Welcome to A Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kaye. Hi, how are you? I hope you’ve had a lovely week since we last caught up. I want to remind you right up front that if you have any suggestions for me of artists from the 60s, 70s or 80s that you’d like to hear from, please send me a message through the website abreathoffreshair.com.au. I’m still following up on a lot that you’ve already sent me, but I’d like to have more, especially if you fancy jumping onto a call with me and your favourite artist, okay? Now, talking about favourite artists, my guest today is likely one of yours, and definitely one of mine.
His band was perhaps the greatest pop group to emerge from the early British rock revolution. They had 18 top 10 hits and sold millions of singles and albums worldwide. Songs like this one.
Bus stop, where day she’s there, I say, please share my umbrella. Bus stop, bus go, she stays, love grows, under my umbrella. All that summer we enjoyed it, wind and rain and shine.
That umbrella we employed it, by August she was mine. As lead singer of the Hollies, Alan Clark has enjoyed one of the most successful and recognisable voices of all time. He currently has a couple of new solo projects out, the first called Resurgence from 2020, and the second I’ll Never Forget, that he did with his childhood friend and ex-Hollies bandmate, Graham Nash.
Alan, however, says his voice just isn’t what it used to be. Hello, Alan Clark, you’re riding another crest of the wave. Well, you say that, yeah, it’s very unexpected at my age, but it’s going wonderful.
Are you enjoying it as much this time round as you did in the beginning? Well, it all seems very strange, because, you know, when you don’t sing for 15 years, and then suddenly you get an idea to do something, it makes you think why I hadn’t done it 15 years previously. But that’s life. Yeah.
Before we get on to the new album, Alan, tell me what you’ve been doing for those 15 years. I know that you retired to look after your wife, Jennifer, who thankfully is really well right now. She sure is.
Yeah, she’s fine. It’s our 60th, so, you know, we’re going to get the old, I think it’s Diamond, but I’m not going to tell her that. So what, you were literally childhood sweethearts? Well, no, not really.
I mean, you know, if girls weren’t married by the age of 19, in my day, they were like left on the shelf, they said. So if you weren’t engaged by 18, there was something wrong with you. So you married her really young? Yeah, well, it was a blind date.
You know, a mate of mine, we got a night off, and a mate of mine said, well, we’re near Coventry, I’ve got a, I know there’s a girl there that I know, do you fancy coming with me and we’ll have a blind date? I said, yeah, why not? I had no money or anything like that. I had three hits, right, in the charts by then, and she didn’t know who I was. I had no money.
So it was a good meeting. As soon as I saw her, I thought, wow, she’s beautiful. And is she still beautiful today? She is.
Of course she is. I’m gonna find her. I’m gonna find her.
I’m gonna find her. I’m gonna find her. I’m like that northwest mountain.
You know I’ll bring her in. I’m gonna find her. I’m gonna find her.
When I left the Hollies, I stopped hitting the high notes. So my voice was wavering, even when I was on stage, and people began to notice. So I had a discussion with the boys.
They said, well, let’s see how it goes for the next three months. And it didn’t get any better. I was doing a concert in the north of England when I got a phone call from my wife saying that she’d just been diagnosed again with a second cancer.
And I wanted to get home straight away, which I tried to do. We went through it, and so I decided then that, okay, now, boys, I’m going. That’s it.
I’m going to look after my wife and see. We didn’t know how long we were going to have that, you know, together. So after Jenny had been through her treatments that she had, we decided to go abroad, and we bought a place in South Carolina by the side of a lagoon.
And we used to go there as often as we liked, really. So even then, we were living our lives a day at a time. But when we’d been there six years, and actually nothing was happening, we thought, hmm, well, we better get home and start living.
You know, so that’s what we did. She loves me, la-la, la-la-la-la-la, la-la, la-la-la-la, la-la, la-la-la-la-la. I used to carry her satchels, she used to walk by my side.
But when we got to a doorstep, her death wouldn’t let me inside. About that time, again, two of our children decided to have children again. But we’d already got, like, two 20-year-old grandchildren, but these little things came along.
