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Moody Blues music biography continued...

in 1964 in Birmingham, England, when Ray Thomas and Michael Pinder, who had been members of El Riot & the Rebels, joined forces with guitarist/vocalist Denny Laine, band manager-turned drummer Graeme Edge, and bassist Clint Warwick. Soon, the band obtained a London-based management company, 'Ridgepride', formed by ex-Decca A&R man Alex Murray (Alex Wharton), who helped them land a recording contract with Decca Records in the spring of 1964, which led to the recording of "Go Now," one of the group's early hits. The Moody Blues' contract with Decca Records was set to expire, when they were offered a deal by Dream, a subsidiary label, to record a rock and roll version of Antonín Dvoøák's New World Symphony. The result was 1967's Days of Future Passed, which became one of the most successful pop/rock releases of the period, earning a gold record award and reaching #27 on the British album chart (five years later it was to reach #3 in the U.S./Billboard charts). The album spawned two singles, "Nights in White Satin" and "Tuesday Afternoon," which became standards of emerging progressive rock sound. The follow-up albums-- In Search of the Lost Chord (1968), To Our Children's Children's Children (1969), Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (1971) and Seventh Sojourn (1972) -- established the Moody Blues as international superstars.



In the spring of 1974, after completing a tour of Asia, the group took an extended break — originally announced as a permanent break-up—but they came back together again in 1977, recording such hit albums as Octave in 1978, Long Distance Voyager, which reached #1 on the Billboard charts in 1981, and The Other Side of Life, which yielded the spectacular hit "Wildest Dreams," in 1986. In the 90s, their recording successes were more modest, but they also began attracting fans by the tens of thousands to a new series of concerts, in which -- for the first time -- they performed with orchestras and, thus, could do their most elaborately produced songs on-stage. They remain a big concert draw to this day on the nostalgia circuit, a place where old fans—and even some new ones—can relive their biggest successes.