History Music / TheMoodyBlues

* UrExample: Due to its lush orchestral arrangement, blending of classical with contemporary music, and baroque-style vocal arrangements, "Go Now" from The Magnificent Moodies in 1964 could be considered the first progressive rock song ever created. Granted, it doesn't have all the elements, but it's undeniable that "Go Now" at least could be called a predecessor to prog rock.

->-- Mike Pinder's spoken word passage from "The Late Lament"

** Finally, Thomas retired, and the trio of Graeme Edge, John Lodge, and Justin Hayward (with Norda Mullen as Thomas' unofficial successor on flute) has lasted from 2002 to the present. Do the maths and you'll realise this means Edge, Lodge, and Hayward have been part of the band for ''over fifty years''.

* BadassMustache: For most of the Moodies' heyday, Ray Thomas had a moustache and a clean-shaven chin (compared to Mike Pinder and Graeme Edge, who had full beards, and John Lodge and Justin Hayward, who had no facial hair at all),[[note]] By the time of ''Seventh Sojourn'', Ray had grown a beard as well, as seen in the video for "I'm Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band)".[[/note]] and it helped make him look the part of rock music's second-most famous flautist (after fellow moustache sporter [[Music/JethroTull Ian Anderson]]).

Faced with critical maulings and a lawsuit from Moraz in 1992, the Moodies took a hiatus from recording, instead continuing to tour. This time, they performed with an orchestra, finally allowing them to fully recreate much of their early work on stage. Eventually they got back into the studio to record their latest all-original album, 1999's ''Strange Times''. This was a huge improvement, cutting down on the 1980s excess and giving emphasis to guitars instead of keyboards, creating a pretty decent comeback. Thomas retired in 2002, and the band again continued as a trio of Edge, Hayward, and Lodge (with unofficial fourth member, flautist Norda Mullen), cutting their latest album, the [[ChristmasSongs Christmas album]] ''December'', in 2003. Clint Warwick died in 2004 from liver disease. The Moodies continue to tour to this day. In December 2017, they were announced as inductees for the UsefulNotes/RockAndRollHallOfFame. Thomas passed away on January 4, 2018. Edge passed away on November 11, 2021. Shortly after Edge's death, Hayward revealed the band had quietly ceased activity in 2018.

!!Principal Members (Founding members in '''bold''', current members in ''italic''):

* ''Justin Hayward'' - guitar, backing and lead vocals, piano, keyboard, sitar, cello, mandolin (1966–2018)

* ''John Lodge'' - bass, guitar, backing and lead vocals, cello, double bass, harp, keyboard (1966–2018)

Faced with critical maulings and a lawsuit from Moraz in 1992, the Moodies took a hiatus from recording, instead continuing to tour. This time, they performed with an orchestra, finally allowing them to fully recreate much of their early work on stage. Eventually they got back into the studio to record their latest all-original album, 1999's ''Strange Times''. This was a huge improvement, cutting down on the 1980s excess and giving emphasis to guitars instead of keyboards, creating a pretty decent comeback. Thomas retired in 2002, and the band again continued as a trio of Edge, Hayward, and Lodge (with unofficial fourth member, flautist Norda Mullen), cutting their latest album, the [[ChristmasSongs Christmas album]] ''December'', in 2003. Clint Warwick died in 2004 from liver disease. The Moodies continue to tour to this day. In December 2017, they were announced as inductees for the UsefulNotes/RockAndRollHallOfFame. Thomas passed away on January 4, 2018. Edge passed away on November 11, 2021.

* '''Graeme Edge''' - drums, percussion, timpani, tabla, tambourine, [=VCS3=] (1964–2021, his death)
* ''Justin Hayward'' - guitar, backing and lead vocals, piano, keyboard, sitar, cello, mandolin (1966–present)

* ''John Lodge'' - bass, guitar, backing and lead vocals, cello, double bass, harp, keyboard (1966–present)

[[caption-width-right:335:The Moody Blues in their heyday. From left to right: Mike Pinder, Graeme Edge, Justin Hayward, Ray Thomas and John Lodge.]]