So we had our handful all that time, helping, you know, our son, because his wife had left. Now I’m doing this, you know, it’s crazy. Alan Clarke, tell me what year it was that you left the Hollies then, and Jenny was diagnosed with cancer.
- Funnily enough, my daughter was diagnosed with cancer about six years ago, and she’s coming out of it. And I was diagnosed with cancer four years ago, but I’m all right as well.
So we’ve had our fair share of this thing. So what’s the family secret to beating all this? Other than ignoring it and just getting on with your life. We all help each other.
It’s just great. I have a wonderful life. You said something a little earlier about living it one day at a time.
I wonder if that’s a bit of the secret to the success of it all too, though, because they all talk about don’t live in yesterday, don’t live in tomorrow. You seem to have been doing that for quite a while. Yeah, well, you know, when you get close to death, what you think it’s going to be anyway, you do have to sort of reflect on what you’re going to do with the time that you may only have left.
But when you don’t, it gets into your blood thinking, yeah, I’m going to live a day at a time. Now, many, many years ago, I think it was about 1979, I gave up drinking. I thought it’s about the end now.
You’ve had enough of that. It’s not doing you any good. So, you know, you better get on your bike and do something properly.
So, from 1979, I’ve been completely sober. And with doing that, I’ve met a lot of people quite like I was, and they were. And we talked to each other about the things that made us do this and do that.
And they helped me a great deal. I would just wish everybody had it. Well, I think the advice that you give is really good for a lot of people listening, because if Alan Clarke is saying take one day at a time and keep your attitude positive, then a lot of people will probably take that up.
I’m astounded by how many fans you still have today after so many years of doing this. I put one little clip of Long Tall Woman after having a chat with Roger Cook onto my Facebook, and it’s gone viral. Thousands of people coming in saying, we love Alan Clarke.
Where is he? What’s he doing? I’ve been trying to get Graham to do something for a long, long time. But when I say a long, long time, I’ve known Graham 76 years. And for 40 of those, I’ve been trying to get him to do an album with me again.
And we both said yes, and he’s agreed. And then something comes along, and another year goes by, and another year goes by. And it was about five years ago that I presented to him with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
He didn’t know that I was going to be there to present it to him. And it was quite emotional. It was really quite emotional that me and him were stood on a stage with our arms around each other and going, what’s happening? And I think that broke the chain in a way that we both looked at each other and said, we better do something, and let’s do it soon.
I was working at that particular time on making my first album, which was Resurgence, which I was just doing for a bit of fun. I got onto my PC, and it had a little thing at the bottom, which is called Garage Band, which I never looked at. I just thought, oh, well, what do you do with that? And I started writing lyrics when I was going through having the radiotherapy and all that.
I started writing lyrics out. And everybody kept saying, but why don’t you put it to music? Well, not being able to get up there anymore, I thought, well, I’ll try it a bit deeper. So what I’ve been doing now recently is that I’ve been trying to stretch myself just a little bit higher each time that I record something.
But then it comes to a part where you can’t get past it. So then I go, okay, that’s my range. I’m going to keep it between that and that.
And I’m going to see if I can write some songs. And I did the Resurgence. Oh, that was it.
My being in the limelight is over and done with. And then this thing with Graham and me writing these songs, sending them to him, and him going, hey, wow, these are great, these are great. Not thinking, okay, well, they’re great, so what? They’re a good song.
Had you lost your confidence because of the loss of range in your voice? It wasn’t losing confidence. It was actually losing your voice. All those songs, Ian Hebby, and even Long Cold Woman is pretty high.
And The Air That I Breathe and all the other stuff that I used to do with The Hollies, which was very high. You know, our own Richard’s, our producer, used to push us, even in Graham’s time, to get that sound that Graham and I had together. And I think that he may have stretched my voice just a little bit too much.
When I recorded The Air That I Breathe in 1974, that was a long time ago. When you think about doing 40 years on stage, singing that song, the whole process of doing a show on stage, half hours, and you forget that you’re getting older as you do that. And it happens to a lot of people.
And when that happens, sometimes they try to fool themselves that they can still do it. So they have something else brought in to make it feel better for you. And I didn’t really want to go through all that.
