Deeper Digs in Rock: Allan Clarke of The Hollies
It’s the Holiday Deeper Dig! Christian gets in deep with Allan Clarke, one of the founders of an original British Invasion band, The Hollies! The Hollies are a British rock group best known for their pioneering and distinctive three-part vocal harmony style. The Hollies became one of the leading British groups of the 1960s (231 weeks on the UK singles charts during the 1960s, the 9th highest of any artist of the decade) and into the mid 1970s. The band was formed by Allan Clarke and Graham Nash in 1962 as a Merseybeat-type music group in Manchester, although some of the band members came from towns further north in East Lancashire. Graham Nash left the group in 1968 to form the supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash.
They enjoyed considerable popularity in many countries (at least 60 singles or EPs and 26 albums charting somewhere in the world, spanning over five decades), although they did not achieve major US chart success until 1966 with "Bus Stop". The Hollies had over 30 charting singles on the UK Singles Chart, and 22 on the Billboard Hot 100, with major hits on both sides of the Atlantic that included "Just One Look", "Look Through Any Window", "I Can't Let Go", "Bus Stop", "Stop Stop Stop", "On a Carousel", "Carrie Anne", "Jennifer Eccles", and later "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother", "Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress", and "The Air That I Breathe".
The Hollies are one of the few UK groups of the early 1960s, along with the Rolling Stones, that have never disbanded and continue to record and perform. In recognition of their achievements, the Hollies were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010.
Harold Allan Clarke is an English pop rock singer, who was one of the founding members and the original lead singer of The Hollies and as inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010 . He retired from performing in 1999, due in part to ongoing medical problems with his vocal cords, while at the same time his wife since 1964, Jennifer Bowstead Clarke experienced a recurrence of Cancer.
In the autumn of 2019 Allan returned with a new album on BMG, appropriately titled ‘Resurgence’.