It’s been a big part of my life since I was in my teens. “It’s my music,” Lodge insists when asked why he still perseveres with such a rigorous regimen. True to its title, Lodge continues to maintain that mantra with an ongoing touring schedule that’s recently found jogging up and down the Eastern Seaboard. He’s referring of course to one of the many songs he contributed to the Moody Blues canon, one that still finds a prominent part in his repertoire. I say it on stage - we’re all just singers in a rock and roll band.” “The shows have been fabulous,” he beamed, referring to those recent performances. Sitting down with Lodge a day later, we found him pleased and content, with scarcely a Moody thought in mind.
#MOODY BLUES SONGS FULL#
The evidence of that credence and capability was on full display on that aforementioned outing, especially when he led his current ensemble through a set list weighted heavily with Moody Blues classics, but still spiked with his individual efforts as well. His current album, B Yond - The Very Best Of, not only reaffirms his role as a prime player in the Moody Blues, but also affirms his new solo stance via his more recent work. He’s fully invested himself in his 10,000 Light Years Band and establishing his own identity. When - and if - the Moodies will ever reconvene seems to be as much of seesaw as the venerable song of the same name.įor his part, Lodge seems nicely nonplussed. Each man has not only fully committed to pursuing a separate solo career, but also captained their own cruises - Hayward with his upcoming On the Blue cruise and Lodge with the recently completed ‘70s Rock and Romance excursion. The two men who remained the most prolific members of the Moodies, guitarist Justin Hayward and bassist John Lodge, have apparently gone their separate ways. The Moody Blues are to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in April.Here’s reason to give Moody Blues fans blues of another kind. The group later re-formed, and Thomas remained a member until leaving in 2002 because of poor health. He released two solo albums, “From Mighty Oaks” (1975) and “Hopes, Wishes and Dreams” (1976), after the Moody Blues broke up in 1974. Survivors include his wife, the former Lee Lightle, and three children, Adam, Nancy and Zoe. He studied in nearby Birmingham and sang with the Birmingham Youth Choir. 29, 1941, in Stourport-on-Severn, England. Thomas wrote several more songs for the band, including “Legend of a Mind,” a trippy ode to Timothy Leary, and “Veteran Cosmic Rocker,” a synth-heavy rock song. The Moody Blues went on to release “In Search of the Lost Chord” (1968), “Long Distance Voyager” (1981) and other albums. It found an audience there only belatedly, when it was reissued in 1972 and broke into the Top 10. “Days of Future Passed” did reasonably well in England but disappeared without a trace in the United States. Thomas said that when executives at Decca, the band’s label at the time, heard the album “they panicked: ‘Who’s going to buy this? It’s neither one thing or the other: it’s not rock ‘n’ roll, and it’s not classical as such.’” He also wrote “Twilight Time,” its contemplative final track, and he and Peter Knight wrote the jaunty, flute-heavy “The Morning: Another Morning.” Thomas’ solo on the single “Nights in White Satin,” which became the group’s signature song, was one of the album’s defining moments. It was one of the earliest albums to embrace the long, interconnected songs and musical experimentation that became key parts of the style in the early 1970s. In 1967 they released what is considered a progressive rock landmark, the album “Days of Future Passed,” which featured contributions from the London Festival Orchestra. Most of the Moody Blues wrote songs, but the band’s new style gave more prominence to Thomas’ writing as well as his flute playing. “We decided to really do it like a classical-rock fusion.” “I had been playing flute, so it was an ideal marriage for the flute with the strings,” Thomas said last year in an interview with the website.