You know, when your voice is gone, it’s gone. Don’t pretend. Sometimes, all I need is the air that I breathe, and to love you.
All I need is the air that I breathe, yes, to love you. My wife got cancer, and that’s what made my mind to just keep going. But how was that for you to accept? Were you okay with that decision? And I suppose the voice being a muscle is like any other muscle that you use so much, you wear it out to some extent.
When something like that happens in your life, you have to think about what is the most important thing to you at that particular time. And at that particular time, my wife was more important than me being in a band. So that was easy.
So her sickness, if one can go that far, it was a bit of a salvation for you also, because it made your decision really easy. Well, it’s easy, isn’t it? When you think the woman that you love may die within the next five years or whatever, you have to do something about that. It’s just not having your wife that has the cancer.
It’s a family thing. You know, it just doesn’t affect the husband, it affects the children, it affects the grandchildren. Did she agree to you giving up the singing and coming to help her? Did she try and convince you to stay where you were at? Listen, when you’ve been on the road for 40 years and your wife is waiting for you to come home, she was saying, that’s really good, that’s great.
But she knew that I would give that up to be with her. She’s been an incredible wife to stand by you, as you say, 40 years on the road, that wouldn’t have been easy. Let me tell you, it wasn’t all the time that good.
You know, there were moments within Buddy’s life where there’s a disagreement or there’s failure and there’s success. But we were the kind of people that thought, well, we’re not going to let that get us down. We’ll see both of us through whatever we have to do.
So no, no, I’m not perfect at all. It was 1999 when Alan announced his retirement from the music industry. But as you’ve heard, he’s back and both he and his wife, Jenny, are both cancer free.
Back in a sec with more.
This is a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kaye. It’s a beautiful day. So glad you’ve hung in.
Despite 60 years of marriage behind him, Alan is the first to admit he’s no perfect man. One of the songs that’s on the album that I think you’ll like is called The Presence of You, and then it’s about Jenny. And there’s another track about singing about myself, which is Maybe the Next Time.
And maybe the next time I’ll get things even right to a point where I’ll know where I’m going to go and who I am. But, you know, I’ve not got to that point yet because I know that I’ve not been perfect in this lifetime. So all the things that I’ve learned, if I ever have the experience of coming back, or if I’m allowed to come back, then maybe I’ll know it better next time.
That’ll get me to where I belong. Will to live a life By making no mistakes But I’m giving all it takes I’m living each moment I’m just trying to get things right I find it ain’t that easy So here it is just one more time Must be a reason why This time I’ll pay attention So it won’t pass me right on by Maybe the next time Maybe the next time Maybe the next time I’ll get to where I belong Let’s just go back to Graham for a minute because you tried to convince him for years to do an album with you. Why did you want to do it so much? I was really, really sad and let down when he left for the first time.
I was pretty devastated that he was going to leave his best mate. You know, after we’d been through all that to get where we were. But Graham, you know, he was always the more ambitious guy in the group.
And I was always the lead singer. Now, when you’ve got someone to compete with, I mean, I was pretty good at what I did. It wasn’t hard for me to sing like that.
But with Graham having to sing harmony most of the time, I can imagine it being in the back of his mind that he wanted to be a lead singer as well. What happened with Graham was he took it the way where he wanted to record an album. And it was called Butterfly, which he wrote his own songs on that.
And he sang the songs and did the harmonies on the songs, thinking that that was going to be the way that we would progress with him. Well, there’s no way I could progress with that because it means I put myself out of a job. So it was difficult for both of us.
And when we went to Los Angeles, was the place where Graham actually fell in love with David Crosby and Stephen Stills. We were playing at the Whiskey A Go-Go. Everybody was there.
You know, there were the Beach Boys. There were the Monkees. There was Mamma’s and the Papas.
There were a lot. So a lot of the groups wanted to come and see us live. And we killed it.
You know, it was great. It was lovely. Everybody loved us.
And I remember going back to the hotel with Graham and David Crosby and Stephen Stills. And we were in our twin-beddy room with a seating area, you know. It wasn’t a suite.
And I got really tired. I said, well, I’ll leave you two. I’m going to go to bed.
