The Hollies :: View topic

Here's a song where Hollies absolutely outshine the original hit.

This is Jeri Southern singing "I Thought Of You Last Night," which the Hollies covered as one of their first ballads.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP90KaCqQGQ&feature=search

Ms. Southern's voice doesn't seem particularly powerful, but I think that she does put emotion and feeling into her performance.

I have to say, that listening to this song and not knowing about the Hollies' performance, I would have thought this an extremely unlikely vehicle for the band.

And I would have been wrong, as Allan's voice, Graham's harmoney vocal, and an interesting acoustic guitar from Tony make this one of my favorite two or three Hollies songs from their first two years as recording artists. I think it would have made a fine track to add to the live repertoire, except that I don't think that the early Hollies played ballads in concert.

This just shows the versatility of The Hollies. On listening to the female vocalists version you would not have expected the band to venture into this unknown territory. But they gave it a shy kick up the proverbial and transformed the song into a very pleasant and whimsical interlude. I thought the other version was as dull as ditchwater.

http://members.shaw.ca/ddery/jerisouthern/disc.htm

The above link shows that this song appeared on Jeri Southern's LP titled "You Better Go Now" and is from 1952.

Aside from the bizarre decision to record "Zip A Dee Doo Dah" from the Song Of The South movie from Disney (this animated film was released in 1946), I would not be surprised to learn that "I Thought Of You Last Night" is the oldest song that the Hollies ever recorded.

Can anyone think of another song older than 1952 from the Hollies catalog?

Anyway, as for Jeri Southern, I think that her voice is rather thin and weak enough to have even precluded a recording career in that era, much less be a star. I mean, just listen to a Peggy Lee or a Doris Day or any other woman from the 50's -- the successful ones had strong, beautiful voices. Then again, Southern does emote well, and I think her voice could be called "sincere," I doubt that I'll ever buy a Jeri Southern album, but I definitely have her version of this song in my iTunes library.

Joined: 05 Apr 2010 Posts: 8 Location: USA

This was very interesting. I agree that if I had heard this first I would not think that the Hollies would do something like it. But I'm glad they did coz I really like their version.

One of my all time favorite Hollies recordings might be the oldest song. "That's My Desire" was written in 1931 by Helmy Kresa and Carroll Loveday. I used to listen to that song over and over, actually I still do. When I was a kid whenever I would play this, if my Mom was anywhere near, she would come to me and say, "He doesn't do the key change. He's supposed to do the key change." That would always make me laugh. I would just say, "He does it his way, Mom. He does it just fine." And a mighty fine job it is!

Of course, one of the main reasons that I love the song is the fact that Allan, Graham and Tony all tell me that they love me! Very Happy

I still get a thrill out of that. I always turn up the volume for that line, I never sing along with it, and I say, "I love you, too." That's probably way too much information! For all the years I have heard about the Frankie Lane version of the song I've never heard it until today when I checked it on youtube. (Man, that has so much on there. It boggles the mind what you can find.) There were several different Lane versions and several by other artists including Buddy Holly. Some weren't too bad, some were.

I saw the Hollies throughout the 60s and I'm pretty sure that they did some ballads in their sets. I think they may have even done "That's My Desire." After all they didn't have a lot of songs to chose from back then. I just seem to remember seeing them sing this. It could be memory or just my imigaination. Either way is okay. The Hollies have always done a variety of live material, as I recall. I mean they even did an a capella version of Amazing Grace. How many rock bands would do that? Only the incomparable Hollies.