Post Of Christmas Past

I believe last year was the first time I posted this nostalgic look back at how I became a Hollies fan and a journalist. It all ties together.

Back when I bought the 2010 vinyl reissue of The Hollies’ Hear! Here! album on the Sundazed label, I decided to keep my 1965 version even though it definitely shows its age. The jacket of that Imperial Records release is frayed and the vinyl has scratches, but I’ll always regard it as a prized possession. I’m pretty sure it was the first album I ever owned. On this day in 1966, an older brother decided to give me a copy of Hear! Here! as a Christmas present, along with the “Stop Stop Stop” single I had requested.

At that point, I only knew one song by The Hollies, but hearing jangling pop gems such as “I’m Alive,” “Look Through Any Window,” and “I’ve Been Wrong” immediately caught my attention. Their covers of the rhythm and blues standards “Lawdy Miss Clawdy,” and “You Must Believe Me,” as well as Roy Orbison’s “Down The Line,” were precise and spirited. The Hollies’ originals—the touching “So Lonely” and the harder-edged “Too Many People”—showed their versatility as songwriters.

A month later, I bought their Stop Stop Stop album (For Certain Because in the UK) with money I earned from shoveling our next door neighbor’s sidewalk after the infamous Chicago big snow of 1967. My fascination with the liner notes describing the various inspirations that Graham Nash, Allan Clarke, and Tony Hicks drew upon as songwriters sparked my own life-long interest in writing. And as on Hear! Here!, the harmonies these three guys created were fantastic.

Happy Holidays to all my visitors here at Broken Hearted Toy.