It is a record....made in the USA with a picture sleeve.1. Steppin' in a Slide Zone 2. Under Moonshine 3. Had to Fall in Love 4. I'll Be Level With You 5. Driftwood 6. Top Rank Suite 7. I'm Your Man 8. Survival 9. One Step into the Light 10. The Day We Meet Again Although they're best known today for their lush, lyrically and musically profound (some would say bombastic) psychedelic-era albums, the Moody Blues started out as one of the better R&B-based combos of the British Invasion. The Moody Blues' history began in Birmingham, England, where one of the more successful bands during that time was El Riot & the Rebels, co-founded by Ray Thomas (harmonica, vocals) and Mike Pinder (keyboards, vocals). Pinder left the band, first for a gig with Jackie Lynton and then a stint in the Army. In May of 1963, he and Thomas reunited under the auspices of the Krew Cats. Following some success in Germany, Thomas and Pinder decided to try turning professional, recruiting members from some of the best groups working in Birmingham, including Denny Laine (vocals, guitar), Graeme Edge (drums), and Clint Warwick (bass, vocals). The Moody Blues, as they came to be known, made their debut in Birmingham in May of 1964, and quickly earned the notice and later the services of manager Tony Secunda. A major tour was quickly booked, and the band landed an engagement at the Marquee Club, which resulted in a contract with England's Decca Records less than six months after their formation. The group's first single, "Steal Your Heart Away," released in September of 1964, didn't touch the British charts. Their second single, "Go Now," released in November of 1964 -- a cover of an American single by R&B singer Bessie Banks -- fulfilled every expectation and more, reaching number one in England and earning them a berth in some of the top venues in England (including the New Musical Express Poll Winners Concert, appearing with some of the top acts of the period); its number ten chart placement in America also earned them a place as a support act for the Beatles on one tour and the release of the follow-up LP (Magnificent Moodies in England, Go Now in America) on both sides of the Atlantic. It was coming up with a follow-up hit to "Go Now," however, that proved their undoing. Despite their fledgling songwriting efforts and the access they had to American demos -- including one choice number by Ellie Greenwich -- this version of the Moody Blues never came up with another single success. By the end of the spring of 1965, the frustration was palpable within the band. The group decided to make their fourth single, "From the Bottom of My Heart," an experiment with a different, much more subtly soulful sound, and it was one of the most extraordinary records of the entire British Invasion, with haunting performances all around. Unfortunately, the single only reached number 22 on the British charts following its release in May of 1965. Ultimately, the grind of touring, coupled with the strains facing the group, became too much for Warwick, who exited in the spring of 1966, and by August of 1966 Laine had left as well. Warwick was replaced by John Lodge, an ex-bandmate of Ray Thomas, and in late 1966 singer/guitarist Justin Hayward joined. For a time, they kept doing the same brand of music, but Hayward and Pinder were also writing different kinds of songs that did get out as singles, to little avail. At one point in 1966, the band decided to pull up stakes from England -- where their bookings had devolved to workingman's clubs and cabaret -- and start playing in Europe, where even a "has-been" British act could earn halfway decent fees. And they began building a new act based on new material that was more in keeping with the slightly trippy, more pop-oriented folk-rock sounds and light psychedelia that were popular at the time. The Beatles were doing acoustic-textured folk-rock and incorporating Indian influences into their music, and even the Rolling Stones were releasing records such as "Lady Jane," so the Moody Blues moved past their R&B roots into new, more richly textured music. They were still critically short of money and prospects when fate played a hand, in the form of a project initiated by Decca Records. In contrast to America, where home stereo systems swept the country after 1958, in England stereo was still not dominant, or even common, in most people's homes -- apart from classical listeners -- in 1966. Decca had come up with "Deramic Stereo," which offered a wide spread of sound, coupled with superbly clean and rich recording, and was trying to market it with an LP that would serve as a showcase, utilizing pop/rock done in a classical style. The Moody Blues, who owed the label unrecouped advances and recording session fees from their various failed releases, were picked for the proposed project, which was to be a rock version of Dvorák's New World Symphony. They did try to fulfill that specific commitment, but were never able to deliver the