Ever since The Hollies first came on to the scene hotfoot after The Beatles and all out to prove that Manchester could produce as good as Liverpool any day, The Hollies have been known for their style in clothes. Not for them the way-out haircuts, the scruffy jeans and sloppy Joe T-shirts. Even now they have gone casual, their casual wear wouldn’t disgrace a page in The Tailor & Cutter or Esquire.

If The Hollies have had a reputation for their clothes, their success as a group certainly hasn’t been built on that alone. I doubt even if it has had much to do with it. For The Hollies have equally always had one of the best group sounds in the business.

Their music has always had polish, originality and an essential heart.

Take this in conjunction with the fact that the five Hollies are five of the most likeable people in show-business and you have an unbeatable combination.

One of the words most used about The Hollies is that they are professionals — everybody says it except The Hollies themselves. “We are just a bunch of amateurs,” really says Graham Nash. “We play something, if we like it we play it again, if we still like it we work on it till we get it to sound exactly as we like it. Fortunately for us, what we like to hear seems to be also what our fans like to hear, so everybody is happy.”

A bunch of amateurs maybe, but professionalism is more than just being able to read music and play your instrument fairly well. Professionalism covers all sorts of other things, like always being in the right place at the right time, always being properly rehearsed before you get on stage, always knowing what you are going to do, being able to feel the audience reaction and adjust your act accordingly — all these things and many more make up professionalism, and The Hollies have it in full measure even if they do tell you that they just play to please themselves.

The Hollies have had all the hit-parade honours they have ever wanted, and are still getting them. They themselves, however, are always trying to broaden their scope. They have done very well in Europe, but they want to do better. They have never been very big in the States and they are determined to make their mark there also.

They have tried their hand at cabaret and made a success of it. They want to try films, they want to try all sorts of new things, new sounds, new instruments, new song structures. They are always seeking for something just that little bit better.

All The Hollies play their instruments well and they never cease trying to improve their standard. Drummer Bobby Elliott is acknowledged by the profession itself to be one of the best drummers on the scene today, and if he ever wanted to leave The Hollies he could be certain of a place in any group, combo, orchestra or band he wanted.

The Hollies are determined to always remain just that little bit ahead of the rest and in this writer’s opinion it’s all of a pot of gold to a bent pin that they will succeed in doing just that in 1967, as they have done in 1966 and 1965.

The post The group that likes to be different: The Hollies appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

Looking at Georgie, lost in his playing, one could not help but agree with him, and I don’t think that it is very often that Georgie does think about the hit-parade. In fact the hit-parade has had a very peculiar reaction to Georgie.

Most people know that Georgie led Billy Fury’s first backing group before The Tornados. He then took up the organ and formed The Blue Flames, with whom he played for years at the Flamingo and other clubs, building up a tremendous following, but never making the charts.

Incidentally, unlike most groups, The Blue Flames have always been a rather anonymous group, they are never personally identified, although through the years the fans have got to know the names of some of the members especially the bongo drummer. In the course of its existence The Blue Flames have had a number of personnel changes which have gone unnoticed to many people.

Georgie also, from time to time, augments The Blue Flames with additional instruments of one sort or another as he experiments with new sound developments. When I saw them recently, Georgie had included two extra saxophones and a trumpet in his line up, whether they will stay, or how long they will stay depends, no doubt, on how satisfied Georgie is with the new sound he is getting.

When you come to think of it Georgie is himself something of an enigma, when you ask yourself why and how a lad from Lancashire with no particular musical traditions behind him, or anything to inspire him beyond the records he hears of American jazz musicians, should become one of the leaders of Rhythm and Blues music.

So a little time ago I asked him about himself — what sort of person he was. Georgie told me —

“At school I was actually much keener on sport than music. I was captain of the school rugger team. I was in the school athletics team, I was a keen ice-skater, a keen water-skier and I was also in the school swimming team. I would emphasize the word was, because from the time I got interested in music, and even more so, after I became a professional musician and entered show-business, sport went by the board simply because of lack of time. Nowadays, about the only thing I do still is swim.

