, 'My Love', 'Be With You', 'Thanks For The Memories' are the harmony featured pop numbers, 'Wiggle', 'Draggin My Heels' and 'Lady of The Night' (featuring Jim Jewell on sax - as does 'Louise') are the disco-ish numbers while 'Daddy Don't Mind' (another European chart hit single reaching no.21 in Holland, no.26 Belgium and no.36 in Germany) was a driving pop/rocker that closed the set.

The Hollies occasionally performed 'Daddy Don't Mind' and featured 'Draggin My Heels' (which turned into a lengthy keyboard solo for later keyboardist Denis Haines) in concerts but largely overlooked the fine songs from their 'Russian Roulette' album thereafter

 

"Wiggle That Wotsit" is something I never need to hear again. While both "Russian Roulette" and "Write On" were decent albums, I still think the US LP "Clarke Hicks Sylvester Calvert Elliott" cherry-picks what are probably the best tracks from both records and is a great listen.

 

My opinion after having listened to this set is that "The Hollies" is pretty good (5 songs enter my Hollies playlist, which is more than the previous two albums managed), "Another Night" is even better (6 songs), "Russian Roulette" is okay (3 songs), "Write On" about the same (3 songs), "A Crazy Steal" is dire (1 song), "Five Three One - Double Seven O Four" is marginally better (2 songs), and "What Goes On" is pretty bad again (1 song, though you could say two if you count "If the Lights Go Out" - I just prefer the earlier, non-album version). The Buddy Holly album was completely uninteresting to me (0 songs).

If I'm not just going statistically but trying to use my memory of the material, I have the feeling that up until RR, The Hollies were still trying, still creative and doing stuff because they wanted to. From then on it was more of a "what do we do to get hits - let's try this, fellas!" And unfortunately, they didn't really go for the kind of material that leads to hits...