Combining psychedelia and folk-rock (with the emphasis changing from year to year), this long-established British group first charted with their take on "Go Now" in 1964, done earlier by Bessie Banks. By '67, lead singer Denny Laine had moved on and the band had gone into an original-tunes direction (as opposed to the R&B cover band concept of earlier). Primitive synthesizers were purchased and at the same time the members, (now including Justin Hayward, Mike Pinder, Ray Thomas and John Lodge) discovered a unique vocal quality to the performances when they all sang together. Adding Graeme Edge's "voice of God" on spoken word material produced a group and body of work of a completely unprecedented nature.
In 1967 the Moodies made use not only of the many instruments playable by the members but of an entire symphony orchestra to produce "Days Of Future Past", which contained the hits "Tuesday Afternoon" and "Nights In White Satin". Over the next few decades, more hits came, like "Ride My See Saw", "The Story In Your Eyes", "I'm Just A Singer In A Rock And Roll Band" and "Isn't Life Strange?" This alleged '60s band continued charting as late as 1978 with "Steppin' In A Slide Zone" and 1986 with "Your Wildest Dreams". Single releases have been seen as recently as 2002's "December Snow" from the "December" album. The still-very-active band maintains a website, online store, relations with fan organizations and publications and recently opened a brick-and-mortar record store in Cobham.
Bio written by: Pete_Jamison |
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