#61 - Allan Clarke of The Hollies Interview: on Graham Nash, Nigel Olsson and Dee Murray

been retired for 20 years you know so really it's not it has made a lot of difference obviously if you family and things like that you know yeah not just grandkids and and be not being able to go out and shop you know because you know being my age i'm going to be the last one to sort of to get out there but no no it's he's down quite a lot so i'm out doing shopping and things like that with masks on and clips and all the paraphernalia but yeah life's okay myself okay well i'm glad to hear it and uh yeah i really appreciate you taking the time to talk about your amazing career um and uh so so you retired 20 years ago um yeah why did you decide because i i've i've um interviewed bobby um from uh who's obviously still touring with the with the band what what made you want to retire 20 years ago well it's not that i wanted to retire it's just it got to a point in 1999 where i was having problems vocally i wasn't able to hit all the high notes you know and and at that particular time there were dropping keys and etc and it got to a point where people were actually noticing that you know i wasn't the singer that i was 20 years ago um but at that particular time when when we sort of thought about me believing my wife got cancer for the second time all right and we well both of us thought that because you know i wanted to be with her rather than be with the holly's because you know you never know what what's going to happen with getting cancer for the same time so those two reasons you know that was a you know my life was going to be with with jenny and the rest of the family for however long it would be jenny's still with me you know i'm married now 56 years you know so yeah well yeah i mean it sounds like a sensible decision but of course you know um i can't think of names off the top of my head and i wouldn't i you know i wouldn't want to be unkind but there are definitely uh they're definitely you know lead singers out there on the road who can't hit those notes anymore who are still doing it um you know for whatever reason maybe some are using lip syncing and you know backing tracks and stuff so it is you know it's a pretty like admirable decision in in the sense that you know you lead singer one of the best fans of all time and uh yeah it's a big thing i think the decision mainly was because of my wife you know that that was the main reason really uh but you know the boys weren't very happy at the end you know uh but you know when you get to a point in your life where you think this is you know this has gone on too long and i can't really do the same sort of job that i could do when i was when i was younger because mainly most of the songs that we did on stage are recorded in the the 60s from you know 62 to 74. so that was i was like you know i was only about 25 26 when all those songs were recorded it was and to be able to have all people saying why aren't you stimming anymore will you get to the age of of when was it when 20 years ago i was virtually 60 you know and and and well you know even it was showing that that i couldn't do i couldn't do the high notes anymore so you know it was best to leave yeah well i mean yeah it's def it's definitely a kind of like mature like thing to do that many in the rock and roll business perhaps wouldn't wouldn't kind of you know bring themselves to but still in the time that that you that you were the original lead singer of the the hollies you know you you sang on so many amazing songs and you know you you did all that there was to do in the in the music business really and what what kind of what what are your earliest like memories of music and what kind of made you want to become a you know a rock and roll star well you know i mean it depends on how many people that you've uh you've interviewed at my particular age you know but you did you i mean everybody knows that i met graham when i was six years old and uh and we've been friends ever since but i suppose that music appeared into my life with my mum taking me to what we used to call the pictures in the old days and and that would be in the late 40s early 50s when all the american musicals were being shown at the pictures and and i got i you know i was sort of overwhelmed with all the music that was coming out of that particular uh era you know and and i fell in love with the big musicals and things and in intermediate to that graeme and i were pals you know we were doing things uh like the sulfur boys club we belong to that and we were doing singing things with them and um and then this guy lonnie donegan came along you know and i'm not the only person that mentions lonnie as being one of the influences you know of the of the early early 50s going into the middle 50s before rock and roll actually came along and and what he did was actually he enabled uh guys like myself uh paul mccartney you know everybody uh to pick up a guitar and play the three chords which more or less covered all of lonnie's you know the whole the whole number of songs that he had was three chords which was great and uh and graham and i started singing skiffle when we were 14 years old you know and and that's where he started yeah i mean you're definitely not the the only person to mention lonnie donaghy in kind of like half of the the books that i've read about you know various different people in uh in rock and roll and pop history you know they especially in the uk i mean it would be in the uk uh certainly like the lennon book that i just read mentioned there um everybody mentioned this london as being the guitar man at the time you know but what would that was so after lonnie donegan you know so you you already got started kind of gigging playing like playing like skipper and stuff like that yeah i mean it was um it was pretty one of those things that happened instantly graham and i used to rehearse my brother's what we used to call his toffee shop his sweet shop uh when we got the guitars and we used to rehearse all the lonnie songs and there was one particular saturday there when my brother frank said to the both of us um there's a club up the road uh should should we go up there and see if we can get you a gig well you know never ever having done anything like that in our lives you can expect it at 14 years old and still wearing short trousers by the way uh how would this sort of thing would go down well you know we've got four or five or six skiffle songs down pat so our brothers took us there and got older the guy who owned the clubs and and and i don't know why we said okay and and gabriel's gave us uh like uh we said okay after this the juggler's gone off there's all sorts of music it's like vaudeville you know uh he said you can go on after the the jugglers and you've got three songs and we'll see how you go down uh so we went on and obviously we we were both very apprehensive about doing it and we was probably very very scared and things like that but we went on and we sang