Usually, they die during Christmas.\u00c2\u00a0 The axiom is, if you make it through the holidays, all the way to January 1st, you’re golden, you’re safe.<\/p>\n
How great was Willie Mitchell?<\/p>\n
Let’s just say without him, Al Green was never able to ascend to the same height.\u00c2\u00a0 And that was positively stratospheric.<\/p>\n
Thank god there have been full-fledged obits.<\/p>\n
But will Tony Clarke get the same love?<\/p>\n
Once upon a time, the Moody Blues was a British Invasion act with one hit track, "Go Now".\u00c2\u00a0 Pretty great, Denny Laine traded on it in Wings and beyond.\u00c2\u00a0 But by time the Moody Blues became the band we remember today, Denny Laine was long gone.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a new act, produced by the sixth Moody, Tony Clarke.<\/p>\n
"Days Of Future Passed" was the only album I could listen to with my father.\u00c2\u00a0 He’d sing along with the orchestrations.\u00c2\u00a0 I remember playing the cassette on the drive to my freshman year of college.<\/p>\n
And once I got to school, it was a Moody Blues extravaganza.<\/p>\n
I already had "On The Threshold Of A Dream", and the latest, "A Question Of Balance".\u00c2\u00a0 But this meant I’d missed out on gems.<\/p>\n
Like "In Search Of The Lost Chord".\u00c2\u00a0 And "To Our Children’s Children’s Children".<\/p>\n
I’d say the latter was a stoner album.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, the album opened with "Higher and Higher".<\/p>\n
But if we call "To Our Children’s Children’s Children" an album to get high to, how do we describe "In Search Of The Lost Chord"? Where we lost our minds to "Legend Of A Mind"…\u00c2\u00a0 That whole first side, I drifted in and out of consciousness as the Moodies referenced Timothy Leary…\u00c2\u00a0 Their music was even more atmospheric and out there than the Airplane’s.<\/p>\n
Then the Moodies focused on hits, and it wasn’t quite the same.<\/p>\n
But there was a multi-album run where they seemed unconcerned with trends, where they marched to the beat of their own drummer, and we went along for the ride.\u00c2\u00a0 The music was sweet, exquisite, without being saccharine.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the soundtrack of my freshman year.<\/p>\n
The younger generation has embraced Led Zeppelin, can they ever embrace the Moody Blues?<\/p>\n
I think so.\u00c2\u00a0 If you started with "In Search Of The Lost Chord".\u00c2\u00a0 In an era where it’s in your face, where we constantly deal with harsh reality, it’s a thrill to go along for an uncharted ride…into your own mind.<\/p>\n
And on the back of every album was Tony Clarke’s name.\u00c2\u00a0 He was as integral to the Moody Blues’ sound as George Martin was to the Beatles’, as Gus Dudgeon was to those early Elton John records.\u00c2\u00a0 Every time I hear the Moodies on the satellite, I smile.\u00c2\u00a0 Because it means someone remembers.\u00c2\u00a0 And I can never forget.\u00c2\u00a0 Below zero weather, sitting in the dark, watching the zilch drip plastic into the bucket of water as Justin, John and Ray sang…<\/p>\n
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Usually, they die during Christmas.\u00c2\u00a0 The axiom is, if you make it through the holidays, all the way to January 1st, you’re golden, you’re safe. How great was Willie Mitchell? Let’s just say without him, Al Green was never able to ascend to the same height.\u00c2\u00a0 And that was positively stratospheric. Thank god there have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-EQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2532"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2533,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2532\/revisions\/2533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}