How many adventurous rock'n'roll bands forged in the late-'60s/early-'70s would have been left by the wayside—or relegated to languish in perpetual cutout-bin purgatory—had it not been for the wide-open programming M.O. of stereo-loving FM radio stations?
The Moody Blues could very easily have been one of those sidelined, notched-cover footnotes, but they altered their gameplan when guitarist/vocalist Justin Hayward and bassist/vocalist John Lodge joined the fold a few years after the chart success of "Go Now" in 1964 (footnote 1).
Lodge, who passed away at age 82 on October 10, 2025, was Hayward's creative fulcrum. While heady Hayward-penned songs like "Nights in White Satin," "Voices in the Sky," and "Your Wildest Dreams" set a certain harmonic table, grittier Lodge compositions such as "Ride My See-Saw," "I'm Just a Singer (in a Rock and Roll Band)," and "Isn't Life Strange" lent a melodic—and sometimes melancholic—counterpoint
"Success to others was top-40 AM radio—two-and-a-half-minute songs—and we weren't writing those," Lodge told me during a phone interview I conducted in August 2023. "We thought, 'Well, we won't be invited back down that road—we can't go down that road.' We just wanted to make the music for ourselves. At the time, we found the excitement was in the recording of our own songs and in listening to a finished record. We thought, 'What we're doing for us is exactly right. Whether it's successful or not—that's in the lap of the gods.' I've always been grateful to American FM radio for playing our albums in stereo, but to us, it was really just about the next recording or the next gig."
Audiophiles either love or hate the album that really put the Moody Blues on the map—1967's Days of Future Passed (Deram), which traced a complete sunrise-to-sunset song featuring the five-piece band from Birmingham, England, backed by the London Festival Orchestra conducted by Peter Knight. (As for me, I'm totally down with the broad, sweeping arrangements and performances of "Nights in White Satin," "Dawn Is a Feeling," and "Tuesday Afternoon" all day long.)
As the one providing the low end, Lodge struck a connected chord with producer Tony Clarke and engineer Derek Varnals, the production team at the helm of "The Classic Seven," the affectionate term for the band's psychedelic/progressive album output of 1967–72. "Bass is a really difficult instrument to record, and Derek Varnals was really good with that," Lodge said. "He took a lot of care recording the bass because he knew how important it was on the record, and he would make sure it was right. I very rarely offered an opinion whether it was too loud or not too loud. He always seemed to know what I would think was right." Prime example: the placement of Lodge's relentless, propulsive churn on "I'm Just a Singer (in a Rock and Roll Band)" (footnote 2).
Lodge and his bandmates pushed the boundaries of stereo. They were also at the forefront of multichannel mixing, having built their own quad studio at Decca in the mid-'70s. Clarke and Varnals were put on the quad-mixing case, and those 4.0 mixes were the templates for the 24/96 Dolby Digital and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 upmixes of six classic-era Moody Blues albums on 2013's Timeless Flight, an 11-CD, six-DVD box set (Threshold/UMC). "When we came to remix Days of Future Passed in surround sound, we'd already gotten the quad mix perfectly balanced," Lodge told me. "The master of Days of Future Passed was only on four tracks, and we had to decide where each track would go in surround sound and what echoes to put on, and where."
The center had to hold. "When we used to listen to playbacks, we sat in the middle of the control room," Lodge added. "That was important to get the feel right and to make sure everything was in balance and people could hear everything. The whole was important, but the individual sounds were just as important."
During his final touring and recording days, Lodge returned to that historic 1967 LP, re-recording it with his own group, the 10,000 Light Years Band. "I realized Days of Future Passed brought me to where I am today, so that's why I've called it My Sojourn—because it is my sojourn, you know?" Lodge said. Sojourn was released on his own label in 2023. "It is such a huge part of my life and so many other people's lives—those who are longtime fans and those who've come to love the Moody Blues and an album that was released probably before they were born. ... Probably the only comparison we've got is with some of the great operas by Puccini. When you listen to that kind of music now, it doesn't matter if it came from 150, 1500, or even 5200 years ago—it seems just as relevant today. I hope they'll find our music is relevant years, even decades, into the future."
Footnote 1: An R&B cover sung by Moody Blues co-founder Denny Laine, "Go Now" reached No.1 on the UK singles chart and No.10 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. Laine left the band in 1966 and later co-founded Wings with Paul McCartney. Footnote 2: "I'm Just a Singer" appears on 1972's Seventh Sojourn (Threshold).
Audiophiles either love or hate the album that really put the Moody Blues on the map—1967's Days of Future Passed (Deram), which traced a complete sunrise-to-sunset song featuring the five-piece band from Birmingham, England, backed by the London Festival Orchestra conducted by Peter Knight. (As for me, I'm totally down with the broad, sweeping arrangements and performances of "Nights in White Satin," "Dawn Is a Feeling," and "Tuesday Afternoon" all day long.)
As the one providing the low end, Lodge struck a connected chord with producer Tony Clarke and engineer Derek Varnals, the production team at the helm of "The Classic Seven," the affectionate term for the band's psychedelic/progressive album output of 1967–72. "Bass is a really difficult instrument to record, and Derek Varnals was really good with that," Lodge said. "He took a lot of care recording the bass because he knew how important it was on the record, and he would make sure it was right. I very rarely offered an opinion whether it was too loud or not too loud. He always seemed to know what I would think was right." Prime example: the placement of Lodge's relentless, propulsive churn on "I'm Just a Singer (in a Rock and Roll Band)" (footnote 2).
During his final touring and recording days, Lodge returned to that historic 1967 LP, re-recording it with his own group, the 10,000 Light Years Band. "I realized Days of Future Passed brought me to where I am today, so that's why I've called it My Sojourn—because it is my sojourn, you know?" Lodge said. Sojourn was released on his own label in 2023. "It is such a huge part of my life and so many other people's lives—those who are longtime fans and those who've come to love the Moody Blues and an album that was released probably before they were born. ... Probably the only comparison we've got is with some of the great operas by Puccini. When you listen to that kind of music now, it doesn't matter if it came from 150, 1500, or even 5200 years ago—it seems just as relevant today. I hope they'll find our music is relevant years, even decades, into the future."
Footnote 1: An R&B cover sung by Moody Blues co-founder Denny Laine, "Go Now" reached No.1 on the UK singles chart and No.10 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. Laine left the band in 1966 and later co-founded Wings with Paul McCartney. Footnote 2: "I'm Just a Singer" appears on 1972's Seventh Sojourn (Threshold).