rock island line piccabilla cotton and and that back i remember what the other one was and we just went down so well i mean the crowd stood up and cheered and they must have thought that we you know these kids you know let's give them a round of applause and and we came off and the the owner said to us well that was fabulous lance he said here's ten bob in those case ten bob has quite a lot of money and he said i want you to do some of more of my clubs you know what do you think about that and so did it just kind of that was it yeah yeah yeah i mean we we didn't earn a lot of money doing that but it was great being able to go well my frank my brother used to take us to all the clubs because of our age but when we did actually move on from that into rock and roll we which came a few years after that i mean we were single we were singing buddy holly songs you know yeah all the every songs and uh and and we were quite well known in manchester uh as being maybe the the manchester's every brothers right to the point where we changed our name to ricky and dan young you know how close can you get you know you know so those harmonies must have must have started then no graham sound harmony with me when he was seven years old you know when we rule uh we you know we used to go into assembly and there was always there's always a song to sing and and we got and to have the loudest voices and and they actually stood us on two chairs in the middle of assembly and uh and we sang the the lord is my shepherd and then he said he sang harmony and i don't know where he came from but that was the start of it originally and so and so so the two of you would have had you know so many years of singing together yeah for for becoming the hollies right yeah cool sure i mean you know we we were around doing the clubs we we even did a stint of the sulphur boys club as being minstrels you know in the old days when you used to put things on the faces and that you know what was completely unacceptable as today but then it was acceptable to to want to do the minstrel show you know and uh and that was that was very funny having addressed something like that but that's where i learned to play harmonica uh you know and and what they call rick rico's you know in your hands and things like that it was just a stage you know these steps going forwards into different kinds but you know when rock and roll came along that that was that was i think everybody fell in love with rock and roll it was a very important stage in music you know with all those grades coming out i mean i i can name you know thousands of people that i fell in love with you know eddie cochran jerry lee lewis uh lonnie donnie uh but a bit all those people that did the rock and roll things and and that's what we wanted to do having jobs at the same time but i don't think for me particularly that i ever thought that i was going to be famous at all you know it's true that i enjoyed doing it but even though you were going down so well it's even even that way yeah i mean you know i suppose it's the dream of anybody that you know that falls in love with music that you know and you and you have a voice of any kind then maybe one day you know sometimes you might be you might be in some place and someone will come up and say i think you've got a great voice uh how about coming and make a record with us and we'll see how it goes i mean now nowadays it's the voice isn't it you know the x factor and all that sort of yeah those days there there really was only one thing was which was called opportunity knocks uh and not everybody got on those sort of things you know but um anyone and i were enjoying ourselves very much so you know we're going to the clubs and and and to dancehalls later on you know because it was an introduction to many many many girlfriends and things like that you know and uh um well we were quite well known in manchester and at that time like because people i don't know it's difficult to picture because now like a club or a or a bar like you'd get a dj it nine times out of ten like you would get a dj and sometimes you wouldn't even see the dj now uh but back then it was more the thing that like there would be live bands wasn't it yeah oh sure sure i mean you know uh there was a club in manchester called the oasis before that it was called the two jays and it was owned by a guy called jack jackson who we got to know by going to that particular club and and uh and he he actually knew what we did and we used to play the oasis uh and we used to play coffee clubs in manchester and i do remember one particular time and it was graham and i were doing eyelet every brothers and and the buddy holly stins and a young guy came up to us and said you need to get you need a guitarist and and we thought how dare you you know but this chat was very you know you he said no you need a guitarist and you need me uh his name was pete brocking and and i said and graham and i said well okay we'd like to give you an audition so he came to grant's flat and uh one day and and he brought in this flat case and he put it down in the opened it and there was a fender stratocaster which graham and i had never seen one for real you know we've seen buddy holly playing all the time but this guy had a stratocaster so we said okay what can you do he says tell me what you want me to do so we went through all the guitar solos you know uh from beatbox to you know chuck berry to buddy holly to her and he played everything spot on so we said okay behind and this is where we need a bass player so we got a bass player and then we had to get a drummer and we came we became a band you know and we changed in many forms from from the first band called the four zones through to numerous names you know with the people coming in and out but it was always graham and myself who who were with the front men you know so i mean then rock and roll the songs we we could sing uh when went more than just our ability in the five chords we got you you know so we ventured into another stage of the career of doing other rock and roll songs within the maybe our set that you did at all the clubs you know yeah and when when was the first time that the holly's set but in a recording studio was it 1963 1963 correct yeah um now we formed uh it was the christmas 1962 uh when the five of us uh went to a club had no name and we just formed from a previous group called the dominators of rhythm and and you know we got these these flat five guys together like me and graham and the other three guys and we got to this club it was the oasis and the guy says well what we're gonna call you it was christmas there was a lot of holly around and and everybody's trying to find out who actually said the holiest but i'm sure it was me and and he says well okay but that's that's that's what it'll be and we didn't think that that was going to stick you know we could have changed it to something else but it seemed to sound right you know so we became the holies in 1962. so it was very you know