And the three of them were there playing their guitars and singing. And that was it. You who are on the road Must have a code That you can live by And so become yourself Because the past Is just a goodbye Teach your children well Their father’s hell Did slowly go by And feed them on your dreams The one they picked The one you’ll know by Don’t you ever ask them why If they told you you would die So just look at them and sigh And know they love you It took them a year and a half to actually get to the fulfillment of being with the group.
And over that year and a half, there were times when I used to question, where has Graham gone? Oh, he’s gone off with Mama Cass somewhere. And things like that. Oh, right.
- So he was less and less in my life in that year and a half. But when I was told in the street by a friend of mine that Graham was forming a group, and that was it.
He was going to leave. That was the first time that I felt, oh, that’s what he was doing all that time. I can imagine you would have felt completely betrayed and especially for the fact that he didn’t tell you about it.
You heard about it from somebody else too. Well, he does say that there was a lot of hints on the way, but I didn’t see any of them. And I might not have made it without him.
He was a leader of a kind. I couldn’t have pulled the group together and get through. The best thing for me was that Terry Sylvester came along.
You didn’t hold a grudge, though, against him. You weren’t angry. It didn’t destroy the friendship between you, obviously, but it did put a bit of distance between you.
No, it did spoil the friendship for a long, long time. I never forgave him for quite a long time. And it wasn’t until about 1984, 1985, that he actually suddenly realised how bad he had been at that particular time.
I could see that he was in an awkward position. But anyway, what happened was that I got to know Sylvester and I thought, this guy is absolutely brilliant and let’s go in the studio and see what we can do. We came out with Story of Suzanne.
I can’t make it if you leave me I’m sorry, Suzanne, believe me I was wrong And I knew I was all alone Forgive me, I still love you more than ever I’m sorry, Suzanne, forever hurting you You know I never wanted to I’m truly sorry, Suzanne I could never ever justify All the tears I made you cry But I do regret it, my Suzanne You gotta believe me I was looking round for someone new What a foolish thing to do All the time I knew it Heaven knows what made me do it good He was number two. And then we went on to do Gasoline Alley Bread. Then we did Ian Heavy, 1969.
And then we did other songs and then we got into Long Cool Woman and then we got into The Air That I Breathe and I’d just forgotten Graham by then. Okay, he went and I’m okay. We used to meet and it was none of the Ed.
How are you doing? I’m doing fine. But he did say a thing when we were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and we were at that particular time we were doing a DV for the American market. So we were each interviewed and one of the things that he says about when he left the Hollies he didn’t expect us to have two number ones.
I paid attention. And he said how dare they have that without me. And he meant it as how dare they with a smile on his face.
The road is long With a many winding turns That leads us to Who knows where Who knows where But I’m strong Strong enough to carry me He ain’t heavy He’s my brother So on we go His welfare is a matter of concern No burden is he to bear We’ll get there For I know He would not end He ain’t heavy He’s my brother It was just great. We both went on separate ways but we’re just as successful as both. Did he ever actually apologise to you for causing that hurt? No.
You just forgave him and moved on. And now you’re buddies again. It’s all old stuff.
You know, it’s all old stuff. Yeah. He kept me up to the years I had all those hits that’s when he left.
I just smiled. Good for you Alan Clarke, good for you. So despite all of that you still wanted to do another album with him before it was too late.
And he finally agreed. So this is the result now that we’re talking about here. Oh, so you’ve heard the songs.
Yes. They’re very reminiscent of the early stuff. It goes full circle back again.
My intention was to write songs around Graham’s harmony. That was the most important thing that I had to think of. I asked him to do that because I wanted to get together and recreate the sound that we had before the day that he left.
Because it was a good sound. It was the sound that actually made us famous. I think it was on 20, 20 Golden Hits.
And like, you know, there was just one look, look through any window, bus stop, stop, stop, stop, carry on. They were all happy, uplifting songs. Carry on, carry on, carry on When we were at school our games were simple I played a janitor, you played a monitor Then you played with older boys and prefects What’s the attraction in what they’re doing Hey, carry on What’s your game now, can anybody play Hey, carry on What’s your game now, can anybody play He was to remind people about me and Graham and the way we used to sing.
