Moody Blues : C/D, S/D

My dad always had a cassette of Days Of Future Past and Seventh Sojourn in the car, but the first album I bought with my own money was the double This Is The Moody Blues comp. I still prefer its sequencing to the actual albums
https://www.discogs.com/release/2129159-The-Moody-Blues-This-Is-The-Moody-Blues

Yes, several of the records wheee around my house but that’s the one I latched on to. It felt like a very complete sixties epic, like White Album or Tommy more than a greatest hits.

some pretty crazy stories here. is the "brown note" thing really true? I thought that was an urban legend that just became an episode of South Park

https://www.loudersound.com/features/moody-blues-weird-fans-1960s

cracking article.
really enjoyed that and learnt loads that i had no idea about.
especially the whole thing re timothy leary.
i thought the song was because they personally knew him.
i love the moodies, but weirdly i know very little about them.
and, being honest, i kind of like it that way.

same, I thought it was some well-known lore that they used to hang out a bunch. surprising to me that the song was actually made during the Days of Future Past sessions, it would not have fit on that album at all. if I had to guess which track was from those sessions I'd say "Voices in the Sky".

still think In Search Of the Lost Chord is a total classic, one of those albums where I don't think it's their best but it's my personal favorite. idk if it's held up well exactly but it totally does feel like the sort of album a lot of teenagers got stoned to for the first time and I can respect that.

Moodies trivia: their 90s-era touring keyboardist was a founder member of hipster-adjacent folk-rock act Trees. Bonus trivia: he also wrote Kiki Dee's signature hit.

Bias Boshell is a heck of a rock and roll name

The long ass documentary is worth a watch. No great revelations but fun and I think it got me to buy their albums

Far too many ugly men with moustaches (who looked about 42 in 1967 so God knows what they look like now) in this band for my liking.

Four guys who look like West Bromwich Albion legend, Tony Brown, fronted by Tim Brooke Taylor is how I would characterize this band's look.

I'm not seeing this look as a problem myself

https://artist1.cdn107.com/08f/08fe9d2f776ad8199fc4ed945320db97_xl.jpg

I still hear Your Wildest Dreams while out and about at least twice a year.

Four guys who look like West Bromwich Albion legend, Tony Brown

I had always assumed that the falsetto backing vocals in "Nights in White Satin" were provided by session singers, and was vaguely amused to eventually discover that they were performed by these stolid-looking blokes.

xpost - That's because it's a jam. It came on my all-time faves playlist this morning on my way into work.

The long ass documentary is worth a watch. No great revelations but fun and I think it got me to buy their albums

No, it was a newer documentary, but amazing that there's more than one of them so long

Shit, Mike Pinder died:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/mike-pinder-the-moody-blues-keyboardist-founding-member-dead-obit-1235010490/

RIP

Also I somehow never knew that Patrick Moraz was in The Moody Blues as well.

gotta be the guy who did the most to popularize the mellotron, for that alone he is a legend

his stuff was definitely the trippiest, always loved "The Sun is Still Shining"

His suite on side 2 of On the Threshold of a Dream is my pick for "most prog before prog" recording (even if it only predated King Crimson by six months).

Also I somehow never knew that Patrick Moraz was in The Moody Blues as well.

It resulted in The Music Trial of the Century!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0DoBkUTXHU

yeah the word "in" is doing a lot of work there

That is weird. On a song like "The Voice," Moraz is supplying like 80% of the instrumentation.

i have all of their classic era albums on cd.
however, this is the best option to listen to them imho ..

https://www.discogs.com/release/6173718-The-Moody-Blues-This-Is-The-Moody-Blues

hard to argue, as good as those albums are they make for a hell of a greatest hits comp which is how I got into them from the start. can't remember which one I had (it was a single CD and it started with "Go Now") but it was really good start to finish. they do have some really great deep cuts though.