it was quite quick to to have that kind of you know former band name it and then by the next year you're already in a recording studio did that kind of take you by support yeah but don't forget that me and graham have been doing it for years you know when you started 14 and at 21 somebody actually comes to i think it was at the the cabin where we were at the cabin and and ron richard the producer from emi came up to see us at that particular gig and and we were offered to go down to uh the uh the emi recording studio uh which is now ivy road to to do a demonstration of what we what we did on stage uh that happened we went down and and i more or less did everything that we've done on stage uh which was a lot of numbers most of those were coasters you know we did a lot of coasters song which actually maybe two of those became a couple of our singles earlier on and uh and we we got signed up so yeah from from 1962 to being into a recording studio in 1963 it was very fast yeah yeah very a bit but i mean i guess yeah it is a good point that you you know you'd paid your your jews as it were in the clubs and you'd you'd evolved um well we knew what to do let's put it that way we just needed the chance and we got the chance and and the the sound of um your vocals and the combination of you and graham you know it's a very very unique uh sound and you know it really is like you guys got into the recording studio at the same time as the beatles you you you kind of were were doing things at a similar time to the beatles and do you do you sometimes feel like the the hollies were like are kind of undervalued in in the sense like compared to the beatles like from that during those early years especially well can i just say one thing about the beatles um was that we we knew the beatles you know we we had been at similar gigs uh and i remember where we used to play the cabin i think that maybe the beatles were a bit upset that the cabin actually accepted the hollies right they did they usually didn't like accepting groups from manchester you know it was all liverpool and the cabin you know but they accepted us and we used to go down really really well at the gavin and i don't think the the the guys beatles uh and enjoyed that promise but what if it wasn't for john paul ringo you know and and george we wouldn't be the hollies would have never had the chance to do what they do they actually opened the doors for everybody that followed through in in their era from 1963 on it wasn't for the beatles you would never have had the hobbies or anybody else from that uh from that time period i suppose so i i think it is that why do you think that is that the um that they kind of you know that they wouldn't have been for example the holly's or or yeah the briefs were unique you know they came they came from liverpool um i don't they weren't working class right but these were these guys from from liverpool with the funny voices you know that had this attitude and also um that the music that they did actually came from like what was then a live sound you know it wasn't like you know most of most of the groups and believe me i'm not putting anybody down to the previous people from up to 1963 but most of the london groups that were recording them you know and and cliff rich in the shadows uh had this sort of sound which was clean was vincent was all echoey and things like that but this new music came from four guys who were from the streets and and it was raw you know and it was a live sound and they were the they were the first to actually be noticed by brian epstein i'm sure that brian epstein had seen us before he'd seen the beatles then maybe we would have been i can't say we'd have been the beatles but we may have been before them but it didn't work that way you know it really was you know it was like exactly the same time almost exactly the same clubs yeah exactly the same type type of experience um whereas for example the stones came later and it's and you know it's important for you know the people listening to this who don't you know because because these all all big bands from the 60s um you know they're they're all just kind of like legends from the golden era of rock and roll to people and and the timelines can get a bit fuzzy in in in people's minds and that is just like particularly in interesting um you know how early you guys kind of got established and from those early like records you know are there any highlights um looking back um from from your first kind of first holly's records well i was working at the mill you know in manchester and uh i well i used to be what they call a cook carrier to start off with which is carrying the textiles on your shoulder and then i became into the jacquard cutting and it was a very noisy job so to be taken from that virtually overnight into into a studio and then having a hit record to me with it was just it was a dream come true you know someone had given the key to the sweet shop many people say that but the doors opened and and i was all of a sudden there was a new world that was open to me so you can understand the excitement you know that was happening in the 60s not not just with me but the rest of the guys you know graham and i and life was very very different the 60s was fabulous and and we met a lot of people the first time we met the front the stones uh they were coming up to a gig what we were doing and uh and we knew who the stars were but we never met them and i remember waiting for them that these stage doors of this this little kid we've been doing because it was a previous booking before we got a hit record so you had to sort of get rid of all those gigs before you did anything bigger and the stones arrived and it was just a like a van with no windows and the doors opened at the back and there was jagger along with keith getting out of the van with smoke coming out of the seats at the same time you know and i thought okay i wonder what these guys are going to be like and you know they were fabulous and and we became friends you know and uh so you know all those things that happened in the past that not a lot of people don't know about uh are those wonderful things that you do remember yeah kind of like that i mean you know meeting other people within the business before that they have any sort of extended fame um i do remember doing a gig in new york where the first time we were to america and we were playing um at a theater which was very funny because we had two nine shows a day and we were only doing two numbers nine shows a day nine shows a day oh my god but they show a film in between the breaks and we only did two numbers uh so that was that was the gig we did not until we got there that was the game we thought okay we're in new york we're going to be here for a couple of weeks so let's enjoy it and let's do this gig uh unbeknownst to us at that particular time uh little richard was uh on the bill and he got 2p sales and he had a hit record in america called do the mouse and he was achieved as a