Now, I was going through the album and he said, it’s going to be your solo album now. I said, well, you’ve got to write something. And he said, well, I’ve got this song about Buddy Holly.
Now, he very rarely writes any songs like that. He’s got a way of doing his material now. He’s so different from the way that I think.
I mean, it’s the way that he thinks. But he came with this Buddy’s band, which I thought, oh, there he is. There he is, that’s Graham.
All right, this is great. And it tells the story of us meeting and listening to Buddy Holly, wanting to be him, buying the guitar, standing in front of a mirror, pretending, and then getting a band and actually going on and doing that sort of stuff. And I’m singing the low harmonies and he’s doing the high harmonies.
I remember we were staring the star voices on the rain We jumped the style then we led In front of a mirror we would play Pretending to be them every day So you’re telling me that when you were teenagers you were enamoured with Buddy Holly’s music and his music pushed you forward? Yes, it did. But the guy that was before Buddy Holly was Lonnie Donegan. And everybody in England wanted to be in a skiffle group.
So everybody went out and bought a guitar, learned three records, and started singing Rock Island Line. That’s how it all started, really. Alan Clarke, were you always going to be a singer? Or did you start life out, despite your love of music, wanting to enter another profession? My mum used to take me to the cinema when I was little.
And I do remember all the big films like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and Annie Oakley, Calamity Jane, West Side Story. And I think that’s where I started to love those sort of things. Now, it wasn’t in my mind that I wanted to be a singer.
But I mean, I wished I could have danced like Gene Kelly. I remember all the tunes. It wasn’t that that I got into.
It was just me and Graeme just singing whenever people asked us to. Alan Clarke and Graeme Nash were friends at school from the age of seven. They often sung together at home.
And as teenagers, Alan’s brother Frank suggested the pair should head down to one of the local clubs to see if they could get a gig. Graeme and I were both 14. Short trousers, two guitars.
And he took us there, and he was owned by an ex-wrestler. And he actually said, OK, boys, the strippers are coming up now. So what we want you to do is to go on and do three of his songs, and we’ll see how you go down.
So we went on, not expecting anything. We did the three songs, and we ended with Rock Island Line. And at the end of Rock Island Line, there was, like, silence.
And then the crowd just went, whoa! So we thought, ooh, dear. And when we came off, the guy gave us ten bob. That would have been a fortune.
Well, not a fortune, but it was more than I’d seen for having spends or anything like that. And he said, if you want to come back next week, I’ve got some other clubs that I’d like to play at. But if I hadn’t have done that, there wouldn’t be any Crosby-Steeles Nash Syndrome, there wouldn’t be any Holies.
It was always the harmony. That was the special gift that you had together, yeah? Any song you want to sing, you sing it and harmonise. No thought about it.
Just do it. You don’t have to practise. There’s no rehearsals.
Is it because of the chemistry between the two of you that you can just fall in with each other like that? Well, it’s like walking the wires, isn’t it? It was like Jerry Lewis and… Dean Martin. They had to be together. Abba and Lou Costello.
And that’s been great. How could it be? It is to hell Your love just won’t go Now it’s wrong, yeah, yeah, yeah So it really was the chemistry that enabled Alan and Graham to keep the hits coming. Together they took the Holies from very humble beginnings in 1962 to go on and influence everything that came to follow.
So, stay tuned.
This is a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kaye. It’s a beautiful day. Welcome back.
So when you have chemistry with someone, it appears it does last a lifetime. 60 years after first working together, Alan’s latest album with Graham Nash, called I’ll Never Forget, showcases their harmony perfectly. And I wrote those songs specifically for that reason.
Which is your favorite track on there, Alan? I think the one that means the most to me is the presence of you. And you’re the one to shine the light. Because that’s what actually happened.
I was in the darkness and all of a sudden I was in the light. I was broken and full of sorrow and thoughts I didn’t think that I, that I was worth saving Until I heard, I heard you say I’ll shine the light, you’re trembling I’ll shine the light, show you the way Take my hand and let me guide you To a place where you’ll be free They’re all sort of emotions that I felt in my own life. All the songs that I’ve written, Jenny said, well, why don’t you write a song for me? All my songs were about her, really.