“But I never regret it, or anything from the past. Sometimes I am asked if I ever regret going into show-business? — Do I remember school with affection and so on? — The truth is I never think about the past at all. To me yesterday is over and done with — it can’t ever be brought back, so you might as well forget it. I think only of today and the future — this is important because if you think right about the future, the past need never come to your attention again. If you go wrong by the future, of course, you may be forced to remember the past because the silly action you did then has consequences which are always forcing themselves on your attention.

“In some ways I’m really rather a lazy person. One of the pleasures that a big chart success brings you is the money to be able to employ a lot of people to do all the arranging of things for you… you know the day-to-day details of living and travelling. That way I can concentrate entirely on making music. Which is, after all, the thing I do best. I do try to put on a bit of an act sometimes — I mean I try and appear terribly business-like and tycoonish when I have to negotiate business—but it is all an act. I’d be just hopeless as a real businessman. One of my troubles is that I’m not really strong willed. Anybody can get me to do almost anything if they dangle the right bait in front of my nose.

“Do I have any interests outside of music? — Not really. I think I’ve read all the James Bond books, if that is a virtue, I never get time for more serious books. I’m hopeless at drawing or painting and I couldn’t make anything with my hands if I tried. Clothes? I like to be well dressed and I blush sometimes to think how scruffy I used to be when I first came into show-business — but I have no interest in clothes or fashion at all. It doesn’t give me hours of enjoyment deciding whether a button should be here or there, or whether the yellow tweed is better than the purple mohair, which it seems to give some people. Well dressed — yes, no more than that. No, apart from swimming I can’t really say I have any real interests outside making music.

“Girls? Marriage? In due course, I suppose. It always sounds so silly the way people in show-business say you never have the time. But it really is true — there is always something that needs your attention, and when you add that on to the time you need to practice and rehearse, I would vote for any political party that promised me a twenty-five hour day. You know you don’t get time for girls — you have to make time and in order to want to make time you’ve got to want to be with the girl pretty badly. So until you meet the right girl, the ideal girl, the one that has that super attraction—you just seem to miss out on girls, there just isn’t time.’’

Well that is something of Georgie Fame’s view of himself, prompted by some odd questions from me. I do know that whether Georgie hits the chart high-spots again or not — Georgie is still going to be around playing his kind of music to anybody who wants to listen to it.

The post A Pop Enigma… flaming Georgie Fame appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

He didn’t quite, because The Beatles’ ’65 tour of America just about saved them from that, nevertheless on a points system awarded for each week’s position in the American charts, Herman did in fact come top of the poll.

In spite of his tremendous success Stateside, Herman hasn’t really made much impact in England since his first hit-record. Most of his records make the charts somewhere around the lower end but you can’t say the English really love him.

If the English fans don’t buy Herman’s records in the quantities the Americans do, they do have at least one favourite occupation as far as Herman is concerned, and that is to marry him off.

So far, I think Herman has been rumoured to be engaged to almost every girl on the British pop scene, from Twinkle to Jackie Trent, the latter being hardly likely since she is already happily married.

I asked Herman about this one day when I met him at the Alpha Studios in Birmingham where he was appearing on a “Lucky Stars” programme.

“Girls”, said Herman, “when do you get time for girls in this racket?” echoing the heartfelt complaint of practically every pop star one puts this question to. “Romance? No time.”

“As for marrying me off, the fans are nuts. I believe the rumour regarding Twinkle began because we were on the same bill a couple of times and I was spotted taking her out to dinner after the show. Then I was on ‘Juke Box Jury’ once, and I happened to be criticizing a record by Lulu and I happened to say ‘I love Lulu, of course, but…’ and next morning the papers had me practically buying Lulu an engagement ring.”

“Mind you, I do love Lulu, everybody does, she is a wonderful and sweet person, but that doesn’t mean wedding bells are ringing for me or for anyone else. In fact I’m much too young to get married, I’m having a wonderful time and I don’t think a man should get married much before he is twenty-five anyway.”

Actually Herman never had any intention of becoming a singer. It all started when he was given the part of a young boy who had to sing, so he started singing lessons. Peter liked going to a youth club and listening to an amateur group which played under the name of The Heartbeats. One day they were short of a lead singer and Herman, or Peter Noone as he was then was, asked to fill in. Later he joined The Heartbeats on a permanent basis and they billed themselves as Herman and The Heartbeats. Of that original group actually only Karl Green remains with The Hermits.

