The Moody Blues Days of Future Passed (Vinyl and CD, Deram Records, 1967) ****
The Moody Blues In Search of the Lost Chord (Vinyl, Deram Records, 1968) ****
The Moody Blues On the Threshold of a Dream (Vinyl, Deram Records, 1969) ****
The Moody Blues To Our Children's Children's Children (Vinyl, Threshold Records, 1969) ****
They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7
Active compensatory factors: I tend to think of the Moodies catalogue like I do Coronation Street, or The Beatles. As in: there was life before Nights in White Satin (substitute Corrie or The Fabs), but it wasn't up to much. This first post will take in the sixties albums by The Moody Blues.
Where do they all belong? Next up - the seventies albums.
Genre: Prog rock, pop
Places I remember: Real Groovy Records,
Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Ride My See-Saw (In Search of the Lost Chord)
Gear costume: Legend of a Mind (In Search of the Lost Chord)
Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Ride My See-Saw (In Search of the Lost Chord)
Gear costume: Legend of a Mind (In Search of the Lost Chord)
Active compensatory factors: I tend to think of the Moodies catalogue like I do Coronation Street, or The Beatles. As in: there was life before Nights in White Satin (substitute Corrie or The Fabs), but it wasn't up to much. This first post will take in the sixties albums by The Moody Blues.
A Dream is a compilation - a double album no less, that (according to the cover) selects songs 'from several singles, EP's and compilation-LP's. We hope that we have found them all, the nuggets of the pre-'Nights In White Satin'-time'.
That means it has all of their 1965 debut album - The Magnificent Moodies, plus more in that same style from 1965 to 1967. The band at this point was made up of Denny Laine (guitar/ vocals), Clint Warwick (bass/ vocals), Mike Pinder (keyboards/ vocals), Ray Thomas (flute/ harmonica/ percussion/ vocals) and Graeme Edge (drums). Lead vocals were shared by Laine, Pinder and Thomas.
There were some original songs amid the covers of songs by artist like James Brown and Willie Dixon, but the set is dominated by the chart success of Go Now, sung by Denny Laine. Their single From the Bottom of My Heart is also a worthy inclusion on A Dream.
After 1967's Love and Beauty single (included on A Dream), The Moody Blues replaced Laine and Warwick with two new members - Justin Hayward (guitar/ vocals) and John Lodge (bass/ vocals).
I guess the original band thought they'd exhausted the R&B possibilities and decided to take a leap of faith into orchestral rock. Justin and John certainly helped to move the band in that direction - as well as Mike Pinder's innovative use of a mellotron. Together with abandoning songs from the American deep south that they couldn't relate to and writing their own songs, it was a vastly different band to the old Denny Laine version that created their second album.
Days of Future Past holds up in 2026 (and will do beyond the now). The year of Sgt Pepper was responsible for a revolution in sound and The Moody Blues made a great contribution. Obviously there is Nights in White Satin but I would go for Tuesday Afternoon as the album's best song.
It was really on album number three that the band sound coalesced in a convincing way, so in many ways Days of Future Past was like The Magnificent Moodies - a stand-alone album. With In Search for the Lost Chord, the band found their distinctive sound.
Days of Future Past had a definite concept - the tracing of a day from dawn until nighttime. In Search of the Lost Chord also had a concept but a much deeper and richer one around the theme of quest and discovery, including both world exploration and the inner self. Very sixties. It also had another classic Moody Blues song - Ride My See-Saw. Legend of a Mind and Voices in the Sky are other highlights on the album.
On the Threshold of a Dream was their fourth album. Its concept centres around the feeling that, thanks to psychedelic stimulation and the late sixties Woodstock generation, mankind was on the brink of a new consciousness - that a new enlightened age was dawning.
Sadly, it proved a false dawn (look at the world and its leaders in 2026 - complete absence of enlightenment there) but it made for an interesting concept for this group of songs.
Their final album of the sixties was To Our Children's Children's Children, also of 1969. These guys really loved the studio! The theme for this one was about space travel, specifically to the moon. which happened around the time of the recording sessions, and the impact of time passing by.
It was the last of their big lush productions. Two highlights: Gypsy and Watching and Waiting.
Where do they all belong? Next up - the seventies albums.
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