She said, you have to have a story about someone else other than your wife. Well, Jennifer Eccles, that’s probably that one. She was Jenny.
Let’s just talk about Jennifer Eccles for a second. That was about Jenny, but her name wasn’t Eccles. That was Graham’s first wife.
Her maiden name’s Eccles. So we’d recorded a song called King Madison Reverse, which was one of Graham’s babies. And I thought it was pretty good when we finished it.
And I think it came in at number 15 and then went out. So that was not a success as far as we were concerned. And Graham was very disappointed that it hadn’t really done better.
And we were in Graham’s apartment. Graham and Rose is his wife’s name. And Jenny was up and I were there and we had a few drinks.
And I think there was something else passed around. We said, well, let’s write a silly song. So Jenny wrote the first two lines.
Then I came in. Then Graham came in. And we thought, oh, well, that’s a really silly song.
And we recorded it and it came in at number two. I know that she loves me. I love Jennifer Eccles.
I know that she loves me. La, la, la, la, la, la, la. La, la, la, la, la, la, la.
Another point that Graham thought, really, I don’t want to be a part of this anymore. Jennifer Eccles is not where I want to be. Now, all these years later, I completely understand what he was thinking and where he wanted to be.
You’re getting jiggy with all of the hints that he was giving you. You can see them now in retrospect. That’s it, yeah.
So this latest album, I’ll Never Forget Alan Clark, seems to be a complete return to those days of the 60s and 70s when life was a whole lot more simple, when all any audience wanted was an uplifting sort of a song. Do you think that the time is right now for that particularly? Well, I don’t know anything else. I’m not going to try and be Ed Sheeran.
I’m rock and roll. I’ve been rock and roll all my life. That’s the music that I like and I love.
I can sing anything, not anymore, but what I’m singing now is who I am now, and I don’t really need those high notes anymore. It’s just that the songs that I’ve written, they all have meaning. I want other people to put themselves into the lyrics and see what they get out of it.
If there’s a song on it and you didn’t like it, he never finds out what it was. He’s wondering why his woman has left, and it must have been something that he did. So the chorus is, you didn’t like it.
You didn’t like it, but I don’t know why you didn’t like it. Well, there’s something I wanted to ask you There’s something that’s just crossed my mind Well, you haven’t been around here just lately No forward in the dress left behind I just wanted to know Was it something that I said? Something that I did or didn’t do? Well, all of a sudden Well, you weren’t there And why? I haven’t a clue So what was it in your mind that you didn’t like? I just thought it was funny because sometimes, you know, in life, in anybody, you know, you’ll have a discussion with somebody and they’ll say, oh, I don’t like that. And I say, well, what do you mean you don’t like it? You don’t understand why that person doesn’t like that particular thing.
But, you know, people live by vibrations. Music is a vibration. So if you’re not attuned to the vibration of that particular song, you’re not going to like it.
I like it. Alan, the album cover actually features the guitar that was gifted to you in 2010 by the Buddy Holly Education Foundation. That must be pretty special for you.
Well, it is. I write all my songs on the guitar. And that was Buddy Holly’s guitar? No, no, no.
What he was, he had 25 copies made. One of these frets was on the original Buddy Holly guitar. And I don’t know which one it is.
Funny thing, when they gave it to me, this one’s called Peggy Sue Got Married. And when the guy gave it to me, he said, Alan, I’m going to make your guitar special. I said, why is that? He said, I’m going to have Peggy Sue’s wedding ring embedded in the guitar.
The real wedding ring from Peggy Sue. I said, no, you can’t do that. I said, there’s no way that I’m going to have that in my guitar, knowing that I lose lots of things.
So I’m definitely not going to take the responsibility of having that genuine thing in my guitar. Do you know who Peggy Sue was? I didn’t. Obviously the inspiration for Buddy Holly’s 1967 hit song, she was in fact in a relationship with and then married Buddy’s bandmate in the crickets, Jerry Allison.
It’s widely reported the song was initially called Cindy Lou and that Jerry asked Buddy to change the title to win her back after a break-up. The couple divorced in 1964. Alan, is there anything left on your bucket list? I don’t know.
