The Hollies :: View topic - 6-CD Hollies Box released by EMI in May 2011

The (almost totally) false rumour concerning session guitarists on Hollies records originated in a Ron Richards interview in a U.S.A. Hollies compilation CD "The Epic Anthology"
Aside from the Pedal Steel guitar solo(Rod King) on "Jennifer Eccles" & rhythm guitar(Alan Parker) on one track from "Hollies Sing Dylan", I doubt that there was much or any involvement by session guitarists on Hollies Records.

Aside from the question of mono mixes versus original stereo mixes versus 1993 stereo mixes, there are only two blantant faults in the new set(specifically on "Like Every Time Before" & "Dear Eloise"). Considering that some dealers are now offering the set for preorder at £12.99 for a 6-CD set, it is still a good value.

Rythym Guitar Joined: 21 Feb 2006 Posts: 200

It was a pleasure to receive my copy this afternoon! I ordered it one week ago by http://www.bol.com/nl/p/muziek/clarke-hicks-nash/1000004011320742/index.html

The box looks great : a nice booklet with an interview with Graham, an overview of the discography 1963-1968 and 22 artistic (little) photos of the band. Every CD is in a tasteful color.
The sound quality is superb .The Lewisham concert is brilliant.
I know what to do the next days… Smile

I just ordered the box set. But, I'll be out of the state for the next three weeks, so I won't hear it until around the end of the first week of June.

So, it'll be that long before I enjoy that 1968 concert.

Expensive package for one incomplete concert plus three novelty French language singles, but so be it. I couldn't help myself.

I still hope that one day that entire concert will be released in its entirety. Maybe they can market it as a two-disc set and include the Capital Gold concert by the current lineup with it or something like that.

Joined: 15 Feb 2004 Posts: 6 Location: Croydon, UK

According to amazon.co.uk this re-issue is number 47 in their top 100 bestsellers. Another amazon search suggests that it is the 4th bestselling EMI release at present. Will that encourage EMI to release more? Clarke, Hicks & Sylvester Years next please!

And now it's at no 38! http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/bestsellers/music/ref=pd_dp_ts_m_h__1#2

In fact it's at no 1 on the Britpop chart, and no 2 on the Box set chart.

Acoustic Guitar Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 172

My copy came today,now start listening,evening is saved.

Håkan.

I am not too sure where to start with my thoughts on this package. I will say that it looks good and the photo on the front of the CD is not seen very often or even at all.. The booklet has an interview with Graham and lots of photos of the group through the various lineups while Graham was in the band.
Firstly the mastering.
Mostly they used tracks already remastered since 1997 and the album masters are from the 90's digipak reissues. On a couple of the tracks the track seperaton markes are in the wrong place and if you actually skip tracks and use the remote sometimes a small bit of the start is missing. I can never understand how this comes about. It seems to me to be pretty simple and is just sloppy. As for the sound quality I think they sound excellent.
About the content.
Based on todays studio thinking, the vocals on one side and instruments on the other is a disliked process and based on this the choice of mono over the stereo album tracks seems reasonable. I am ok either way as the tracks have all been issued in the mono/stereo album series. What has been done on a few of the non LP tracks is to centre the music and vocals to give an almost mono sound.
Furmanek Remixes
Like Every Time Before, Yes I Will, Don’t Run & Hide, If I Needed Someone, Yes I Will (45 version), After The Fox, Don’t Run & Hide, We’re Alive, Kill Me Quick & Look Through Any Window are used. They didn't use his mix of I Can't Let Go but went with the mono mix for that.
The Concert tracks.
These sound excellent. They have mixed these to sound almost mono with the music and vocals being centered. Check out the difference between this version of The Times They Are A Changin' and the stereo version on the Hollies Sing Dylan CD. I don't know if this is the full concert or there are more tracks available. Their use of backing recordings to assist to sound live like the studio recordings was not a common practice back then. Butterfly sounds really beautiful.

There are a couple of new stereo mixes: Non Prego Per Me & Devi Aver Fiducia In Me. All The World Is Love has the rare original German stereo mix.
All 4 French vocal tracks are here with only Look Through Any Window being issued before. All those tracks are mono as is Little Bitty Pretty One (first time mono for this)
Dear Eloise has used the same mix from the Mono/Stereo Butterfly digipak with the mixing error at about 40 seconds. Running Through The Night starts very loud and is turned down a little after a second or two.
I don't think much money was spent preparing this reissue. I guess the retail cost of this set of 6CDs is so cheap that it would not be cost effective to spend any money to put is together hence the little amount of 2011 remastering.
Finally the price of this set makes it worthwhile even for the casual Hollies fan. They get almost every track in the Nash period for the price of a full price double Greatest Hits CD. Great value.

