Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young - The Cost of Freedom (1970)

 CSNY are one of the greatest bands of all time, but oh were they fleeting. One album in 1969, a second in 1970, and then a live album in 1971, and then... a five year hiatus, after which nothing was the same. Lighning in a bottle, those three years were. Between those two albums, however, were more than enough outtakes for a third LP. Between these, there's a couple covers, and some studio versions of tracks that they'd only ever play live. Additionally, they recorded songs that each member would use later on respective solo projects, but I'll be ignoring those (for now).

Ignoring songs the band used latter, that leaves me with 14 songs to use. This is a combination of outtakes from their debut album and from Deja Vu, plus the Ohio / Find The Cost Of Freedom 45. Now, that comes out to about 48 minutes of music, which wouldn't have fit on an album. Taking the two covers off of the album ("Blackbird" and "Everybody's Talkin'") brings it to a comfortable 12 tracks and 42 mintues and 32 seconds. To this point, CSN(Y) had only included 10 tracks on both of their albums, but, well, who cares? They had the tracks.

 

For the cover I used a modified version of the Ohio / Find The Cost Of Freedom single sleeve

Side One

1. Ohio
2. How Have You Been?
3. Horses Through A Rainstorm
4. Thirty Dollar Fine
5. Sea of Madness
6. Ivory Tower
7. Right On Rock And Roll

Side Two

1. Same Old Song
2. Everyday We Live
3. The Lee Shore
4. I'll Be There 
5. Find The Cost Of Freedom

• Everybody's Talkin'
• Blackbird
  

The Hollies - Listen To Us (1968)

 1968 was the last year Graham Nash would be in The Hollies, growing dissatisfied with their infighting, and seeking hope in L.A. with CSN. Before he left to join Crosby and Stills in the states, he recorded some more singles before bouncing from The Hollies. Again, there's only eleven tracks, and one of them is an edit where they took the vocals from a Nash solo demo of the later CSN tune "Marrakesh Express", and laid them over an instrumental backing track recorded by The Hollies in '68.

The cover is a modified version of the 1968 "Hollies' Greatest" lp

Side One

1. Open Up Your Eyes
2. Do The Best You Can
3. Relax
4. Tomorrow When It Comes
5. Man With No Expression (Horses Through A Rainstorm)
6. Like Every Time Before

Side Two

1. Wings
2. Jennifer Eccles
3. Blowin' in the Wind (Nash Version)
4. Listen To Me
5. Marrakesh Express
   (To get the version of Marrakesh Express, look up "Rare&UnreleasedHollies", and it's on the soundcloud)
   

The Hollies - King Midas In Reverse (1967)

 In 1967, The Hollies made the great leap into psychedelic rock, mostly spearheaded by Graham Nash. They recorded and released two psych classics that year, Evolution and Butterfly. They also releases several singles that didn't end up on either album, either. Cheif amoung these is Nash's "King Midas in Reverse", which he would go on to perform with Crosby, Stills, and Nash, despite the underperformance of the song when released by The Hollies. 

Also in '67, The Hollies recorded two singles specifically for release in Italy, two of the four songs being in Italian. Huh. There's only Eleven songs this time around, and they're bookened by the Italian tracks. All 11 of the songs were recorded in '67.

The cover is from The American release of Butterfly, which included "King Midas in Reverse", so was titled Dear Eloise / King Midas In Reverse, but I removed the "Dear Eloise" part, since that's the opening track of Butterfly.

Side One

1. Non Prego Per Me
2. We're Alive
3. On A Carousel
4. Carrie Anne
5. All The World Is Love

Side Two

1. Schoolgirl
2. Everything is Sunshine
3. Sighns That Will Never Change
4. Kill Me Quick
5. King Midas in Reverse
6. Devi Aver Fiducia In Me
   

The Hollies - Bus Stop (1966)

 By 1966, the Hollies were hitting their stride. They were coming into their own in terms of sound, as well as hits. Additionally, they were writing more of their own songs. They didn't shake off covers right away, but that's not a terrible thing, since they sound as good as always. The big hits on this lp are the titular "Bus Stop", as well as "Look Through Any Window". Also here is a cover of "If I Needed Someone", originally done by The Beatles, who cristicized The Hollies version as sounding like it was recorded by "souless session men". Whatever, it sounds good.

There's only elevin tracks here, including "After The Fox", which was recorded for and featured in the film of the same name starring Peter Sellers. The song is okay enough, but, it also features Peter Sellers singing in response to The Hollies: "Who is the fox?" "I am the fox" etc. The whole thing is kind of silly, but the harmonies are impeccable.

The album art is just the US cover for the album of the same name.

Side One

1. Don't Run and Hide
2. A Taste of Honey
3. Running Through The Night
4. I Can't Get Nowhere With You
5. Look Through Any Window 
6. After The Fox (Feat. Peter Sellers)
   

Side Two

1. If I Needed Someone
2. I've Got A Way Of My Own
3. Little Bitty Pretty One
4. She Gives Me Everything
5. Bus Stop

The Hollies - Hollies' Days (1965)

By 1965, The Hollies still weren't too popular, but they had minor hits here and there. This lp covers tracks from April 1964 through May 1965. The main hits on this lp, as far as I can tell, are the tracks "Here I Go Again" and "We're Through, which stem from April '64 and August '64 sessions, respectively. The span of time this covers is a tad broad, starting just after the band's debut album would come out, and continuing through their second, and moving into the sessions for their third. Ultimately, though, it seems to work out.

The title and cover are taken from an international version of one of their albums.

Side One

1. Baby That's All
2. You Know He Did
3. I'm Alive
4. Honey and Wine
5. She Said Yeah
6. Bring Back Your Love To Me 

Side Two

1. Nobody
2. Listen Here To Me
3. Here I Go Again
4. We're Through
5. Come On Back
6. Yes I Will
   

The Hollies - Just One Look (1964)

The Hollies are where Graham Nash came from, and rose to prominence alongside The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. However, they have had nowhere near the amount of longevity that those other two have. How is that? Well, basically they were very uncool in their time. They weren't as fun as The Beatles, and they weren't as dangerous as The Stones. They were kind of a goody-two-shoes band. That being said, they weren't bad. Not even boring! They just didn't have an ambitious producer or manager. 

Eventually, one of the three main songwriters, Graham Nash, left the group to go onto better things with the band Crosby, Stills, and Nash. He rose to prominence in 1963 with The Hollies, however, which is where this album takes place.

As was the standard practice at the time (especially in the UK, where this band is from), The Hollies recorded a lot of singles that never made it onto any studio album. As was also the standard practice, the US releases of these albums were quite different, featuring different tracks, different orders, etc. Unlike I did with The Stones, I won't be using their US albums as a base, since The Stones (or at least their manager) oversaw the production of the US albums, which wasn't the case with The Hollies.

Thus, this first album cleans up the outtakes, A-sides, B-sides, and EP exclusive tracks that The Hollies recorded between April 1963 and March 1964. I'll keep it to twelve tracks to make future albums easier, as well as the fact that besides the first Hollies album, they usually only had twelve tracks per album.

For the album art, I altered the US debut cover.

Side One

1. (Ain't That) Just Like Me
2. Hey, What's Wrong With Me?
3. Searchin'
4. Now's The Time
5. Just One Look
6. Whole World Over 

Side Two

1. I Understand
2. Poison Ivy
3. What Kind Of Love
   
4. Zip A Dee Doo Dah
5. Keep Off That Friend Of Mine
6. When I'm Not There