Oct 10, 2025
The Moody Blues, circa 1994 Photographer: Terry O'Neill From The Moody Blues – Time Traveller Box Set.
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The Moody Blues, circa 1994 Photographer: Terry O'Neill From The Moody Blues – Time Traveller Box Set.
The Moody Blues - Justin Hayward
The Moody Blues - Denny Laine
Classic era Moodies
quick and messy random doodles of the Moodies in my Fairy Tale AU, for which I should just make original characters at this point, but like the concept too much...
The debut album by the Moody Blues was released in the UK on 23 July 1965 (it was released 5 days later in Canada and the US as Go Now: The Moody Blues #1, with a different track listing).
The band had signed with the management company Ridgepride in the summer of 1964 and released "Go Now!" in November 1964. The single hit #1 in the UK in late January 1965 - it would peak at #2 in Canada and #10 in the US).
The band held a party to celebrate the release of The Magnificent Moodies, with Marianne Faithfull, George Harrison, and Paul McCartney attending, and called Ridgepride the next day to take care of the bill, only to discover that the company had shut its offices and disappeared, leaving the band bankrupt. They then signed with the Beatles' manager Brian Epstein (the Moody Blues would be one of the opening bands on the Beatles' final tour in December 1965).
Denny Laine (who co-wrote 4 of the band's 10 songs on the debut and sang lead vocals on 8 songs) and bassist Clint Warwick left the band in 1966. Brian Epstein soon quit as the group's manager. Laine would later join Paul McCartney's Wings, Warwick left music entirely, and Epstein would die in August 1967. By October 1966, drummer Graeme Edge, keyboardist Mike Pinder, and Ray Thomas would be joined by Justin Hayward and John Lodge.
The Moody Blues
This band will always be special to me...
Justin And Mike's Memories Of Dawning Is The Day
Mike Pinder and Ray Thomas, for a while, shared a lovely house to the southwest of London. And I would spend a lot of time there. I remember playing sitar with Mike, who had a tambour, which is the resonant kind of version of the sitar. And Mike was a lovely guitar player as well, so we would enjoy just playing together, just messing around, and Ray on the flute as well. As usual, we stayed up all night. And then, as the dawn was breaking, Mike decided he was going to record the dawn chorus in his garden — all of the birds slowly coming to give their beautiful song. And it got tremendous; it was a whole orchestra of songbird. And I hope he still got the recording.
Justin Hayward, recalls how he got the inspiration for this song in his Tuesday Afternoon Series.
They stole it. We didn't like that at all. I took it badly because, for me, the sentiment of the song is one of the best we ever did. From the lyrical content, there's so much heart and soul in there, and it was such a positive message for the time, and still is today, in my estimation. It is one of my all-time-favorite Hayward songs. In fact, I was singing over his shoulder in parts of that song. I was just standing right behind him singing over his shoulder as a warm backup kind of thing.
Mike Pinder, recalls that Justin Hayward's song Dawing Is The Day was used in a recruiting commercial when the band had not given permission for its use and stopped it when they found out.
"The Making of 'A Question of Balance'". Higher and Higher (1996 Winter)