children's entertain tv thing and we thought why is this guy in the rock and roll show but he was top of the bill richard didn't like that you know he he used to come in off every night i'm the king of rock and roll and his guitar is with jimi hendrix you know and uh jimi hendrix to us wasn't well known there at all but you you well you know what happened you know yeah yeah involved to england and and that that was the start of his really big career but there'd been a lot of things like that happened to to myself and me meeting all different kinds of people through through our career uh and also meeting the people that we loved i mean meeting the elderly brothers which just was just when like that graham and i went to see the every brothers in manchester uh they came to i think it was the opera house and we got tickets to see them um it was a fantastic show when we came off we thought well we wonder which hotel they're staying at and we thought well they're the elder brothers so they'll be staying at the best hotel in manchester which was at that particular time the midland hotel and it to us that was you know you can't even go in the middle until itself you know because it frightened you you know it was that so you know so rich and all that so we stood outside the the doors and i think we waited for about an hour and a half and it's tied to rain and we thought well maybe they're not staying at this hotel after all and then in the distance we saw a dumb phil walking towards us and we thought oh wow and and they came up to us and we said do you mind if we talk to you and we we talked for about half an hour we told them what we were doing you know we and how much do we admire their their their harmonies and and who they were and even told them we've changed our names to ricky and dan young to be more like though and the two guys were really really really nice to us and they said you know good luck we hope that maybe in the future we'll meet again and and we did again later on we even ended up in a recording studio we don't record an album you know what what record was that um it was two yanks in england and uh what happened we were playing the london palladium and there was a phone call and um and it was it was done heavily and uh he said we'd like you to come to our hotel uh because i believe you've got some really good songs that we'd like to listen to social cream and i would thought he's the happy brothers and and they want some songs so tony and i and i'm graham went to their hotel and we went to the hotel room and it was surreal it was it was just crazy and we were in that room and we sang we spent about 10 songs that we got to be able to do at some time ourselves and they said okay we like that one that one that one that one that one that one i think it got to about eight songs and we and we thought oh great then they said and we want you to be there when we record them wow it doesn't happen to a lot of people you know and i remember being there uh in the studio with them and and i was in the the vocal box with with don and and we were doing one of the songs and it got to a point where he was out of trouble with one of the lines and and he turned around and said to me hey y'all how do you sing that you know he was silly he was silly but what a wonderful experience it was for us i think even eric clapton was there i think you know anyway john paul jones uh and you know because they were session musicians yeah yeah people were coming in and out and just being there with the everest unfortunately even though i thought the album was great i obviously thought it was great and they didn't do very well in the charts but as far as i'm concerned and that's one of the best albums they ever did yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna give that a listen after this and and and did they remember meeting meeting you guys outside the windmill the midland well we did midland what am i on and they said oh yeah you were those two kids you know whether they did remember or not or where they were just being polite it didn't really matter you know so yeah that that is an incredible thing though to me to me you know heroes and and you know that's that's heroes of the level that you know you can really like hear um their influence obviously um on on on your guy's sound and from from from the first like hits that you know what was the the very first hit that the holly's had um i think it was stay because we did searching as well so uh yeah mind you that was a long time ago it's getting up to 60 years if not more but you know yeah the state was one of the biggest it was one of the hits yeah i think it went in about number number 18. you know it didn't go right to the top but it was a hit record in those days you know yeah and and i mean that that's a brilliant record yeah it's a bit different from from the original because we speeded it up you know but you know but the the actual original song is he's very soulful it's he's he's sending a slower beat you know and it's really great but that was what we did you know we just we made it rock and roll yeah i mean your version is a brilliant version but i mean that's that's a kind of you know there's versions by uh there's jackson brown or there's a i think there's a joke that was uh harold yeah yeah but i mean and and and when when did you start having the more you know the really like iconic i kind of think of them as like mid 60s but like bus stop and carry-on and things like that what's the door um yeah graham gilman um young kid you know graham went to his house one day and then he came back he said i just met this guy you know he's got to be about 14 and he's writing these great songs and one of them was bust up the other ones look through the window and i think no milk today of course we recorded bus stop and look through any window herman herman you know peter noon uh got the other one uh but before that we were trying to do singles on what we were writing you know and it was ron richard of you know our producer at that particular time but every time that we played one of our songs says oh no you're not there yet i don't think that's the a side so of course you know we did we did a lot of covers in the early days and i think that when we actually got to we're through was the one that ron said okay this is this is your first day sir and after that you know again we weren't we weren't picky about uh having to have our own songs as a single in any time really because if a song came along and we liked it we we knew that maybe that was the better song to to to to to choose rather than the one that we wanted to and virtually that was down to one richard again you know but yeah we did all right you know we carol you know when you may do carousel and carry anne and jennifer echols you know stop stop stop there was a few there which i thought was okay for easter eggs they were they were more than okay and yeah uh you know it's a song like carrie anne like the vocal arrangement and stuff is quite i don't