55 Years Ago: The Hollies Record a Hit With an Unknown Elton John
If you want to make a career in the music business, you have to cut your teeth somehow. For Elton John, known in his early days as simply “Reggie,” that meant doing quite a lot of work as a staff songwriter and sometimes a session pianist. One of those gigs was with the Hollies, who got together with John in June 1969 in what was then EMI Studios in London (it would later become Abbey Road Studios) to record a song written by Bob Russell and Bobby Scott called “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother,” originally recorded by the American singer-songwriter Kelly Gordon. According to Hollies guitarist T...