Their big-time careers started when they were heard by Mickie Most, the man responsible for the hits of The Animals and The Nashville Teens, who travelled up to Bolton to hear them, liked what he heard and put them under contract. The result was “I’m Into Something Good” which was a tremendous smash hit.

Following their enormous success in the American charts, it was inevitable that Hollywood would beckon, and beckon with an offer that even the “not wanting to be an actor any more” Herman would find hard to resist. The Hermits have made several small features but their first big-budget picture was made towards the end of 1965 and is due for release in Britain about the time this Annual is published. At the time of writing, very little has been released about the film and even the title seems to be not yet finally decided.

Anything can happen in a picture, of course, but there is little doubt that with Herman in it, the fans will flock to see it.

Reading through this article, one can hardly help noticing that throughout I have referred to Herman in the singular and have made very little mention of The Hermits. This is not so strange really, for I don’t think there is any other group walking the scene in which the other members have attracted less attention. Right from the start of “I’m Into Something Good” the spotlight has been turned entirely on Herman and I think it will always remain there.

The post ‘Enerey The Eighth: Herman and his Hermits appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

Actually the start of the Manfreds’ turning away from the pursuit of popular success started quite early in 1965, when their extended play record, which included the track “The One In The Middle”, hit the top of the E.P. charts and stayed there for months. I asked Manfred if he regretted not having cut “The One In The Middle” as a single. He told me — “No. We don’t reckon that much on chart successes with a single… it doesn’t mean all that much any more. We think that to get an E.P. or an L.P. up to the top of their respective charts is a much greater honour and in the long run worth a great deal more.”

This attitude is not really surprising, because although they have had a fair proportion of chart-topping singles, The Manfreds can hardly be called a typical group.

Manfred Mann himself is a South African by birth, he started his musical career by training for the career of a classical pianist, and to this end he went to Vienna to study. Instead of becoming a classical musician, he became more and more interested in jazz and blues. Mike Vickers is also a well-known jazz musician and composer, and indeed, often plays with The Modern Jazz Orchestra or one of several other combinations when The Manfreds are not working. Paul Jones was at Oxford when he became so interested in pop and blues singing that he neglected his studies and failed his first-year examinations, with the result that he got chucked out. Paul is a very complex character with a clear-thinking logical brain and a forthright manner, as he has shown the number of times he has appeared on T.V. as a panellist of one sort or another.

After he got thrown out of the University, Paul actually stayed in Oxford singing with local groups. He did this to be near his girl-friend Sheila, who was also at the University. When she graduated they both came down to London and got married.

There is very little doubt that Paul has been the main factor of the Manfred’s success. Whilst, without him, they would almost certainly have established themselves with the cognoscenti as a top R & B combo, they most certainly would not have achieved popular success as that term is generally understood.

Paul Jones is almost the perfect centreman. Not only is he an excellent harmonica player and a blues singer, but he has the sort of personality that gathers his audience to him, bringing them completely to an understanding of the lyric which he is singing. This has had the most marked effect with their hits like “If You Gotta Go, Go Now”, rather than their early ones like “5-4-3-2-1” and “Do Wah Diddy Diddy”, where Paul’s blues voice was used more as an additional instrument.

The Manfreds’ are not a group to rest on their laurels, or even stand still for very long, about six months ago Manfred started experimenting with increasing the group’s range and versatility by adding additional instruments to the usual organ, guitar, drums, sax, flute, harmonica combination. He has tried additional saxes and also tried adding trumpets. What the final result may be is not yet clear at the time of writing.

The tremendous success in America of Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass indicates that there is a trend towards a return of a modern version of Dixieland and the big band sound. If this is the case, and you dear reader will know by the time you come to read this Annual, it will be proof that The Manfreds are right on the ball with their thinking, and will undoubtedly be right in the forefront of the new wave.

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If 1965 could be said to be the peak year of the Beatles’ fame with their being awarded their honour by the Queen, their third and most successful tour yet of the United States, their film “Help” a smash box-office success although they didn’t think much of it themselves, plus every record they chose to release going straight to the top of the charts in Britain and almost as quickly in the U.S.A., 1965 could also be said to be the year that we glimpsed the pattern of the future and 1966 could be said to be the year when the big question mark had to be answered — Where do we go from here?

