A further tribute to John Lodge, who died last week.
This track, which he wrote (and whose mediæval and “orchestral” interludes in many ways presage Procession from Every Good Boy Deserves Favour,) was split into two for its appearance on In Search of the Lost Chord, with the Ray Thomas penned Legend of a Mind making the meat in the sandwich.
This TV appearance from 1968 –the Colour Me Pop session the Moodies did – puts it all together though.
I discovered on Saturday that John Lodge, bassist, vocalist and songwriter of The Moody Blues has died.
Long-standing readers of the blog will know the Moodies were my favourite 1960s band.
This was the band’s second incarnation though, after Denny Laine and Clint Warwick had left and Lodge and Justin Hayward become members. This presaged a switch from playing blues and R&B to the more prog rock sound with which the band is now principally associated. Indeed the Days of Future Passed LP could be claimed to have started off the prog boom.
Lodge was a major contributor in a song-writing sense, penning at least two songs on each of the band’s LPs and of course even more to Blue Jays, his collaboration with Hayward at the beginning of the brief hiatus when the Moodies took a collective break in the mid 1970s. I actually saw the pair play in Glasgow on the Blue Jays tour which promoted the album and the subsequent Hayward written single Blue Guitar.
Given the prog emphasis above it might seem perverse that I’ve chosen this song, but it shows that the Moodies could rock with the best of them and it features Lodge’s bass heavily.
The Moody Blues: I’m Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band)
John Charles Lodge: 20/7/1943 – 10/10/2025. So it goes.
No sooner had I heard the news on the radio that Duane Eddy had died (and Richard Tandy of ELO too) than I opened the Guardian’s obituary page to find that Mike Pinder of the Moody Blues has made his final voyage.
Pinder was the last of the original five members of the Moody Blues still standing. Now only Justin Hayward and John Lodge remain of the later classic line-up.
Pinder’s contribution to that classic line-up was immense. It is fair to say that without his ability on the mellotron (an instrument he personally brought to the attention of The Beatles) The Moody Blues would not have sounded as they did, nor had the same success.
His piano solo on the original group’s biggest hit Go Now was no small part of its effectiveness.
This song written by Pinder was the B-side to Ride My See-saw but later appeared on the odd album Caught Live + Five. It was later a hit for The Four Tops but as usual Levi Stubbs shouted his way through it.
The Moody Blues: A Simple Game
This is another of my favourite Pinder songs:-
The Moody Blues: The Best Way to Travel (from In Search of the Lost Chord)
I always loved the piano ending to this track which was sandwiched between Have You Heard Part 1 and Have You Heard Part 2 on the LP On the Threshold of a Dream.
The Moody Blues: The Voyage
Michael Thomas (Mike) Pinder: 27/12/1941 – 24/4/2024. So it goes.
During the week came the news that Denny Laine, first singer with The Moody Blues, the voice of number 1 hit Go Now, has gone.
The Moody Blues: Go Now
Laine later became a founder member of Wings, As co-writer of Mull of Kintyre (with Paul McCartney) he had a bigger selling single than any the Beatles had.
In between The Moody Blues and his stint with Wings he was briefly in various other bands and found time to release two singles under his own name of which the song below was one I liked from first hearing his version. It wasn’t a hit for Denny but in 1972 became one for Colin Blunstone.
Denny Laine: Say You Don’t Mind
Brian Frederick Arthur Hines (Denny Laine) 29/10/ 1944 – 5/12/2023. So it goes.
Though he contributed spoken word pieces to the previous five albums plus an instrumental in Beyond from To Our Children’s Children’s Children only six Moody Blues songs were credited to their late drummer Graeme Edge as sole writer. This rocker, the last track on side one of Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, was one of them.
The Moody Blues: After You Came
Graeme Charles Edge: 30/3/1941 – 11/11/2021. So it goes.
The source of that “glorious age of Camelot” quote I linked to in Tuesday’s review post of Lavie Tidhar’s “King Arthur” book By Force Alone.
The song is from The Moody Blues album On the Threshold of a Dream released in April 1969. A languid, ethereal, atmospheric track. Quite unlike the book I might add.
Previously all my Moody Blues posts have been of Justin Hayward songs. Neither he nor the writer of this, John Lodge, were original members of the band when it had its number one hit Go Now but replaced Denny Laine and Clint Warwick after a subsequent lack of chart success led to that pair leaving the band.
It was the arrival of Lodge and Hayward though which coincided with a change of direction – to which they made a significant contribution.
This video is a clip from the BBC2 late night programme Colour Me Pop partly introduced to showcase the then new colour TV broadcasts. Note the psychedelic effects. The Moody Blues’ appearance on the show was on 14th September 1968. I either watched it at the time of its first broadcast or on a reasonably quick repeat. Despite doing nothing but singing (or miming) on the clip Ray Thomas still manages to give an extravagant performance.
Though this track was written by Lodge it is Hayward’s guitar solo and the group’s signature vocal sound which stand out. The song quickly became a staple of the group’s live shows, more or less the band’s signature tune.
Ex-Zombie Colin Blunstone had a few solo hits in the 70s.
This was one of them. Unfortunately the video isn’t synched. (Perhaps he was miming in the first place, but it sounds like a live performance.)
Colin Blunstone: Say You Don’t Mind
The song’s writer Denny Laine (he of the early Moody Blues and of Wings) had recorded it in the 60s.
After their next LP, Seventh Sojourn, which spawned two singles in Isn’t Life Strange and I’m Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band) both of which – unlike The Story in Your Eyes – troubled the charts, the Moody Blues broke up.
During the five years they spent apart most of them released solo LPs but the most successful venture was a collaboration between Justin Hayward and John Lodge which produced the LP Blue Jays but most memorably the song Blue Guitar, a no 8 hit in the UK. According to the Wiki article above Hayward actually recorded this with 10cc rather than Lodge but nevertheless the two took “Blue Jays” on the road mainly – as I recall Lodge introducing the track on stage – because of Blue Guitar.
Here they are performing it (ie miming) on Supersonic.
