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Post by anthony on Dec 2, 2019 22:20:10 GMT
Alan Coates and Ray Stiles did record with the band - Alan sang high harmonies on a number of tracks including the German chart single 'Stand By Me', 'Shine Silently', 'Your Eyes', 'Find Me A Family', 'Purple Rain', and the UK chart single 'The Woman I Love' Alan Coates earlier plays rhythm guitar on the 'Archive Alive' / 'Reunion' live album with Graham Nash too I would consider Alan Coates, Ray Stiles and Denis Haines later Ian Parker to be actual band members both live and in the recording studio even if 'officially' it was Clarke-Hicks-Elliott, the fact Alan Coates voice and guitar appears on some recordings then makes him a sort of 'Hollie' and he actually gave them longer service than Nash and Sylvester combined from 1981 to 2000 I think Alan Coates does deserve inclusion as does Ray Stiles and earlier Steve Stroud who played bass guitar on 'What Goes Around...' and the live Nash reunion album released years later... They COULD have done a later studio album or two while Clarke still was in strong vocal shape after WGA... had they wanted to - as say equally The Moody Blues could also have done later studio albums after 'December' christmas album I think in many of these 'veteran' bands cases record companies had little or no interest probably as the appeal of such artists was to a specific audience plus in those cases the record companies would have got a lesser return than from 'new' fresh artists they probably had far greater control over... Allan Clarke moaned about being recognised in his local supermarket when 'He Ain't Heavy' was at no.1 in 1988 which probably says it all - by then the 'main' three Hollies had made their money...and playing live was largely done for the fun of it I think as they and notably Allan enjoyed still getting the spotlight and acclaim - BUT on their terms (onstage that is) and didn't want it to intrude into their private lives thus tours and the occasional CD of hits always suited them best and was likely why they as a band were happy to just cruise along like that Like the point, Yes they were a veteran band, probably just thought of as a 60's band with little real appeal to the larger population. Plus I think Hollies fans are a bit to blame too, when they did try something new and of its time like the Russian Roulette album, with the disco type numbers then the what goes round album, it get slammed. I think that's why we got those in my opinion shocking later 70's albums, harmonies after harmonies, just sooooo boring. its like we are considered a harmonies group so give them what they want. I think the Hollies did great rock and roll, just not enough of it.
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Post by cameron on Dec 2, 2019 23:58:32 GMT
They certainly weren't recording "a lot" by the late 1980s by any stretch of the imagination. And everything they did record seemed to come out in Germany only for some strange reason. But after the success of 'He Ain't Heavy' in 1988, we did get the 'Definitive Collection', which spring-boarded 'Rarities' due to its success. This in turn allowed Ron Furmanek to progress with assessing the Hollies' tape vaults and remixing their session tapes. The plan at the time was to remix each album and release them with new bonus tracks, though this obviously never happened and what Ron had worked on already ended up on '30th Anniversary Collection' in 1993 seemingly without the band nor Ron's input. This was the HUGE mistake, as reading back old music magazines at the time, the World was ready for the Hollies' music again. Had that decent album reissue campaign come to light, instead of the lacklustre BGO one that we eventually got, I think the Hollies' image would have been elevated much more than it has been. Remixing entire albums in the early 1990s was 25 years ahead of its time. Of course, it's almost expected of 1960s artists now to reissue albums with new stereo mixes.
I have always considered Alan Coates to be a "proper Hollie" as he contributed a lot to the Hollies' sound, was a superb fit for their harmonies, and he even graciously stepped aside for Graham Nash in 1983. Ray Stiles too is now the fourth longest serving Hollie after Allan Clarke. I sort of viewed Denis Haynes and Ian Parker as the sort of supplementary member like Pete Wingfield was in the mid-1970s, because the Hollies famously always had five core members. Pete was never officially a member, but he did contribute to a few recordings at the time.
You have to accept that anyone who's ever been part of the touring concern is an official Hollie, even Carl Wayne who isn't known for being the lead singer of the Hollies, he's officially part of their story. Bands change and evolve, the Hollies just did it decades after their heyday. Think of bands like Brian Poole and the Tremeloes who went on to be more successful as just the Tremeloes, minus Brian Poole and adding in Chip Hawkes to front the group. Also the Moody Blues who had success in the early 1960s and came back to have stratospheric success in the late 1960s onwards with a different lineup (new singers and frontman) and new sound. I think the Hollies suffer with this stigma against the current line up because they've not gone on to do something that can match their previous output, not like the aforementioned two groups who eclipsed their original output, the Hollies don't really stand a chance now because they're touring as an oldies group playing the hits that the majority of the current band never originally played on. This is the difference - when other groups got new members, they dropped their old material. Even the Hollies did this to an extent when Mikael Rickfors came on board, they only played about four Clarke-fronted hits during their 1 hr 30 minute live sets in 1972 and 1973. I kind of get where they were going with the 2004 and 2007 albums, it was more down that AOR route they took when Mikael Rickfors came into the group, but a much more contemporary version of it. The problem this time was that the harmonies were considerably weaker and so was a lot of the material, despite some obvious stand-out hits. But unable to shake their original image (and why should they, that's what the public want to see), you inevitably invite these comparisons with the original lineup.
I think had the Hollies disbanded and took a break when Allan left in 1999, it would have left the door wide open to make a big comeback with more impact later on. The public has a habit of suddenly picking up on a band when they break up, and they begin to loom large in their legend almost immediately. I mean, the Kinks also plodded on until 1994 with so-so success trying to progress, but once they broke up, the World seemingly couldn't get enough of them. So in theory, if the Hollies split up in 1999, but came back in, say, 2004, with Peter Howarth, having had five years off and given their legend chance to grow, the wider public and fans would have been more eager to embrace their new line up and material having previously thought that they'd lost the chance to see the Hollies forever, if that makes sense?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 4, 2020 14:01:06 GMT
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