Ray Thomas, John Lodge and Mike Pinder had all been members of various amateur bands, before Lodge left to go to college. The remaining two recruited band manager-turned-drummer Graeme Edge, guitarist Denny Laine (real name Brian Hines; later of Music/{{Wings}}) and Clint Warwick (real name Albert Eccles) on bass to form the Moody Blues.[[note]] There is some disagreement on the origins of the name; they called themselves the M&B Five in the hopes of getting local brewers M&B (Mitchell & Butler) to book them into their client pubs in and around Birmingham, and when that didn't pan out, Mike Pinder claims that he was inspired by Duke Ellington's "Mood Indigo" to turn the initials "MB" into "Moody Blues". However, Denny Laine is equally convinced that he was the one who came up with the name since they were, at the time, a blues band and he had a moody onstage persona.[[/note]] Originally, they were mostly a white R&B band in line with most of UsefulNotes/TheBritishInvasion bands of this period. Under a recording contract with Creator/DeccaRecords, they first had success with the single "Go Now" (originally written by Larry Banks and Milton Bennett and recorded by Banks' then-wife, Bessie Banks), which was a top 10 hit in the United States and, in fact, remains their only #1 single in the UK. Their debut album ''The Magnificent Moodies'' was released in 1965, but they had trouble following the success of "Go Now" with an additional hit, and in 1966, Warwick and Laine left.

Warwick was briefly replaced by Rodney Clark, but it didn't last, and their best-known line-up formed when Pinder, Thomas and Edge reunited with Lodge and joined up with guitarist Justin Hayward of the Wilde Three. This line-up released two more singles, "Fly Me High" and "Love and Beauty", which also found little success. However, the latter was a definite move towards their classic sound, featuring the symphonic sounds of Pinder's Mellotron and using Thomas' flute as more of a featured instrument. From here on, the Moodies would become a full-blown PsychedelicRock band.

Their contract with Decca was set to expire, but the label offered them a deal to promote their new "Deramic Stereo Sound" audio format, and its associated Creator/DeramRecords label, with a rock version of Music/AntoninDvorak's ''New World Symphony''. They were unable to complete this, but convinced Peter Knight, who had been hired to conduct the orchestral material on the abandoned project, to continue working with them (providing overtures, conclusions and orchestral linking sections between songs) on a recording that would blend rock music with symphonic sounds, in the structure of a ConceptAlbum about a day in the life of an everyman. The resulting album, ''Days of Future Passed'' (1967), was a sales success, mostly on the back of Hayward's Top 20 single "Nights in White Satin" (and, in America, the #24 placing of "Tuesday Afternoon"). Special note must be made of Pinder's contributions: he and producer Tony Clarke removed the sound effects tapes from his mellotron and doubled up the orchestral tapes, combining with Pinder's skills on the mellotron to create a symphonic "wave" sound that would become a defining characteristic of their work. Its concept album structure is also a huge influence on ProgressiveRock.

The band got back together in 1977 to record a new album, ''Octave''. However, Pinder had married and started a family in the interim, so he declined to go on tour with them. Besides this, there was a fire at the studios they were using, and a landslide after rain marooned them in Pinder's home where they were using his home studio, causing tension to rise. Eventually, Pinder left, and on tour he was replaced by Swiss ex-Music/{{Yes}} keyboardist Patrick Moraz. Their follow ups, ''Long Distance Voyager'' (1981) and ''The Present'' (1983), were also successful, but they lacked their trademark lush, symphonic mellotron-led sound, replaced with a more modern feel. Similarly, Hayward, who had also been the primary composer of their hit singles including "Nights in White Satin" and "Question", was forced by marketers to have one of his songs lead off each album, and they were now more aimed at getting radio airplay. With Hayward and Lodge now acting as the primary composers, Ray Thomas was being pushed off to the side, and because of all of this the quality of their albums suffered from this point onwards, particularly in Pinder's absence.

The band enjoyed a boost in commercial fortunes with their 1986 album ''The Other Side of Life'' and another Hayward tune and U.S. Top 10 single, "Your Wildest Dreams". Unfortunately, this and their followup, 1988's ''Sur La Mer'', are probably their weakest albums yet - producer Tony Visconti and synth programmer Barry Radman were introducing the use of sequencers, samplers and drum machines in order to remain contemporary in the musical climate of the '80s, pushing the Moodies towards boring, anemic SynthPop. Hayward and Lodge's compositions were becoming increasingly lightweight and not as deep musically, and since the music they were producing did not fit at all with a flute, Thomas continued the process of becoming a LesserStar (going so far as to be mixed out of ''Sur La Mer'' entirely, though this was partly due to illness). While these albums and 1991's ''Keys to the Kingdom'' remained good sellers, critics were bashing the Moodies by this time, and Moraz was expressing dissatisfaction with being in the band, eventually leaving in 1991. The other members continued on as a four-piece, supported by live keyboardists.

