We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago….
By 1972 the only Hollies songs I heard were the radio hits and they had two that year. The monster smash “Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress” which peaked in October, and the follow up, “Long Dark Road”, an underrated gem. The problem was both of those songs were from a 1971 LP, “Distant Light”, which featured founding member of the band, Allan Clarke on lead vocals.
By this time, Clarke had left the band to try a solo career, so the next LP “Romany” featured new vocalist Mikael Rickfors along with guitarist Tony Hicks, Terry Sylvester (who had replaced Graham Nash in the late 60’s) and the rhythm section of Bernie Calvert and Bobby Elliot along with some studio help.
I’m listening to this album for the first time and it’s surprisingly good. Rickfors can sing powerful or quiet…and while the harmonies are not quite up to the standards of the Clarke/Nash years, they arent bad.
Hicks is one of the overlooked guitar players of this period. He was very good without the pyrotechnics of some of his contemporaries. Check out “Blue In The Morning”.
The problem with this is it was really not a postcard of its time. And the song selection is a bit dodgy although some tracks stand out including “Touch”, the title track, “Courage Of Your Convictions (going for that Long Cool Woman sound) and a brilliant cover of Judee Sill’s “”Jesus Was A Crossmaker”.
This is a pretty good listen…especially when you weren’t expecting much without Clarke.
They even did a cover of the Eagles Witchy Woman as part of these sessions that didn’t make the album
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