In the early 1960s I was still at school and getting my music from programmes on the BBC Light Programme following bands like Wayne Fontana And The Mindbenders, The Searchers and The Big Three. Even then it was clear from programmes like Easy Beat, Saturday Club and Here We Go With The NDO that the band most capable of reproducing their recorded sound live was The Hollies, as they performed numerous live radio sessions. In 1964 I was in the same school class as a cool guy called Alan Jones and he too was an enthusiastic Hollies fan, both he and I sporting the extravagant quiffs that bands, even The Beatles, had in those days. Alan had a certain cachet in that his sister was one of the numerous young ladies of Cheltenham impregnated by the energetic Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones. Alan told me that the Hollies were booked to play Cheltenham Town Hall and I enthusiastically accept his invitation to accompany him. That day changed my life completely and turned me into a lifelong music fan with live performance being my preferred area. To my amazement, the Hollies were able to perform on stage in a way that reproduced their sound faithfully, while also having a whale of a time. Even I, so young and and inexperienced, was able to spot that Graham Nash’s guitar wasn’t even plugged in and therefore was completely inaudible, but the bulk of the sound was coming from the cherry red Gibson held high against the chest of Tony Hicks, who became my hero on that day and remains so today. The following year, we were lucky enough to experience the Hollies again in the same venue but then I was off to university and spending time abroad and my time with the band consisted of faithfully buying all their singles and albums and listening to them over and over again. Prior to that, there was an incident in school which I relate in my book Volume as follows:
‘We aspired towards Bobby’s lightness of touch on the cymbals and ability to do real snare-drum rolls and precisely-timed excursions round the tom-toms. And so we had to practise. We discovered that a particular desk in the Latin room was perfect for Bobby Elliott emulation. Different parts of the desk resounded in different ways and skilful use of all the fingers of both hands, plus the elbows (yes, the elbows) as bass drum and hi-hat pedals, could produce a passably accurate sound. This wasn’t easy, in fact it was quite a work of art. The song we liked to practise on was “Stay”, the Hollies’ third single. The drums on the speedy and perfectly-formed opus were tough to master, and I was triumphant when, after mid-morning break and while waiting for the arrival of Bog the Latin teacher, I got all the way through the song without a single error. However, when I finished the last finger-thwack, the expected tumultuous applause failed to materialise. Instead there was a deadly silence as I looked up to discover Bog standing over me, hands on hips. In his Cambridge gown, he looked like some kind of demented vampire bat. Fresh from his break time pipe, Bog’s fury was such that he twitched almost as if he were having a fit. In my terror, I still remember that, as his face convulsed, a light mist of pipe-smoke issued from his beard and drifted across the room. He grabbed my arm and whisked me to the Head’s office for six very painful strokes of the cane. I would have done anything to gain revenge for this cruel treatment of a harmless bit of fun. But that would have entailed telling my parents exactly why I had been beaten, and I couldn’t see their appreciation of Bobby Elliott’s drum technique as being likely to be very profound. Yes, Bobby, it’s all your fault.’
Here is another extract from the same book that relates how I tried to model myself on Tony Hicks:
‘He always did have the world’s best hairstyle and he still does. This is a very rare and precious gift. When I first became interested in the Hollies, Tony had a hairstyle which, for the time, was perfect in its appropriateness for what he was doing (playing inspiredly casual lead guitar and singing harmony backup vocals in a combo which had considerable credibility). His hair (as displayed on the cover of Stay With The Hollies, their first album) was coiffed into an exquisitely Brylcreem-sculpted Eddie Cochran quiff which somehow didn’t look like a teddy-boy. This contrasted with his colleague Graham Nash, who had a virtually identical style and an even more goofy grin. For me it was crucial to be a Tony Hicks and not a Graham Nash. Whatever the elusive magic was, I had to have it. Actually acquiring a “Tony Hicks” was quite out of the question but luckily, fate took a hand in the form of Beatlemania and the invention of the Beatle cut. You can trace on Beatles photos the arrival of the Mop Top style, and all contemporary bands not destined for obscurity followed with alacrity. My style guru Tony Hicks adopted what to this day I consider to be the quintessential hairstyle by changing to a mop top which genuinely looked like a mop, i.e. it tumbled floppily (Flop Top?) from the apex of his crown to lie in a symmetrical sugar bowl style which needed no cosmetics or attention to keep it in perfect shape. I could almost surmise that he didn’t even comb it, such was its casually impeccable state at the end of lengthy energetic live performances; on the other hand, I don’t believe that Tony Hicks has sweat glands, actually. But why am I using the past tense? Tony Hicks still has the same sublime head of hair (plus, no doubt, an ageing portrait in the attic). This desirable crowning glory can be viewed to best effect on the sleeve of the Hollies’ 1966 album For Certain Because, but have a closer look at their concert posters. There, under the spotlight, stage right, clutching the cherry-red guitar, you’ll see the mildly-flattened hamster that is the quintessential “Tony Hicks”. I worked hard on my Tony Hicks and naively believed that I approximately attained it; photos from this Sixth Form era reveal, however, that I was far, far away.’
