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Guitar Songs, Tabs & Lessons

The Hollies

3 guitar songs · Tabs, Lessons & Tone Guide Rock

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Band Overview

History and Guitar Legacy

The Hollies formed in Manchester in 1962 and became one of the most successful British Invasion bands, with hits extending into the 1970s. The band's dual guitar approach between Tony Hicks and Graham Nash (later Terry Sylvester) set them apart. Tony Hicks is an underrated guitarist of the era, known for clean technique and the ability to switch between jangly rhythm work and melodic leads while weaving counterpoint parts beneath vocal harmonies.

Playing Style and Techniques

The Hollies span multiple guitar styles across their catalog. Early work features Merseybeat jangle with bright open chords and clean tones requiring consistent right hand work. Later material incorporates Folk Rock fingerpicking, psychedelic textures, hard rocking riffs like on 'Long Cool Woman,' and lush ballad arrangements. This range develops your versatility in dynamics, chord voicing awareness, and serving the song rather than soloing.

Why Guitarists Study The Hollies

The Hollies offer an excellent foundation in rhythm guitar fundamentals and tasteful arrangement. Songs demonstrate how to support vocal harmonies without overplaying, an essential skill often overlooked. Learning their catalog teaches you chord economy, dynamic control, and when to restrain yourself. The interplay between guitar parts shows how two instruments can complement arrangements with precision and clarity rather than volume or complexity.

Difficulty and Learning Path

The Hollies sit in the beginner to intermediate range. Songs like 'He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother' use straightforward progressions accessible to beginners, while 'Long Cool Woman' introduces palm muted rhythms and bluesy single note riffs. 'The Air That I Breathe' requires clean arpeggiation and dynamic shifts. The real challenge is matching Tony Hicks' precision, as his clarity leaves no room for sloppy technique.

What Makes The Hollies Essential for Guitar Players

  • Tony Hicks' rhythm guitar work is built on bright, ringing open and barre chords with impeccable right-hand strumming control. His downstroke-heavy approach on uptempo tracks gives a driving, jangly attack that defined the Hollies' early sound, perfect for developing consistent strumming dynamics.
  • "Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress)" is a standout for its palm-muted, Creedence-style swamp-rock riff in E. The main riff relies on a repeating eighth-note pattern with strategic palm-muting lifts, making it an excellent exercise for learning how muting pressure affects tone and groove.
  • The dual-guitar arrangements between the lead and rhythm parts are a study in complementary playing. On tracks like "Bus Stop" and "The Air That I Breathe," the guitars occupy different frequency spaces, one playing arpeggiated figures while the other holds chords, teaching you how to arrange parts for a two-guitar band.
  • Tony Hicks' lead work favors melody over flash. His solos use pentatonic and major scale phrases with tasteful string bends (usually half-step and whole-step) and a controlled vibrato that never gets too wide. Learning his solos is a great way to develop phrasing and note choice over raw speed.
  • "The Air That I Breathe" features delicate clean-tone arpeggios that require precise fingerpicking or hybrid picking to keep each note ringing cleanly. The chord voicings move through some jazz-influenced shapes (suspended and added-tone chords) that will expand your harmonic vocabulary beyond standard open and barre chords.

Did You Know?

Tony Hicks won Guitarist of the Year in multiple UK music polls during the 1960s, beating out players like Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, yet he remains largely unknown to modern guitarists, making him one of the era's best-kept secrets.

"Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress)" was recorded with only three Hollies members present, Allan Clarke, Tony Hicks, and Bobby Elliott. Hicks played both the rhythm and lead guitar parts, layering them in the studio to create that thick, raunchy tone that sounds nothing like a typical Hollies track.

Graham Nash, before leaving to form Crosby, Stills & Nash, contributed significant rhythm guitar work to The Hollies and often played a Gibson J-45 acoustic alongside Hicks' electric parts, creating the band's signature blend of shimmer and warmth.

Tony Hicks was an early adopter of the Gibson ES-335, using its semi-hollow body to get a tone that sat between the full warmth of a hollow-body jazz guitar and the sustain of a solid-body, ideal for the band's mix of chiming cleans and occasional gritty overdrive.

The guitar intro to "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" was originally performed on piano, but the arrangement was reworked so that the guitar doubled the melodic motif, a good example of how translating keyboard parts to guitar can inspire unique voicings.

The Hollies' producer Ron Richards encouraged Tony Hicks to use a capo frequently to change key while maintaining open-string voicings, which is why many Hollies songs have that bright, ringing quality even in unusual keys, a useful studio trick for any acoustic or electric player.

On several recordings, Hicks ran his ES-335 through a Vox AC30 with the treble channel cranked, getting natural breakup at volume rather than using any fuzz or distortion pedals, a testament to how much tone you can get from just a good guitar into a good amp.