Faced with critical maulings and a lawsuit from Moraz in 1992, the Moodies took a hiatus from recording, instead continuing to tour. This time, they performed with an orchestra, finally allowing them to fully recreate much of their early work on stage. Eventually they got back into the studio to record their latest all-original album, 1999's ''Strange Times''. This was a huge improvement, cutting down on the 1980s excess and giving emphasis to guitars instead of keyboards, creating a pretty decent comeback. Thomas retired in 2002, and the band again continued as a trio of Edge, Hayward and Lodge (with unofficial fourth member, flautist Norda Mullen), cutting their latest album, the [[ChristmasSongs Christmas album]] ''December'', in 2003. Clint Warwick died in 2004 from liver disease. The Moodies continue to tour to this day. In December 2017, they were announced as inductees for the UsefulNotes/RockAndRollHallOfFame. Thomas passed away on January 4, 2018. Edge passed away on November 11, 2021.

** In a lesser extant, the two guitarists Denny Laine and Justin Hayward.

* TitleTrack: Only two Moody Blues albums have proper title tracks, ''The Other Side of Life'' and ''Strange Times''. Others do come close, however, such as ''December'' ("December Snow"). ''A Question of Balance'' arguably has two title tracks which bookend the album: "Question" and "The Balance".

* '''''Graeme Edge''''' - drums, percussion, timpani, tabla, tambourine, [=VCS3=] (1964–2021, his death)

* '''''Graeme Edge''''' - drums, percussion, timpani, tabla, tambourine, [=VCS3=] (1964–present)

->- Mike Pinder's spoken word passage from "The Late Lament"

Faced with critical maulings and a lawsuit from Moraz in 1992, the Moodies took a hiatus from recording, instead continuing to tour. This time, they performed with an orchestra, finally allowing them to fully recreate much of their early work on stage. Eventually they got back into the studio to record their latest all-original album, 1999's ''Strange Times''. This was a huge improvement, cutting down on the 1980s excess and giving emphasis to guitars instead of keyboards, creating a pretty decent comeback. Thomas retired in 2002, and the band again continued as a trio of Edge, Hayward and Lodge (with unofficial fourth member, flautist Norda Mullen), cutting their latest album, the [[ChristmasSongs Christmas album]] ''December'', in 2003. Clint Warwick died in 2004 from liver disease. The Moodies continue to tour to this day. In December 2017, they were announced as inductees for the UsefulNotes/RockAndRollHallOfFame. Thomas passed away on January 4, 2018.

* VocalTagTeam: A trademark of Hayward and Lodge, but Pinder and Thomas typically had one or two songs on lead vocals per album as well.

-->'''Thomas''': I've been doing my best\\

-->[[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons "Can the poems, it's arse-whooping time!"]]

* 1967 - ''Days of Future Passed''

* AlbumClosure: ''Days of Future Passed'' charts a day from dawn to nightfall. The last track on the album[[note]]After the sublime orchestra-enhanced "Nights In White Satin"[[/note]] is a spoken-word piece on the aimless futility of life and the inevitable demise of any sort of optimism, called "Late Lament."

* GainaxEnding: The gong at the end of "Nights in White Satin", after two orchestral flourishes that make much more musical sense.

* ScareChord: "Nights in White Satin" does this with a gong at the end.

Their contract with Decca was set to expire, but the label offered them a deal to promote their new "Deramic Stereo Sound" audio format with a rock version of Music/AntoninDvorak's ''New World Symphony''. They were unable to complete this, but convinced Peter Knight, who had been hired to conduct the orchestral material on the abandoned project, to continue working with them (providing overtures, conclusions and orchestral linking sections between songs) on a recording that would blend rock music with symphonic sounds, in the structure of a concept album about a day in the life of an everyman. The resulting album, ''Days of Future Passed'' (1967), was a sales success, mostly on the back of Hayward's Top 20 single "Nights in White Satin" (and, in America, the #24 placing of "Tuesday Afternoon"). Special note must be made of Pinder's contributions: he and producer Tony Clarke removed the sound effects tapes from his mellotron and doubled up the orchestral tapes, combining with Pinder's skills on the mellotron to create a symphonic "wave" sound that would become a defining characteristic of their work. Its concept album structure is also a huge influence on ProgressiveRock.

