“Long Dark Road” was released as the follow-up single to “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress” and both appeared on the “Distant Light” album in 1971. “Indian Girl,” however, was not released on an album until it appeared on the 2007 CD release of the 1972 album “Romany.” It was one of the CD’s 8 bonus tracks.
“Indian Girl” was penned by Terry Sylvester who also handled the lead vocals on the cut. Sylvester joined The Hollies in 1969 as a replacement for Graham Nash. Like Nash, he typically handled the high tenor harmonies. When Sylvester released his self-titled solo album in 1974, he remade “Indian Girl.” His solo version, complete with steel guitar, was not released as a single. Personally, I prefer The Hollies’ treatment of this classic “B” side.
The other significant fact about this song is that it was cut with the new Hollies vocal trio of Mikael Rickfors, Terry Sylvester and Tony Hicks and does not feature Allan Clarke at all as he had left the group. The "A" side was a song featuring the previous vocal harmonies of Clarke, Hicks and Sylvester, so a bit of a mash up single. The other strange element of this version of Indian Girl is that the outro guitar solo is not by Tony Hicks (the groups lead guitarist) and we must presume that this is performed by either Rickfors or Sylvester himself. Cheers
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