Essential Albums for Guitarists

Distant Light album cover
Distant Light 1971

This is the album that features "Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress)," which alone makes it essential, that palm-muted E riff is one of the best intermediate rhythm guitar exercises from the era. The rest of the album showcases Tony Hicks moving between folk-rock fingerpicking, clean arpeggios, and surprisingly gritty lead work, giving you a full-spectrum workout.

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Evolution album cover
Evolution 1967

The Hollies' most ambitious album from a guitar arrangement standpoint, featuring psych-tinged textures, creative use of tremolo and reverb, and some of Hicks' most inventive lead work. Tracks like "Then the Heartaches Begin" and "Stop Right There" teach you how to build layered guitar parts that serve complex vocal harmonies without stepping on them.

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Hollies' Greatest Hits album cover
Hollies' Greatest Hits 1973

If you want to cut straight to the most learnable and rewarding material, this compilation covers all the essentials including "The Air That I Breathe," "He Ain't Heavy," "Long Cool Woman," and "Bus Stop." Each track teaches a different skill, from open-chord rhythm to arpeggiated ballad playing to swamp-rock riffing, making it a one-stop curriculum for developing versatile guitar fundamentals.

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Tone & Gear

Guitar

Tony Hicks is most associated with the Gibson ES-335, which he played extensively from the mid-1960s onward, the semi-hollow body gave him the jangly brightness needed for Hollies chord work while providing enough sustain and warmth for lead passages. In the earlier years he also used a Fender Stratocaster and a Gibson SG, and Graham Nash typically played a Gibson J-45 acoustic for rhythm parts. On "Long Cool Woman," Hicks is believed to have used a solid-body (likely the SG or a Fender) to get that tighter, grittier rock tone.

Amp

The Hollies were a Vox band through and through, as was typical for top-tier British acts of the 1960s. Tony Hicks primarily used a Vox AC30 with the Top Boost circuit, which provides that chimey, harmonically rich clean tone that breaks up beautifully when you dig in with your pick. For the cleaner ballad work, the AC30 was kept at moderate volume for sparkling headroom; for rockier tracks like "Long Cool Woman," the amp was pushed harder to get natural tube saturation, no pedal needed.

Pickups

The ES-335's stock PAF-style humbuckers (roughly 7.5–8k ohm output) were key to Hicks' tone, warm and full enough to avoid thin ice-pick highs through the AC30's bright Top Boost channel, yet low-output enough to retain pick dynamics and note clarity in chordal passages. For the Strat and any single-coil work, the standard Fender single-coils added that extra bite and string separation, particularly useful on the jangly Merseybeat-era recordings.

Effects & Chain

The Hollies kept it remarkably simple on the effects front, most of their guitar tone comes straight from the guitar into the Vox AC30 with the amp's built-in tremolo and reverb providing the only modulation. On psychedelic-era tracks from albums like "Evolution" and "Butterfly," studio-applied tape delay, ADT (automatic double tracking), and plate reverb added dimension, but these were engineer tools rather than pedalboard staples. For modern recreation, a good spring or plate reverb and a subtle tremolo pedal will cover 90% of The Hollies' guitar sounds. No fuzz, no wah, no distortion pedals, just fingers, picks, and tubes.

Recommended Gear

Fender Stratocaster
Guitar

Fender Stratocaster

Tony Hicks used the Strat in The Hollies' early years for its bright single-coil bite and string separation, perfect for jangly Merseybeat rhythms. The extra snap helped cut through on their sparkly, chord-driven arrangements.

Gibson ES-335
Guitar

Gibson ES-335

Hicks' primary guitar from the mid-1960s onward, the ES-335's warm PAF humbuckers delivered the chiming clarity needed for Hollies harmonies while providing sustain for lead passages without ice-pick harshness through the Vox AC30.

Vox AC30
Amp

Vox AC30

The AC30's Top Boost circuit gave The Hollies their signature chimey, harmonically rich clean tone that could stay pristine on ballads or break into natural tube warmth on rockers like 'Long Cool Woman,' all without pedals.

How to Practice The Hollies on GuitarZone

Every The Hollies song page on GuitarZone includes a built-in Practice Toolbar. No app to download, no account needed. Open any song, then use the toolbar to slow the video to 0.5× speed, set an A/B loop around the exact riff you're working on, and jump between song sections instantly.

The toolbar appears automatically on every guitar tab, lesson, and cover page. Pick a song below, hit play, and start practicing at your own pace.

Practice Long Cool Woman - Guitar LessonPractice The Air That I Breathe - Guitar LessonPractice He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother - Guitar Lesson