know it seems like it would be very difficult to pull off and obviously this was a an era that was like totally different how recording studios are now like with all the tuning and the track you know they weren't even there wasn't even pro tools or or any kind of digital um no don't forget that we've been on we've been doing this on stages for a long long time you know and you know when you actually go into the business and you do stage shows and you're doing this and you do that and you you rehearse beforehand everything that you do before you go into a studio because in those days you know that you had to you had to book a block of three hours maybe in abbey road uh in any particular studio we always liked the big studio you know where the the beatles did um you know sergeant pepper's we did all that stuff in our studio as well so when we knew we were going to go in to record anything we always made sure that we actually knew that when we got in there we could do it now graeme and i never rehearsed harmonies at all i don't sing harmony it's grand it seems the harmony so every time that i would start singing anything crane would just drop in and do it straight away it just had this way of locking in to what i was doing instantly it's when tony came into the you was with the into introduced assault doing a harmony which he wasn't used to doing so i suppose we we rehearse more with tony rather than graham and i rehearsing it but that's why we did it we went into the studio rehearsed to actually do it within the three hours that you were allotted to actually make a single so you'd cut a single in three hours yeah wow oh yeah but don't forget in those days we started recording it in in every road and it was only four track so you can imagine you know when you're a live band that doesn't that didn't really matter in those days you had like one mic on the drums he had uh uh one mic on a bass one one mic on the guitar and one mic for a vocal and you had to mix from that it was only after that when uh one of the guys in emi came up with bouncing where you could bounce two tracks together to do a double track and then as of the tracks were added to the till we got to six tracks you know we thought oh and this is where the beatles got the idea for doing sergeant peppers of actually adding things more and more by bouncing onto tracks and extending the the instruments that you can put on the single as sergeant peppers when it came out we were absolutely just how did they do that you know but we were actually doing the same sort of thing but in a smaller way yeah yeah you know when you when you get to 16 18 tracks i mean i just got i've just got a bit fed up you know i thought well okay i'm sitting here i'm a vocalist now let me get my vocal on which was always one of the first things to do and then just because there's 16 tracks there it gives she gives you unless your imagination go go that little bit further into the song adding maybe just that one triangle in that particular you know in that particular part of the song or a little tambourine so yeah then you needed a full day yeah you know and being in a studio for three weeks and you know to do an album uh yeah yeah you needed three weeks i think that's pretty fast yeah but but by by uh today's standards you know that just wouldn't it doesn't seem like that that type of thing would happen anymore but maybe that's why you don't hear records that are as infectious every studio's got a canteen now you know i mean they've got restaurants they've got everything you know and so you when you go for a break you have a three you know you have a three-piece meal whereas before uh you go to the pub and have a hamburger or a sausage roll you know another pint and come back with half an hour because you couldn't take more than an hour's break up a whole day that was very important now you know so it wouldn't be sitting down in a restaurant for a couple of hours you know and so but it was it was all different in those days yeah music's come on really great i think so i mean the music today that's coming out is absolutely brilliant yeah yeah i mean there's there's it's it's just a different you know that there's diff it's just a whole different thing um but certainly the way that the you made your records and and that that a lot of the other big bands and artists made their records back then with that kind of sense of urgency and the fact that you play them all so live i think that's what makes them kind of what what they are and and when when graham ended up leaving the band how how how was that you know were you gutted at the time or were you kind of expecting it or um i was a bit annoyed i was a bit a bit angry um but i i had a sort of an idea that something was happening but wasn't too sure of what it was um and i can't really explain you know the whole situation within a one interview because many things were happening at the same time which uh which didn't make sense um but it all came together when graham says well i'm actually leaving um the situation before that was that he you know when we went to america for the first time i think that graham fell in love with america uh but i think it was when we went over to the west coast and we did the whiskey go go i mean i i met buffalo springfield over there and i remember steven stills asking me to go back to the hotel with them which i did they want me to listen to their first album uh buffalo springfield and i remember they had this huge this is really funny they had this huge wardrobe you know which they put two speakers in and they asked me to sit in the middle of it as i mean i've been under the well i had a few drinks in the whiskey and goku so i thought yeah yeah okay let's do that and as they close the door they they sort of sent all this smoke into the cupboard with me and and i'm sat there and i was there and i was absolutely blown away especially with neil's song uh expecting to fly which is one of my favorite songs you know and i and i thought that album may have actually been a little bit of an idea that the beatles may have pinched because there's a lot of things happening on buffalo springfield right again uh with sort of carnival things and and etc but i fell in love with buffalo springfield straight away and and they came to see well we did a gig again um the whiskey and like every group was there conceivable come from los angeles you know the beach boys buffalo springfield and the birds there's mama cats in the pockets and you know and they were all there to see us and and grant got into the mixture you know and then he held out with david and he called that people there with with steven and i do remember being in a hotel called the beverly comstock one night and they'd all come back to the hotel and uh and i was really tired so i went to bed and they were sitting in the front room practicing songs and things and i thought that sounds nice not really not letting it go any further and then they're just having a good time but i think that's