I’ll have to wait until I wake up in the morning. So you never actually planned out your career? You’ve been at Graham for all of this time to do this album with you. It’s not like I was ringing him up every day.
Each time that we met and we’d look at each other and I’d know that Graham’s got this American accent now. But when we meet and we’re talking, I hear his voice suddenly going into the Mancunian type of, oh, don’t be stupid, you know, all that sort of thing. And the Americanism goes just for a flash point, you know, and I go, there you are, Graham, there you are.
I see him again. We’re great together. We’re fine.
He’s got a life there and I’ve got a life here. And what a life. If you had it all over again, would you change anything about it? No, because if I did that, then I wouldn’t have any experiences, would I? The experiences that you have in one’s life.
And you only know that when you get to my age. And talking of your age, you obviously keep yourself in pretty good shape. When I did a lot of gym work before I actually had the cancer, and it was after that, it took me a long time to get back, but now it’s very long walks.
But me and my wife, we did Tai Chi for five years. I don’t want to do too much. I do like a relaxed kind of life.
And that’s what I’ve got. And sometimes I don’t like things that get in the way. They annoy me when there’s silly things that get in the way that have to be dealt with.
It all can be a waste of time I am you And I am me And you are mine Can’t help thinking it’s a mystery I’m not the first to wonder why Who is it keeps the secrets Hidden with our eyes to find It doesn’t help why At the time of recording this chat, Alan Clarke was busy doing a round of interviews, a necessary process, he says, that he doesn’t often enjoy. It’s usually when people come in and they ask you the same questions all the time. When did you meet Graham? I hope I haven’t done that to you.
No, you haven’t. This has been really good. Final question, Alan Clarke.
If you had to choose one of the Holly songs that meant the most to you, which would that be? Well, I could mention Here and Heavy because of the message that it has. I think it’s quite a spiritual song that should bring people together. I could say The Air That I Breathe because it all talks about love in such a way that everything that you need is only the air that you breathe.
You don’t need anything else. But I want to say that this is one of the most unholy songs that I ever did. And I wrote it with Mr. Roger Cook and it would be A Long Cold Woman.
I love that song too. Cut through half a bottle of brandy when we were writing it and it took us half an hour to write it. Just me and him having a bit of fun.
He started the song off, you know, he had the idea. But I always say to him, if it wasn’t for my riff at the beginning of that song, it wouldn’t be as good as it is. You’re probably right.
I don’t know, it’s something that just happened to me. I put the guitar on, just played it and I’ve had people come up to me. I mean, when we did the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, we had the Waldorf Hotel and Paul Shaper was the band that plays with everybody on those things and they’re a brilliant band.
And he has a couple of guitarists, but we were doing A Long Cold Woman. And I was petrified because I didn’t know what was going to come out of here because I hadn’t sung it yet. I’m going to say, don’t worry about it.
I was about to start it, the guitarist went, hold it. I said, what? He said, how do you play that riff? He said, because there’s something in there we can’t play. I don’t know where it came from.
I really don’t. And did you have a suite at the Waldorf? Fame actually, in one of his interviews, said that he put us up at the Waldorf and he didn’t because it was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and everybody is given, it’s free when you go. They put you in a suite and it’s free.
They pay for the flight. You go there and you sing and you get inducted. I put that right.
Alan Clark, fabulous chatting with you. I’m so, so grateful to you. Okay.
Congrats on the record, Alan. It’s a doozy. Thank you.
Bye now. Alan Clark and the Hollies worked their way from smoky backstreet clubs to global stardom. They represented the voice of a post-war generation thriving in the newfound freedom of 1960s liberation.
Their stories about love and loss, upbringing and family related well to working people at the time and gave us all a narrative to our lives. Today at 82, Alan Clark is still doing that, albeit an octave or two lower. Thanks for joining me today.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the chat with Alan Clark as much as I did. Will you join me same time next week? I’m looking forward to being back in your company then. Take care in the meantime, won’t you? Do have lots of fun.
I’ll see you then. Bye now. It’s a beautiful day.
You’ve been listening to A Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kay. Beautiful day. Oh, baby, any day that you’re gone away.
It’s a beautiful day.