John Lodge, who performed bass and sang within the Moody Blues — together with on the English band’s “Nights in White Satin,” a No. 2 hit in the US in 1972, and on “Your Wildest Goals,” which cracked the highest 10 greater than a decade later — has died. He was 82.
His loss of life was introduced in an announcement by his household, who mentioned he died “all of the sudden and unexpectedly,” however didn’t specify a trigger or say when or the place he died.
“John peacefully slipped away surrounded by his loved-ones and the sounds of The Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly,” the assertion mentioned. In line with Lodge’s web site, he had tour dates scheduled this yr beginning Dec. 4 in Cerritos.
Born in Birmingham, England, in 1943, Lodge joined the Moody Blues in 1966 together with singer Justin Hayward; the 2 changed Denny Laine (who went on to kind Wings with Paul McCartney) and Clint Warwick.
The group had began out as considered one of numerous younger English acts aping American R&B within the mid-’60s. “We have been initially a rhythm and blues band, sporting blue fits and singing about individuals and issues within the Deep South,” Hayward recalled in an interview with The Instances in 1990. “It was OK, but it surely was incongruous, getting us nowhere, and ultimately we had no cash, no nothing.”
Having been requested by their report firm to provide you with an LP that will showcase the hi-fi potentialities of its new recording gear, Hayward and Lodge pushed the band towards a extra ornate sound that blended rock and classical music.
In 1967, the band launched “Days of Future Handed,” an elaborate idea album that includes the London Competition Orchestra; as we speak it’s broadly considered an early landmark of the progressive rock sound that will later embody the likes of Sure and Emerson, Lake & Palmer.
Along with “Nights in White Satin” — heard not too long ago in a sultry Chanel business starring Timothée Chalamet — the album spun off “Tuesday Afternoon,” a pastoral orchestral-rock quantity about “gently swaying by way of the fairyland of affection.”
Neither single was a smash on the time. But regular FM radio play saved the songs in rotation by way of the early ’70s, by which era rock was filled with proudly formidable outfits resembling Genesis and Electrical Mild Orchestra.
In 1972, the Moody Blues topped the Billboard 200 with its album “Seventh Sojourn,” which included successful single, “I’m Only a Singer (in a Rock and Roll Band),” with Lodge on lead vocals.
The band broke up after “Seventh Sojourn” — Hayward informed The Instances that “we have been getting an increasing number of enclosed and introverted, and there was simply nothing left to speak about” — although he and Lodge launched a duo album, “Blue Jays,” in 1975; two years later, Lodge put out his first solo LP, “Pure Avenue.”
The Moody Blues reconvened in 1977 and went on to seek out success within the synth-pop ’80s with songs like “Gemini Dream,” “The Voice” “and “Your Wildest Goals,” the final of which grew to become successful on MTV with a music video starring Hayward as a musician trying again at his life.
The band toured by way of the late 2010s, acting at England’s Glastonbury competition in 2015 and on the Hollywood Bowl in 2017. Ray Thomas, a founding member of the group who performed flute, died in 2018; Graeme Edge, the band’s founding drummer, died in 2021; Laine died in 2023; Mike Pinder, who performed keyboards within the band till 1978, died final yr. Hayward wrote Friday on Fb that he was “very unhappy and shocked to listen to of John’s passing” and mentioned he had “such completely satisfied reminiscences of creating music collectively.”
In 2023, Lodge launched a solo album that he mentioned represented a reimagining of “Days of Future Handed.” His survivors embody his spouse, Kirsten, two youngsters and a grandchild.
In 2018, the Moody Blues have been inducted into the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame by Coronary heart’s Ann Wilson, who mentioned the band “took me from childhood to maturity.”
“The Moody Blues aren’t cool or ironic — they’re not a assemble,” Wilson added. “There’s an exquisite and approachable honesty concerning the poetry and a pure intelligence within the music.
“You possibly can lie again and hearken to any one of many albums, starting to finish, and exit of the world.”
