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Post by downriver on Dec 16, 2023 16:17:30 GMT
Hi Cameron, same here, I saw it on the Hollies Facebook fan page but now can't remember which one and even if I did screenshot it it likely won't allow me to post here Sorry about that It was something like Mojo or Shindig or Record Collector and it was one of those tiny quickfire things you see ìn the corner of a page. Where was this magazine article? Terry said that “something exciting is in the works” following the BMG catalogue acquisition but I can’t find the Tweet at the moment. There’s a print screen of it on the Hollies Facebook group. Also, it may just be a coincidence, but as of this afternoon (Saturday 16th December), The Hollies’ back catalogue has stopped working on Spotify. It just fails to load any of the tracks, even ones that I’ve saved/downloaded, so I’m wondering if BMG are at least having a little much needed tidy up of their digital catalogue? It would be nice to be able to stream ‘Evolution’ without hearing ‘Gasoline Alley Bred’ in the middle of it, for example! Also, does anyone else remember reading the article in Shindig magazine in 2010 that Bobby and Tony talked about the Lewisham Odeon tapes and said how they hoped they’d never see the light of day and they were released literally a few months later on the ‘Clarke Hicks & Nash Years’ boxset? Just sayin…
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Post by Gralto on Dec 26, 2023 23:36:12 GMT
I think it's widely agreed that "Evolution" is the one album above all that desperately needs a remix. I think it was proved that the mono mix is actually a fold-down of the stereo as well. Those songs deserve to shine and rescue that album from sonic oblivion and enable it to be enjoyed for the great album it really is. I think the longtime problem with little enthusiasm for Evolution from Hollies Ltd is that Bobby is barely on it. I suspect that, given he was extremely unwell around this time (his folks flew out to Germany to see him in hospital he was so ill), he was replaced on stage and on TV by Tony Mansfield (ex-Dakotas) while convalescing and in the studio by several others, he probably doesn't have great memories of this project. Of course this reason doesn't cover the other 60s Hollies albums remaining similarly unloved with deluxe reissues. You have to remember, this is a band that in December 1966, were in Sweden playing a bunch of everyone's else's hit songs plus a few of their own when 'For Certain Because' had only recently been released. I know the 45 was everything in the 1960s but to me it still beggars belief how little interest they have shown in their album back catalogue, since...well...forever! I put it to Nash once about the above 66 gig as an example of whether the H were deliberately taking the piss with their audience through the absence of playing the songs they had just recorded in the studio and without any pretence or hidden agendas, he just said "no we just liked these other songs and wanted to sing them". Albums just didn't factor in the same way because the 45 was everything to the radio. For example, there was no official album chart out here in Australia until 1970, and this came about only due to the 1970 Record Ban. Given how quickly the 60s albums were recorded, I could be ungracious and say the band barely treated each project as much more than a contractual obligation. But I like to think better of them and their creativity than that. Certainly Allan's attitude at the time was "OK let's get this done so we can hit the pub" and Ron Richards' commercial ear for a hit record had a recording briskly recorded and done in a compact amount of time. But the recording process and studio time was expensive - unless you were the Beatles with their immense revenue power and all the requisite time in the world to create their next pop masterpiece - everyone else from The H down were on a tight booking schedule. I love The H's 60s albums and I just wish the band themselves loved them more (then and now).
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Post by baz on Dec 27, 2023 0:07:37 GMT
Given how quickly the 60s albums were recorded, I could be ungracious and say the band barely treated each project as much more than a contractual obligation. But I like to think better of them and their creativity than that. Certainly Allan's attitude at the time was "OK let's get this done so we can hit the pub" and Ron Richards' commercial ear for a hit record had a recording briskly recorded and done in a compact amount of time. But the recording process and studio time was expensive - unless you were the Beatles with their immense revenue power and all the requisite time in the world to create their next pop masterpiece - everyone else from The H down were on a tight booking schedule. I love The H's 60s albums and I just wish the band themselves loved them more (then and now). Indeed - apart from The Beatles, practically every act had to hammer 'em out quickly in the studio. One could look at The Zombies' "Odessey and Oracle" which was recorded in a handful of sessions spread over a few months which they were paying for where they were racing against the clock yet turned in a very sophisticated album, or The Yardbirds' "Roger The Engineer" fired off in one week which though spotty had a rich vein of creativity and they certainly never played any of that material onstage save for the sole single from it. Bands like Cream, The Who and The Rolling Stones would grab what studio time they could get as they travelled around and assembled their albums from whatever they had. I do feel up to "For Certain Because" with maybe the exception of "In The Hollies Style", they treated their albums casually but the three Gralto written ones had more thought and imagination put into them, yet Allan said years later "we didn't have a clue"! I think the main reason they shunned that material onstage was generally to keep to their people pleasing "professional" image, plus they were a renowned live act so they were being cautious, to ensure they had a balanced show which would please everyone whereas slipping in some more originals... well... they weren't that daring to take that chance and could be seen as another reason why they failed to make the transition to being taken seriously as an albums act. Another problem was being part of package tours also restricted their stage time so that mentality would have stuck as well so it wasn't till 1968/1969 when bands became expected to play shows of an hour or more.
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