songs. Luckily, they were able to convince the staff producer and engineer that the proposed adaptation was wrongheaded, and to deliver something else; the producer, Tony Clarke, was impressed with some of the band's own compositions, and they arrived at the idea of an archetypal day's cycle of living represented in rock songs set within an orchestral framework. With Clarke leading the subterfuge in cooperation with engineer Derek Varnals, and conductor/arranger Peter Knight writing the orchestrations that were used to accompany the group's work and bridge the songs, the result was the album Days of Future Passed. The record's mix of rock and classical sounds was new, and at first puzzled the record company, which didn't know how to market it, but eventually the record was issued, first in England and later in America. It became a hit in England, propelled up the charts by the single "Nights in White Satin" (authored and sung by Hayward), which made the Top 20 in the U.K.; in America, the chosen single was another Hayward song, "Tuesday Afternoon." All of it hooked directly into the aftermath of the Summer of Love, and the LP was -- totally accidentally -- timed perfectly to fall into the hands of listeners who were looking for an orchestral/psychedelic recording to follow works such as the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Better still, the band still had a significant backlog of excellent psychedelic-themed songs to draw on. Their debt wiped out and their music now in demand, they went to work with a follow-up record in short order and delivered In Search of the Lost Chord (1968), which was configured somewhat differently from its predecessor. Though Decca was ecstatic with the sales results of Days of Future Passed and the singles, and assigned Clarke and Varnals to work with them in the future, the label wasn't willing to schedule full-blown orchestral sessions again. And having just come out of a financial hole, the group wasn't about to go into debt again financing such a recording. The solution to the problem of accompaniment came from within the group, with keyboard player Mike Pinder, and an organ-like device called a Mellotron. Using tape heads activated by the touch of keys, and tape loops comprised of the sounds of horns, strings, etc., the instrument generated an eerie, orchestra-like sound. Introduced at the start of the 1960s as a potential rival to the Hammond organ, the Mellotron had worked its way into rock music slowly, in acts such as the Graham Bond Organisation, and had emerged to some public prominence on Beatles records such as "Strawberry Fields Forever" and, more recently, "I Am the Walrus"; during that same year, in a similar supporting capacity, it would also turn up on the Rolling Stones' Their Satanic Majesties Request. As it happened, Pinder not only knew how to play it but had also worked in the factory that built them, which enabled him over the years to reengineer, modify, and customize the instruments to his specifications; the resulting instruments were nicknamed "Pindertrons." In Search of the Lost Chord (1968) put the Mellotron in the spotlight, and it quickly became a part of their signature sound. The album, sublimely beautiful and steeped in a strange mix of British whimsy ("Dr. Livingston I Presume") and ornate, languid Eastern-oriented songs ("Visions of Paradise," "Om"), also introduced one psychedelic-era anthem, "Legend of a Mind"; authored by Ray Thomas and utilizing the name of LSD guru Timothy Leary in its lyric and choruses, along with swooping cellos and lilting flute, it helped make the band an instant favorite among the late-'60s counterculture. The group members have since admitted at various times that they were, as was the norm at the time, indulging in various hallucinogenic substances. That album and its follow-up, 1969's To Our Children's Children's Children, were magnificent achievements, utilizing their multi-instrumental skills and the full capability of the studio in overdubbing voices, instruments, etc. But in the process of making those two LPs, the group found that they'd painted themselves into a corner as performing musicians -- thanks to overdubbing, those albums were essentially the work of 15 or 20 Moody Blues, not a quintet, and they were unable to re-create their sound properly in concert. Indeed, from their album To Our Children's Children's Children -- which was also the first release of the group's own newly founded label, Threshold Records -- only one song, the guitar-driven "Gypsy," ever worked on-stage. Beginning with A Question of Balance (1970), however, the group specifically recorded songs in arrangements that they could play in concert, stripping down their sound a bit by reducing their reliance on overdubbing and, in the process, toughening up their sound. They were able to do most of that album and their next record, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, on-stage, with impressive results. By that t
