Hollies: pioneers in pop diplomacy
Hollies as Pioneers of Western Pop Music Behind the Iron Curtain: A largely undocumented event, and therefore forgotten over time, was the Hollies’ role in bringing Western pop music behind the Iron Curtain. However, their performances marked a significant moment in the development of pop music in communist Poland. This is a small reconstruction with some personal notes from a fan.
It was mentioned as a minor fact on a website that tracks pop music trivia daily, from the early history of popular music to the present. I often start my day by checking that website to see which memorable events occurred on a specific date. Who released a record on that day? Which songs topped the charts worldwide? Who performed where? That’s how, on March 8, I discovered that the Hollies left for Poland in 1966, becoming one of the first Western bands to perform behind the Iron Curtain.
That’s strange. Not that they performed in Poland, but that I didn’t know about it. As far as I recall, I never read anything about it, even though I – modestly speaking – have been a loyal Hollies fan for years, with a solid vinyl collection. And all because my father once gave me a stack of singles, including “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother,” which I played to pieces on an old Philips turntable. Other bands came along that competed for my fandom, but the Hollies remained a firm pillar of my collection.
A heavily underrated pillar, in my opinion. Founded in 1962, the Hollies were at the forefront of British beat music and were praised for their harmonious vocals. By 1966, they had grown into a band whose popularity rivalled that of The Beatles or the Rolling Stones.
UK and US
The Hollies as pioneers, almost sixty years ago. I had to learn more about it, though I found it odd that I had never read about it before. As far as I knew, the band mainly performed in England at the time, although 1966 was also the year they made another attempt to break into the US. On setlist.fm, I found all the concert dates of the Hollies in their original lineup with Clarke, Nash, Hicks, Haydock, and Elliott that year. In that lineup, they recorded highly successful albums, including “Would You Believe?”, “Bus Stop,” and “Look Through Any Window,” were all released in 1966. These albums produced several hits that shaped a significant part of their setlist, according to the data on Setlist. Regular songs included “Bus Stop,” “Look Through Any Window,” “Stop! Stop! Stop!,” and their Dylan cover “The Times They Are A-Changing,” which previewed an album that would later feature only Dylan covers and was aptly titled “Hollies Sing Dylan.” That album ultimately led to Graham Nash leaving the group.
With that material, the band performed 101 concerts in England, nine in the US, and four in Denmark. They also visited Sweden, Norway, Germany, and Ireland.
No Poland. It is mentioned nowhere. However, I found numerous anecdotes about their US tour. The British group missed almost every major TV show in the States. In the US, if you wanted to make a name for yourself in the 1960s pop scene, you had to appear on Ed Sullivan’s show. However, the U.S. Immigration Authority frequently caused trouble by refusing to issue a work permit, a recurring problem in the Hollies’ American ventures.
On April 14, the group was detained for two days at Heathrow before the American authorities permitted them to travel. The highlight of that trip was an appearance on the “Soupy Sales Show,” which was a far cry from Ed Sullivan, where the Stones, Beatles, Dave Clark Five, and Animals all had their moments. (Note: The reverse also happened. The Byrds were denied entry to England.)
Yet, the same band that struggled to obtain the right papers for a US tour supposedly travelled to Poland in March of that year—a country behind the Iron Curtain, fully controlled by the Soviet Union, which was intent on keeping Western influences at bay for as long as possible.
Capitalist Influence
Poland in 1966 was nothing like modern Poland. Now a democracy, it was then a divided nation: deeply rooted Catholicism on one side and the propaganda of the United Workers’ Party on the other, governing Poland as a one-party communist state. 1966 was also the year of the Millennium Celebrations, marking Poland’s Christianization and the founding of its first state. The celebrations primarily showcased military power, a common sight in Warsaw Pact nations. Youths were automatically integrated into this system, with 25,000 of them participating in the closing ceremony in October—just six months after visits from two Western acts.
In communist Poland, Western music was strictly regulated. Rock ‘n’ roll and beat music were quickly labeled by communist regimes as a Western capitalist influence. Western bands rarely performed there—a situation that persisted until David Hasselhoff sang his ode to freedom on the Berlin Wall. In 1966, no one thought that would ever be possible. It must have been a huge event.
For Lulu, that is. The Scottish singer was the main attraction, bringing the Manchester band along to perform in places like Gdansk and Warsaw.
For context: Lulu was an absolute star, especially due to her hit “Shout.” That song was also known in Poland, where young people clandestinely listened to Radio Luxembourg and The Voice of America. Lulu and the Hollies’ music was not unfamiliar. On the contrary. But these concerts gave Polish youth the chance to see these stars live. It fueled their desire for more freedom. After all, this music symbolized freedom.
In this respect, the authorities made a miscalculation. The fact that Lulu and the Hollies were allowed to perform in Poland meant the authorities did not see them as a direct threat. In 1966, some Eastern Bloc countries, including Poland, pursued a slightly more relaxed cultural policy than the Soviet Union itself. But what they failed to see was that this music stoked the fire of the desire for freedom. This music stood for individualism and rebellion, the exact opposite of the strict communist ideology.
Influence on Local Culture
In a way, this tour can be seen as the beginning of a thaw in relations between East and West—a relationship that remained tense due to the Cold War until the late 1980s. The tour showed that cultural exchanges were possible, partly because the Hollies did not deliver an explicit political message. Or… did they? Either way, young people picked up an intrinsic message that the authorities missed. A political message does not always have to be explicit.
The performances of Lulu and the Hollies mark nothing less than a turning point for Polish pop music. The Hollies inspired Polish bands like Czerwone Gitary and Niebiesko-Czarni, direct counterparts to British beat music. That year, Czerwone Gitary released their album “To Wlasnie My” (“This Is Us”). The title track left no doubt: the song began with harmonious singing, the trademark of Clarke, Nash, Hicks, Haydock, and Elliott.
Niebiesko-Czarni was a bit rougher than Czerwone Gitary, but their 1968 album “Mamy Dla Was Kwiaty” (“We Have Flowers for You”) made no secret of its British beat influences, with a clear nod—see the cover—to hippie culture.
But the tour was more than just an inspiration for a new generation. It was an early sign of how the Cold War would slowly fade, at least culturally. Music played a key role in opening borders: the influence of Western pop music in Eastern Europe grew in the 1970s and 1980s, becoming part of a burgeoning subculture within the gray Soviet blocs. Bands emerging from this subculture became a driving force behind an unstoppable movement that ultimately led to the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. The wall of censorship and political control was slowly broken—by pop music.