probably where the start of it before it started there yet but you but you then went on to arguably i mean cut the best i mean i mean obviously that's standard that stands for taste but the biggest certainly like today like the the biggest holly's cheese well you know i mean i don't know what graham was thinking when he when he left you know this is my lifelong friend uh leaving to go with two of the biggest musicians where into a i he couldn't fail uh sort of position to be in between those two and the men they that was definitely they were gonna be a hit you know uh to me being left without my harmony singer in a band what do i do you know and and i mean i've got three kids you know and uh well no i'd only got two of that two times that's right piper wasn't born but i've got two two kids you know toby was born in 1969 uh and i thought well we'll have to get someone like him and terry sylvester came along and you know that was the i think that was the best thing that that happened to to the hallways at that particular time that terry came into the band uh he he was the same sort of guys graham that he seemed to be able to lock into everything that i that i could do almost instantly you know which was a great help because then you didn't really have to work all that hard when you got somebody who could tune into you that quickly and um well sorry suzanne it was pop song you know and he went to number two and we thought oh wow you know maybe graham wasn't that important in the first place but he was you know he was very important to me as a friend as anything else and and i and i did miss him and and i was angry with him for quite a long time uh not no understanding i understand i understood after a while why he did it he wasn't very very happy in the situation with the hollis you know so he went and he became a great success and we still see each other it's okay you know we're still friends yeah yeah it's good it's worse it's really nice to hear that but i mean you know i have to say that at the same time that like the st the the records that you made you know he ain't heavy he's my brother yeah i believe that was after that as well wasn't it oh no there was gasoline alley bread i can't tell the bottom from the top uh we had about that from 1969 i think we had we had i think we had about six hits in in the top 20. black dress obviously one cool woman came back in 72 which it was just one of those things that happened by itself you know it's very organic i mean that does sound good sounds quite different to the to some of the other hollywood's records but i mean it is just an undeniably like incredible rock and roll record well you see when you think about that song how it originated in the first place i i'd met up with a guy called roger cook from blue mink and uh and he wrote all our songs with the roger green away and we used to meet in the studio and things and he says how about writings and stuff together i thought well let's see how it goes and um i met him uh in part part lane where the air the air offices were and i took my guitar on and he turned up with the ukulele i thought this is going to be weird and we went we went to the songwriting room which they had there for people um with a bottle of brandy and and we said okay where do we start he said well i've got this idea and then he started off and i thought well this is it sounds a bit like rock and roll and and about three quarters of an hour after we came out with one cool woman and i thought oh that sounds okay and roger says yeah that's that sounds like rock and roll to me so again we would we were doing an album called distant light well it didn't have any of them but that's the album the local movies on and i took it to to the studio and played it to the boys and he says great it's an album track let's put on the album uh recording that ron richards wasn't there it wasn't well so we only had the engineer and uh and so i i played it all to the boys and tony says well you know the guitar you play the guitar and i said well okay you know so there was me bobby and bernie put down the basic track uh pretty quick and um and i said okay let's let's over lay the the vocal on it and um and i think i did that in two takes and then tony then tony did some guitar work over the top of what i did and we said to the engineer how does he sound he says i'm going to put some slap echo on it and we went in and that was it that was like a woman done finished polish that would go on the album um what did happen is that after recording that album um i was writing a lot of other songs with uh with a lot of people actually tony mccauley and roger cook and a few of the guys and and i wanted to do a solo album not because graham had left had become a success i just had all these songs that i you know the summer played to wrong he says no you know i don't think that's a holy song i wanted to do it myself so i said to the boys i'm going to make a solo album and he said oh we don't think we'll let you and i thought well what's the reason and he says well if you go and do a record and successful you leave us and he will we'll have no one in the band so if you do then we're going to have to replace you so i says well i'm sorry but i have to do this so i'm going to have to leave the band i didn't want to leave you know i really really didn't want to leave the band but i didn't i didn't think it was fair stopping me you know doing something that i wanted to do so i left the band and and started recording my other album i remember being at home and i got a phone call from the usa from a publisher saying we want to publish this song of yours called local women in a black dress i said oh why he said well he's raising up the charts and it might be number one and it was uh it was the one record company that played it and it just caught fire and and it became a monster here and it left the hollies oh my god so i thought well what do i do about this you know and i thought well i should be over there doing a bit of promotion on this but no they went over there without me so that was it what a nightmare it well it was a nightmare but really it wasn't a nightmare when you think about it you know it was number one in virtually every country in the world so i was quite happy yeah yeah i mean you you'd already you'd already written it and sang it yeah some gay lady so you know but if there's still four of the guys on the record and when did you rejoin um i rejoined about three years later and bobby ran me up and said we'd like you to come back i thought well that's great i said i didn't want to leave in the first place you know so by all means i'll come back uh and when i went back i think we had to hit with uh hey really uh and then the other i breathed after that so it was a break and i could never get the years straight but i think it was from like 1972 to about 1970 end of 74 75. i might i must say that michael richard you know was a fantastic singer i thought his voice was great you know he he he sang a great song