Like almost all beat groups of the time, the Hollies followed The Beatles and The Stones into a psychedelic era. Whereas their first couple of albums had consisted largely of very creditable and energetic cover versions, they started writing their own songs, dressing up in kaftans and beads and pretending that they were all taking psychedelic drugs, which, apart from Graham Nash, none of them actually were. Nevertheless, this era produced some wonderful albums and incredible songs such as Tony Hicks’ Pegasus the Flying Horse and the highly whimsical Graham Nash opus Fifi The Flea. You don’t need me to tell you that Nash and the rest of the band had developed completely different interests and that Nash left to relocate to the States, leaving behind not only his wife but also the rest of the band to strike out in a completely different musical direction. This seemed entirely logical behaviour and, while following his career with interest, I remained a dedicated Hollies fan, particularly happy that they had chosen the ideal replacement in the form of Terry Sylvester from The Escorts, who not only looked perfect but also had the high harmonies that needed replacing after Nash left.
Our personal paths next crossed when I was able to interview the band in Norwich in 1969. The following extract from Volume shows that I managed to extract a scoop but, truth be told, this was my least favourite Hollies era as, free from the demands of fashion, they started doing the cabaret circuit dressed in identical white suits and made what was, in my opinion, the most awful pig’s ear of covering Bob Dylan songs. Here’s the extract:
‘Determined to get the interview with The Hollies, I chased them round all afternoon and evening. Before the gig? Too busy. After the gig? Too tired. What about at breakfast the next morning? Okay, when are you leaving? Eight o’clock? Bloody hell! Thank goodness, The Hollies had changed out of their white stage suits and looked more or less as they ought to. They immediately started asking the questions I’d hoped they wouldn’t: Had the students liked their act? Had the event been a financial success? It was obvious that they, too, were unsure of their career path and were still trying to recover from Graham Nash’s departure. And they were on the defensive about the Dylan album. Did the issue of the LP indicate a drying up of impetus after the departure of Nash? Yes, although there are several new songs ready now and they are adjusting to the new situation. Why had they recorded already familiar numbers? Simple (from Tony): It’s sad but true that people just don’t buy Hollies LPs, so they were going for the people who only buy records with familiar songs on them. I doubted whether this market actually existed, but this week’s album chart proves their point.” Some clever dick entitled the article Ollie’s Hollies. Before leaving, I did extract one scoop from Tony Hicks: “We’ve found a song for a single. If it comes off, it’ll be another “Whiter Shade of Pale”. Sure enough, “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” appeared a few weeks later and made almost anyone forgive the band their sins.’
Over the following decades, The Hollies made scores of albums of widely varying quality, some of them quite outstandingly good but others what you might call inconsistent, with forays into disco and hard rock that sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. Nonetheless I retained my faithfulness to them as a band and would continue to go and see them live, which was invariably highly impressive as the quality of the stage show (and the production standards) never wavered, even as Allan Clarke came and went. When Mikael Rickfors replaced him, they made a couple of albums that were only released in Germany so I was ideally positioned to enjoy them. I was also lucky enough to see them during the brief period with Carl Wayne of The Move as their lead singer before he tragically died. Prior to that I had recorded a long interview with The Hollies in 1980 backstage at Poole Arts Centre for BBC Radio Solent for whom I freelanced at the time. I still have the cassette of this recording, which sadly has degraded so badly that it is unlistenable, but I do remember feeling incredibly nervous as I quizzed Terry Sylvester and Bernie Calvert about their latest album.
It was in 2001 that I suddenly gained more personal proximity to the band. Somehow, and I still don’t really know how it happened, my book Volume had found itself in the hands of Bobby Elliott and to my amazement I received a handwritten letter from him asking if I would be willing for extracts from the book to be used in their latest tour brochure, which he was responsible for compiling. You can imagine how thrilling that was for me as a strong fan, and of course I gave permission and felt immensely proud when I saw the glossy item on sale at the merch table. This new-found long distance friendship would then in subsequent tours allow Birgit and me to go backstage and talk to the band, with Bobby in particular being extra kind. My admiration for Tony Hicks both as a musician but mainly a rôle model for appearance and general coolness was never rewarded by contact with the man himself. I always say that on one location at the G Live venue in Guildford, Tony nodded at me but his hooded eyes appeared suspicious.
Over the years I had done numerous Live reviews of Hollies concerts, several of which appeared in Record Collector magazine, and so it was that in their last tour on September 23, 2023 at – yes – Cheltenham Town Hall, I arranged to meet and interview Bobby for a brief Q and A. It was the first night of the tour and quite clearly there were some fraught technical matters being dealt with. Amazingly, Birgit and I found ourselves on stage with the full lights in the middle of their sound check, and as Tony Hicks glanced over his shoulder to where I was crouching by Bobby’s drum kit, his expression was hardly a welcoming one. Still, we got the required photo and indeed I was lucky enough to see them again a week later at the Anvil in Basingstoke. That would be my last time of seeing the Hollies live because this week they have announced that Tony is unwell and is retiring from live performance after six decades of uninterrupted touring and of course his lifelong pal Bobby Elliott has accepted that decision and applied it to himself too.
I think retiring gracefully at the right moment is probably quite typical for a band that has always trodden a path of sobriety and sensible behaviour while still being able to rock out to a very advanced age. I will miss them terribly but I’m very happy to have been able to share a tiny bit of my life with them.