I've got my copy in hand! After adding the concert tracks to my ipod, I've now listened to all the Lewisham concert and the foreign language novelty tracks.

The two Italian-language tracks are now in stereo. I haven't heard my mono versions in several years, and a single listening of these new stereo mixes didn't jump out at me as particularly different. I'll play them side by side at some point with my mono recordings and see if I notice differences. Speaking of these to songs, I have no idea what the lyrics are about in either song, but I do like the instruments on both tracks. I wonder if the band ever considered recording English-language translations of these two songs for possible UK and US release. I think that the backing tracks are strong enough to have done something with them.

The three new French-language songs are entertaining to hear -- a couple of times. During choruses, I could dimly hear the original background harmonies in English. Does this mean that the original recordings of songs like You Know He Did, using multi-tracks, were recorded entirely live in the studio so that when they used the backing track for the French vocal performance, the harmonies from the original recording bled through to the backing tracks?

The concert is amazingly well-done. If there are no dubs on this concert recording from Disc 6 and this is truly how it sounded, then this is one of if not THE best 1960's concert I've ever heard. It totally blows away anything that I've heard from Hollies BBC recordings, even those that were released on the big box set. This concert easily outclasses any Beatles concert I've heard (and I've heard of ton of those). The performance of Look Through Any Window is immaculate, and Tony sings his line (sorry, Tony) much better than he usually does in concert. Graham's bitterness regarding King Midas' lack of commercial success comes through, as Graham introduces the song by saying that "it wasn't too popular with a lot of people." The performance by the band, and Graham & Allan's harmonies, are fantastic (yes, and Tony does OK with the low third harmony, too!).

Was the orchestra on King Midas, Butterfly, Jennifer Eccles, and Carrie Anne a pre-recorded backing track, or did the band perform the show with the orchestra?

Oh, and without the silly wolf-whistles, the live performance of Jennifer Eccles actually becomes a good song. Heck, it's more than good. I really like this. No kidding, it's a very entertaining performance. The whistles have always been annoying at best for me and made me pretty much dislike the song, and their absence really improves the song. Let's put it this way: I just erased the single version of Jennifer Eccles from my ipod, and replaced it with this concert performance of the song.

OK, so here's my pet peeve. Earlier in this thread, we learned that this CD release does not include the entire show from May 24, 1968. One reason speculated by folks was that there may not have been room on the CDs. Well, that's simply not true. Four of the six CD's hold around 64 and a half minutes of material, one holds about 70 minutes, and the final disc holds a bit more than 73 minutes. At 80 minutes capacity per disc, there is more than ample room for a bunch of more tracks including the entire concert. There was well over an hour of unused disc capacity of you add up the six discs. And if some songs from the original concert aren't being included because they were old chestnuts from the repertoire like Too Much Monkey Business or other R&B/Chuck Berry type of tracks, I ask what's wrong with that? As I wrote earlier in this thread, maybe the Hollies at that time didn't like having such old stuff in their stage act put on a record, so that may have killed any possibility of a concert album back in 1968 (ignoring the whole issue of Graham's impending departure). But so what? In 2011, particularly on a CD that includes what is essentially the band's entire recorded output from Day 1 of the group's existence, including the rest of that concert would have definitely improved this compilation release. I can only hope that something, somehow, will entice EMI and the band to release the whole show someday, perhaps as a single CD.

That complaint aside, the concert makes this CD release absolutely essential, even for someone like me with every other song on multiple CD's in my collection. I love this concert show so much, I'm bursting with excitement over it. The band had so much energy, Hicks and Elliott were both fantastic on their instruments, and Clarke and Nash each sang perfectly throughout the show. I can't recommend it strongly enough.

Scott

Banjo Joined: 03 May 2009 Posts: 35 Location: Toronto

Banjo Joined: 03 May 2009 Posts: 35 Location: Toronto

Anyone noticed the different sounding Zip A Dee Doo Dah on the new set compared to the 1985 version