i mean and he had a couple of hits with them you know but unfortunately he you know he was swedish and not that i've got anything to get swedish people it's just that i don't think his english came out as somebody could fluently maybe talk to an audience in the way that i did really and maybe the audiences were not relating to him being the the holy sound as it was before i left but anyway um i went back and i started recording with him again and and and so the air that i breathed was after that after you'd left the first time yeah and and again story about that was i went into the uh to the the producer's office again and his secretary said i've got a song you've got to listen to ellen and then she pulled out an album uh by phil everly and and played this song called yeah that i breathe i thought that sounds absolutely fantastic sounded great because it was phil everly you know and uh so i said well okay that's one heard it should well now play it to him so i played it to wrong run sister that's a great song listen let's cut it so again the every brothers or one of the young brothers came into my life once again you know and and created that here through me hearing him sing it and what so was it was it there was a record that they published or was it like a demo no it was on an album it's one of phil evelyn's album it was an ammon song and lou hazel would lee hazel would yeah it's so it's so it was a finished song on an album you know well it's so weird that like when a band makes a song completely their own you know you just the origin of it like in terms of songwriting is you just don't know like well you know um ollie's song i'm glad it was a hit you know i'm glad it was a hit but i was i was i was a little bit sorry that phil didn't get the hit with it you know and i suppose it had ever had more exposure i don't care we had an orchestra it was orchestrated i mean listen to it listen listen to his version i did you know the version but when it gets to the chorus it is like now that you think about it it's like you know that is so that's so everly brothers yeah and i'm sure that graham was probably jealous about that one as well well i mean all the record you know it is a kind of nice story in the sense that you guy you guys remain friends and that actually you know if you if you look back the holly's had as many as many good records after graham left oh sure as as as uh crosby stills and nash did really if if if i'm right he rejoined in the 80s well he didn't really rejoin what happened was that the uh we had a hit called holly days remember that craze at that particular time where it was a hand clap to a a series of songs i think the beatles had one as well or somebody pretending to be the beatles and a hand clap thing going through it and and we what we did we um well somebody did uh they put a lot of the holly's things together and it was it was a single call holly days uh top of the pops at that particular time wouldn't let anybody on doing their shows unless the original band that was on the record was was there uh but we had to regrain and say would you come over and do top of the pops which he said send me two tickets and i'll be there um so he came over we did the top of the pots we were making an album uh again in uh i think it was everywhere and he said can i come and listen so what are you doing you said okay and i was a bit i was a bit thinking well yeah well okay yeah but come and have a listen and he sat in to to one of our uh sessions we were doing you should say he said this sounds really great i'd like to get involved you know it really um it wasn't a thing that i wanted at that particular time yeah because we were doing great you know we were doing great shows and i thought this album we were actually really doing some great stuff uh tony and bobby said what a great idea would be so it came in that graham would actually record on the album um and we were going to go to america uh to do to finish to record the album in grand studio um in los angeles which we did so we had to go all over to los angeles to record it and things like that and we we finished the album and a tour was was booked on the strength of the album with graham being with us um it's it wasn't something at that particular time that i i thought was was a good thing to do um i couldn't see the reason why graham would want to come back after everything that he'd said about why he wanted to leave but then again it was it was what was moving must have been 20 years later you know they he changed his mind and wanted to do some stuff with us which he did and uh and when we finished the tour then that little bit was over yeah you know we went we went back to doing what we were doing and we're about to see what he was doing so so it was it was more of a sort of just a one-off kind of like yeah lift thing it was never going to be him rejoining the hollies yeah so so in in in the 80s and and in the 90s were you playing live a lot yeah we were doing lots of tours we were we were still traveling um around you know doing our own concerts two and a half hours you know four days a week and um and i'm trying to record other stuff maybe to get hit back we had a hit in 1989 don't forget with yen heavy again so that that was another sort of uh leg up that everybody we were introduced to the wider public again in 1989 so everybody wanted to see us on stage so yeah it was good that that was a hit even though it was for a an alcoholic beverage ad you know which i didn't like you know but they you know how did you find those years of like you know the 80s 90s where where it was like touring touring became the kind of you know the major success focus um versus versus the 60s and 70s where the hits just kept on coming well you know it's a job isn't it you know i had a family you know i had to feed them you know i have i have lots of things that i have to pay for like everybody else i have to put try and put money into a pension like anybody else who has a job hopefully that you know that they're allowed to or can do that um it's because you know you never know when you when when you suddenly hit 65 and you're thinking crikey where did that go you know where did all that time go but enjoying what i did on stage was was one of the ones that the reasons why i carried on doing it it's only when i was unable to do it that i decided not to do it which was 1999. uh before that everything was was okay you know dude we never argued about anything the band was you know really fully functioned together um until terry left actually uh i think that was about 1980 and 1981 i can't remember the year properly but i mean that uh that was a time when we thought that maybe you know we have to get someone else to replace terry who can that be and um and alan coats came along you know and and again he was another guy that fitted in uh perfectly well with us on stage and nobody seemed to mind that that terry had gone uh but it was a shame i you know i i had a great i had a great uh liking to the