Well, I was bound to mess up the alphabet eventually – yeah, I posted something I decided to attribute to Muddy Waters (under M) before I did The Moody Blues. So it goes.
The logical place for me to start discussing The Moody Blues would be with “This Is The Moody Blues,” the 2-LP compilation that was the first MB record I owned. So, we’ll get to that, but I’m trying to work through chronological releases, for reasons of orderliness. So, let’s start with the least of all Moody Blues record, in my view.
Not that it isn’t good. It’s a perfectly okay standard British R&B record from 1965, including their first big hit, “Go Now.” It kicks off with a cover of James Brown’s “I’ll Go Crazy,” and it’s perfectly credible. There are four originals on the album all in the same style as what they’re covering, another James Brown, a Gershwin tune, a Sonny Boy Williamson number. Very standard British blues (plus the obligatory standard or two) for ’65 all perfectly serviceable but also perhaps indistinguishable from, say, The Zombies or Manfred Mann. There is nothing here that indicates what’s going to come. And since I’m here mostly for The Moody Blues that were to come, gotta say, this one doesn’t get a lot of play. And having just listened to it again, I can say: if they hadn’t gone on to be The Moody Blues, this record would have disappeared into history.
How long have I had this one? Not really clear. Probably since the early ’80s, but it has never been a key part of my Moody Blues experience, so not a lot more to say.
I’m amazed to say that I actually don’t have a copy of their next album, “Days of Future Passed.” Not on vinyl, anyway. So despite the importance to their legacy of “Nights In White Satin,” a song my basic cover-song-singing ass likes to sing from time to time, I guess we won’t be covering it here! (I do have it on digital, so if I live long enough to do the same overview of my CDs . . . )
I’ve always had a soft spot for Denny Laine since early Wings days, so for a long time this was the only Moodies album I owned. Then when Patrick Moraz joined the Moodies, I got re-interested in them and nabbed all the records he was on in real time. But I don’t think I owned any of the “core” Moodies albums, ever . . . I knew all of the radio hits, obviously, and at some point in the CD era, I got a compilation album (I think it was the 1989 “Greatest Hits”), then that went away when all of my other shiny silver discs were purged. I probably need to explore them more . . . they’re one of those groups that I am pretty sure that I like conceptually or intellectually for a variety of reasons, but I never seem to acquire their output . . .