** ''On the Threshold of a Dream'':
*** "In the Beginning" starts with a howling-wind sound effect. "Have You Heard? (Part 2)" ends with the same sound effect.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/moody_blues_9639.jpeg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:The Moody Blues in their heyday. From left to right: Mike Pinder, Graeme Edge, Justin Hayward, Ray Thomas and John Lodge.]]

Ray Thomas, John Lodge and Mike Pinder had all been members of various amateur bands, before Lodge left to go to college. The remaining two recruited band manager-turned-drummer Graeme Edge, guitarist Denny Laine (real name Brian Hines; later of Music/{{Wings}}) and Clint Warwick (real name Albert Eccles) on bass to form the Moody Blues.[[note]] There is some disagreement on the origins of the name; they called themselves the M&B Five in the hopes of getting local brewers M&B (Mitchell & Butler) to book them into their client pubs in and around Birmingham, and when that didn't pan out, Mike Pinder claims that he was inspired by Duke Ellington's "Mood Indigo" to turn the initials "MB" into "Moody Blues". However, Denny Laine is equally convinced that he was the one who came up with the name since they were, at the time, a blues band and he had a moody onstage persona.[[/note]] Originally, they were mostly a white R&B band in line with most of UsefulNotes/TheBritishInvasion bands of this period. Under a recording contract with Decca Records, they first had success with the single "Go Now" (originally written by Larry Banks and Milton Bennett and recorded by Banks' then-wife, Bessie Banks), which was a top 10 hit in the United States and, in fact, remains their only #1 single in the UK. Their debut album ''The Magnificent Moodies'' was released in 1965, but they had trouble following the success of "Go Now" with an additional hit, and in 1966, Warwick and Laine left.

-->[[Series/TheSimpsons "Can the poems, it's arse-whooping time!"]]

* BookEnds: ''Days of Future Passed'' has bookends within bookends.
** Lyrically, the album begins and ends with Mike Pinder reciting the same five lines in the Graeme Edge-penned "Morning Glory" and "Late Lament".
--->Cold-hearted orb that rules the night\\

** But the very first thing we hear is the sound of a gong being struck, played in reverse; the very last thing we hear is the same sound, this time played forwards.

Faced with critical maulings and a lawsuit from Moraz in 1992, the Moodies took a hiatus from recording, instead continuing to tour. This time, they performed with an orchestra, finally allowing them to fully recreate much of their early work on stage. Eventually they got back into the studio to record their latest all-original album, 1999's ''Strange Times''. This was a huge improvement, cutting down on the 1980s excess and giving emphasis to guitars instead of keyboards, creating a pretty decent comeback. Thomas retired in 2002, and the band again continued as a trio of Edge, Hayward and Lodge (with unofficial fourth member, flautist Norda Mullen), cutting their latest album, the [[ChristmasSongs Christmas album]] ''December'', in 2003. Clint Warwick died in 2004 from liver disease. The Moodies continue to tour to this day. In December 2017, they were announced as inductees for the Music/RockAndRollHallOfFame. Thomas passed away on January 4, 2018.

Faced with critical maulings and a lawsuit from Moraz in 1992, the Moodies took a hiatus from recording, instead continuing to tour. This time, they performed with an orchestra, finally allowing them to fully recreate much of their early work on stage. Eventually they got back into the studio to record their latest all-original album, 1999's ''Strange Times''. This was a huge improvement, cutting down on the 1980s excess and giving emphasis to guitars instead of keyboards, creating a pretty decent comeback. Thomas retired in 2002, and the band again continued as a trio of Edge, Hayward and Lodge (with unofficial fourth member, flautist Norda Mullen), cutting their latest album, the [[ChristmasSongs Christmas album]] ''December'', in 2003. Clint Warwick died in 2004 from liver disease. The Moodies continue to tour to this day. In December 2017, they were announced as inductees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Thomas passed away on January 4, 2018.