Hollies Sing Dylan – THE HOLLIES***

When The Ship Comes In/I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight/I Want You/Wheels On Fire/I Shall Be Released/Blowin’ In The Wind/Quit Your Low Down Ways/Just Like A Woman/The Times They Are A Changin’/All I Really Want To Do/My Back Pages/Mighty Quinn

Hollies Sing Dylan was a stylistic departure for The Hollies which provoked Graham Nash into leaving the group. Many pundits considered them to be too much a lightweight pop outfit to credibly do justice to the Dylan songs. (UK:3)

"Graham Nash has left the building and he's taken the creativity with him. Leaving the rest of The Hollies to their own treacly devices we are given this. The Hollies never covered Dylan before, or had any musical relation to him whatsoever. The results are reminiscent of the Chuckie Cheese house band. It's like if Harper's Bazaar recorded an album of Kinks covers."

"The Hollies were essentially a singles band, much more so than, for instance, The Kinks, who had both hit singles and did very well in the album section as well. This album in fact did not contain any hit singles. It sounds a bit cheesy at times, perhaps, but what they were best known for, harmony singing, they do very well here."

"I've always loved The Hollies sound but just wished their material was a little weightier. On the other hand, much as I admire Dylan I've usually tended to enjoy his work more when performed by other artists. So, in theory, this should be a perfect album for someone like me. In practice though, as is often the case, the theory doesn't quite work out."

"Needless to say that the vocals and harmonies can't be beat and how they've changed some of the vocal melodies is just great. They perform nearly every song in a different way compared to other versions. Allan Clarke's voice is superb which give these songs a new life. So this is more than just a set of covers but maybe a set of reinterpretations."

"I am not going to eulogise about Dylan here. Like all great artists he leaves his work open to reinterpretation. But the settings to these songs are poor and add nothing. Don't get me wrong I also love The Hollies. But there is a lack of passion in this album. Avoid and buy one of the numerous hits albums instead."