way that he assembled me i really did yeah well i mean it it sounded you know it's good it's good to me as as as any kind of holly's lineup did well you know just listen to the air that i breathe any and heavy you know and all the other harmony things that he put on he was absolutely fabulous absolutely um and looking back from from your whole career um what are some of what are some of the deep cuts you know the the like lesser-known things that you'd like people to hear well i thought you were talking about a book then but you know there's uh there's many many things that have happened to me in my career that you know there you know people saying to me why don't you write write a book and i just can't get around to doing it but maybe one day you know there'll there'll be things out there and it won't be any sort of revelation about anything that it's very very important it's just that things happen to me meeting people that i never never thought that i would ever meet i mean i i had dinner with carrie graham one night which was quite unexpectable and then you never you never think that that those sort of things are gonna happen to you know when you've seen seeing a kid and you know watching his films carrie grant i was thought he was a great actor and then having dinner with him maybe 50 years later it was just one of those magical it was in actually it was in the magic castle in los angeles just one of those magical days things like that you know um incredible but yeah i mean yeah i mean it's been great but you know but but i've always i've always thought of myself as a family man before anything else that's that that's that's on top of everything else you know anything that clearly shows and clearly shows in your decision well alan it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you and and uh and to get to know more more about the story and uh yeah you just made me want to go and listen to holly's records and well that's not everything you know i mean i have me i made an album a year ago which did very very well for me uh which is through bmg yeah of course surgeons yeah researchers and i'm still writing songs i mean i'm in my studio as you can see i used to be in my office two years ago now it's with a little studio and i'm writing songs for me to point another album what kind of um reinvigorated you to to start making your own records again um he was just sitting down and right writing a poem one day um which i didn't know where all the words came from he just sort of showed me that this is this was quite a good set of lyrics and um tried to put it she took my guitar down off the wall and played my three chords and put a song to it and i played it to a few people and he thought well why don't you carry on doing that um so he became it became me coming up here and actually sitting and and writing songs and um i got i got about seven songs that i i've got that i thought guys quite pleased to starting off on two tracks on garageband and now i'm doing 35 tracks which again talking to it previously you get greedy you know i'll have another track for that little symbol and things and uh and i never thought that i'd be able to do anything like that but it's now becoming very easy to me to do it so uh one of these songs that i've just finished now particularly i'm sending over to graham because graham said to me you know why don't we do something so i've i've written a song for him so i hope you know he'll be over there and i'll be over here he's still in new york and he's flat in manhattan you know so you know i speak to him you know we we face time but now i can zoom you know so uh oh yeah yeah we if we're still in contact so everything's great and and and was how many solo records did did you make um in earlier was it three solo records i've got time one two three four five six albums about alan clark yeah and and and i did yeah i did three in america and i did three in los angeles worked with a guy called spencer davis i know spencer davis offers so there's spencer davis that's right isn't it spencer proffer um again i went to l.a one day looking for someone to do a deal on this album i had and i met spence and he said to me i'll pay you not to release that album and i said what do you mean because i would like i'd like to make an album with you so that's when i got time i came in which which of your solo records would you recommend that fans start with like which is your favorite start with uh wow not not existing but but you know new fans handle him hadron edward yeah the herbie flowers on bass d d murray on bass um yeah deep and jd marion days wow oh my god stuff from 1972. um jenny my wife her brother john unfortunately he died we've coded here about a month ago yeah it was a big shock uh but he wrote a musical called hopeflux um which he wanted me to put music to the to the lyrics that he wrote which i did and and it was quite good we i recorded the music for it in um in a studio in london and actually it was um it was d murray on bass um it was the guitarist from hortwind uh was playing the guitars um i did vocals with terry and uh i think the drummer was nigel olsen wesley was uh elton stromer at that particular time yeah nigel nigel yeah with mine and my girlfriends all right he was on the drums and i think maybe reg was there doing a bit of piano and uh and i've still actually got the copies of what we did at that particular time so it's quite a good lineup for a musical very very good very good lineup and so and you choose that record like as you know no no that record doesn't exist i've got i've got it but you know when you've done it in 1972 and you had to do like in five hours and it was it was sort of rushed i mean it really is rock and roll uh uh maybe i'll send you and maybe i'll send you a trap you know what i mean that'd be cool yeah yeah well i'm i'm really grateful for you taking the time and and i would encourage all all of the listeners to this podcast to check out alan's latest album resurgence and you've got a new album on the way is that right well hopefully you know i never i i never gamble uncertainty you know too many things can happen well not these days you can't gamble uncertainty that's for sure um but but well fingers crossed you do um and uh yeah i really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me um it's been a pleasure tom it really is and congratulations and all the things that you've been doing i mean designing clothes making records writing songs and now you know podcasting thank you very much

Channel: Tom Cridland

Views: 71,497

Keywords: The Hollies, The Hollies Interview, The Hollies Podcast, Allan Clarke Interview, Allan Clarke Podcast, Allan Clarke, The Hollies 2020, Allan Clarke 2020, Allan Clarke Graham Nash, Tom Cridland, Tom Cridland Interview, Tom Cridland Podcast, Greatest Music of All Time, Greatest Music of All Time Interview, Greatest Music of All Time Podcast

Id: D2Jjjp_9_Rs

Length: 63min 30sec (3810 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 16 2020