To this writer’s mind the most significant thing about 1965, Beatle-wise, came at the end of the year when two songs written by Lennon and McCartney, “Yesterday” and “Michelle”, caused a sensation sung by other artistes than The Beatles.

Lennon and McCartney have always been a great song-writing team and each Beatles’ number they wrote seemed to get better and better, culminating, in the writer’s opinion, with the very beautiful “We Can Work It Out”, but all these have been Beatle songs sung by The Beatles. Other artistes have sung them, of course, but so far don’t seem, again in this writer’s opinion, to have really got hold of them. Several of these Beatles’ songs will in time become standards, of that there is little doubt, but at the moment they are overshadowed by the aura of The Beatles’ own performance of them, so that we cannot be wholly sure. With “Yesterday” and “Michelle” we have two songs that will undoubtedly become standards, and in each case gaining their effect just as much, if not more, when sung by other artistes.

As good as Paul McCartney’s own rendering of “Yesterday” in The Beatles’ L.P. was, it didn’t come up to the performance given it by Matt Munro, which deservedly made the Top Ten.

So these two songs show the future of two of The Beatles quite clearly, confirming what we always suspected, that we have in them two of the greatest writers of popular music that this generation will produce.

What of The Beatles as a group. For 1966, as we said was a year of problems and questions.

Many fans get up in arms at the mention of The Beatles or any of their favourites being finished, but sometimes forget the real question which is not, “Is the public tired of them?” which the public obviously isn’t, but “Are The Beatles tired of being The Beatles”.

To many fans the idea that The Beatles might wish to stop being The Beatles or Elvis Presley might wish to stop being called The King seems ludicrous. They cannot estimate or even begin to understand that what started out as a great adventure years before, when you had no money and there was all the world to gain, can become not only a bore, but a physical strain when you have enough money to provide you with a rich man’s income for the rest of your life, and yet the public still requires you to perform, expecting each of your offerings to be better than the last, and yet still forcing you to lead a life that is constantly circumscribed by the necessity of securing you from the over-eager admiration of your fans.

Presley found the answer by confining himself entirely to films and although he has gone on making records, his apparent reluctance to cut any new discs, apart from those required for his films, seems to indicate that he, at least, would welcome an easing-off of the fans’ admiration or rather that wild, out-of-hand admiration which seems to be confined almost entirely to recording stars.

Can The Beatles find this answer? Their first film “A Hard Day’s Night” wasn’t as successful as many people thought it might be. It was made on a cheap budget and there were some mistakes left in it that should have been cut out. It was almost as though it had been tried to put the film on to the world’s screens for as little money as possible as quickly as possible.

“Help” was an entirely different kettle of fish and has been a smash success. However, The Beatles proclaimed themselves not altogether pleased with it, and most critics thought it rather over-gimmicked and an attempt at something that didn’t quite come off.

This underlines the problem in making a film about four people. Many people draw the rather obvious parallel with the Marx Brothers and have tried to make out that The Beatles could be another Marx Brothers. Can they?

Well to some extent they have developed different characters. Paul McCartney, the juvenile, John Lennon, the master-mind, Ringo the sardonic clown, George, the burbling good-natured, “uncle” figure. The trouble is quite a number of readers won’t agree with me and will see them in quite a different set of roles—the only one that would be more in general agreement, being Paul as the juvenile romantic lead.

So far, however, the four have not shown themselves to be capable of emulating the talents of the Marx Brothers, and probably they themselves wouldn’t want to be a second lot of Marx Brothers anyway — The Beatles are nothing if not originals.

No doubt that they will be able to work out some satisfactory four-man act in time, which might prove the successful basis of a series of films starring the four boys.

Again, the question mark, may be put after the words — if they want to. It might well be that Ringo with a family and a string of investments, might after perhaps one more film and another American tour, be prepared to call it a day and take life easy on the proceeds. John and Paul obviously have a bright and permanent future ahead of them as composers, which might leave only George Harrison, who married early in the year, wanting to go on as a Beatle.

All this is in the realm of speculation. From the Beatles’ fans’ point of view and wishes The Beatles will go on for ever and there is no doubt they can for how many umpteen more years. The question still remains, however, will they want to?

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