The Moody Blues - BBC Sessions, Volume 9: In Concert, NEC Arena, Birmingham, Britain, 3-8-1997

Here's another BBC concert album by the Moody Blues, from 1997.

At the time of this concert, the Moody Blues hadn't released a new album in six years, "Keys to the Kingdom," in 1991. Only one song from it was performed here, "Lean on Me [Tonight]." Otherwise, they performed their hits from the 1960s to the 1980s, with a full orchestra backing them.

It turns out that most of this concert was released on the band's box set, "Timeless Flight." However, I didn't know it was a BBC concert until musical associate Progsprog sent me his copy. It turns out that had one extra song not on the box set, "The Voice." Perhaps the reason that didn't make it to the box set was because a BBC DJ talked extensively during the instrumental intro to that song. But thanks to the use of the MVSEP program, I was able to remove that talking (although there was a little damage to the quality of the underlying music). That's why that song has "[Edit]" in the title.

According to the set list at setlist.fm, about eight more songs were performed. But this is all we have, since the concert was edited down for broadcast by the BBC.  

This album is an hour and three minutes long. 

01 The Voice [Edit] (Moody Blues)
02 Gemini Dream (Moody Blues)
03 Tuesday Afternoon (Moody Blues)
04 talk (Moody Blues)
05 Eternity Road (Moody Blues)
06 talk (Moody Blues)
07 Talking Out of Turn (Moody Blues)
08 I Know You're Out There Somewhere (Moody Blues)
09 Lean on Me [Tonight] (Moody Blues)
10 I'm Just a Singer [In a Rock and Roll Band] (Moody Blues)
11 Nights in White Satin (Moody Blues)
12 Question (Moody Blues)
13 Ride My See Saw (Moody Blues)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/eaPdhoyX

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/KquhjyIjDnE6sUj/file

The cover photo is an appearance on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" TV show, on February 21, 1995. That's Justin Hayward on the left and John Lodge on the right. Lodge was further to the side, but I moved him closer to Hayward with the use of Photoshop.

The Moody Blues - BBC Sessions, Volume 6: In Concert, Poplar Creek Music Theater, Hoffman Estates, IL, 7-18-1981

I'm wincing about posting yet another album that requires renumbering, but I'm trying to get all of these renumberings done sooner rather than later. I'd discovered some more information sources that led to more missed album. Hopefully the renumberings will soon cease! Anyway, here's a Moody Blues concert from 1981 that I'd previously missed. So the next two albums in this series got renumbered, of course. One advantage of this concert over the next two in the series, also from the 1980s, is that this is the only one that wasn't edited down by the BBC.

When the 1980s began, it seemed likely that bands like the Moody Blues would be mostly forgotten as "dinosaurs." Musical trends had changed drastically in the past few years. To make matters worse, the band had taken a five-year break. But with their 1981 studio album "Long Distance Voyager," they had two minor hits, "Gemini Dream" and "The Voice," and discovered many new fans. 

This concert promoted that album. Naturally, it featured those two hits and other songs from the new album. But the band didn't shy away from playing lots of their older classics essentially the same as before, although the Mellotron was replaced by the synth.

This album is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent, so I didn't have to do any tinkering.

This album is an hour and 37 minutes long.

01 Gemini Dream (Moody Blues)
02 The Story in Your Eyes (Moody Blues)
03 talk (Moody Blues)
04 Twilight Time (Moody Blues)
05 talk (Moody Blues)
06 Tuesday Afternoon (Moody Blues)
07 talk (Moody Blues)
08 The Voice (Moody Blues)
09 Nervous (Moody Blues)
10 talk (Moody Blues)
11 Steppin' in a Slide Zone (Moody Blues)
12 talk (Moody Blues)
13 Talking Out of Turn (Moody Blues)
14 talk (Moody Blues)
15 The Balance (Moody Blues)
16 talk (Moody Blues)
17 Isn't Life Strange (Moody Blues)
18 talk (Moody Blues)
19 Gypsy (Moody Blues)
20 talk (Moody Blues)
21 Driftwood (Moody Blues)
22 talk (Moody Blues)
23 22,000 Days (Moody Blues)
24 I'm Just a Singer [In a Rock and Roll Band] (Moody Blues)
25 Nights in White Satin (Moody Blues)
26 Legend of the Mind (Moody Blues)
27 talk (Moody Blues)
28 Question (Moody Blues)
29 Ride My See-Saw (Moody Blues)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/RLnzAa3y

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/zWBMfQ2fTLswCdN/file

The cover is from this exact concert. That's Justin Hayward on the left and John Lodge on the right. However, I moved them closer together with the help of Photoshop.

The Moody Blues - BBC Sessions, Volume 8: In Concert, Apollo Theatre, Oxford, Britain, 12-3-1986

I just posted a Moody Blues concert for the BBC in the 1980s a few days ago. But I recently found two of them, so here's the other one before it slips my mind.

This concert has a lot of similarities with the other one I just posted, from 1984, two years earlier. For instance, all the expected big hits are on both, like "Tuesday Afternoon," "Nights in White Satin," and "Question." Both concerts even start with "Gemini Dream." However, I'm posting both concerts because there are plenty of differences too. That's helped by the fact that the band had a hit album in 1986 with two hit songs, "Your Wildest Dreams" and "The Other Side of Life." Naturally, they played those two, plus two more from that "The Other Side of Life" album, "Rock 'n' Roll Over You" and "It May Be a Fire." Additionally, they played other songs here not in the other concert, like "New Horizons" and "Veteran Cosmic Rocker," and there are five songs in that 1984 that weren't played here.

Unfortunately, the BBC seemed to have meddled in this recording more than usual. In particular, I'm pretty sure there was a lot of applause added. Most of the songs came from one source, but I found two from a different source. Those two songs have way less applause, a more reasonable amount. Heck, there was massive applause all through the banter before the song "Veteran Cosmic Rocker," which didn't make sense. I couldn't really undo the cheering, but I did get rid of most of it during the banter. And I actually boosted it on the two songs from the different source, so they'd fit in with the rest.

Another problem was that the vocals were consistently low in the mix for all the songs. So I boosted them all using the audio editing program UVR5.

This concert is an hour and 20 minutes long. That's a decent length for a concert, but the BBC edited some songs out. I had to cut out some banter before "Veteran Cosmic Rocker," because it mentioned three songs about to be played, but only one actually was included here.

UPDATE: On February 19, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. The music is the same, but I changed the album title to "Volume 8" after discovering a 1981 concert I'd missed. I then had to change the cover art and mp3 tags as well.

01 Gemini Dream (Moody Blues)
02 The Voice (Moody Blues)
03 Rock 'n' Roll Over You (Moody Blues)
04 talk (Moody Blues)
05 Tuesday Afternoon (Moody Blues)
06 Your Wildest Dreams (Moody Blues)
07 The Story in Your Eyes (Moody Blues)
08 Isn't Life Strange (Moody Blues)
09 It May Be a Fire (Moody Blues)
10 talk (Moody Blues)
11 Veteran Cosmic Rocker (Moody Blues)
12 New Horizons (Moody Blues)
13 The Other Side of Life (Moody Blues)
14 I'm Just a Singer [In a Rock and Roll Band] (Moody Blues)
15 Question (Moody Blues)
16 Nights in White Satin (Moody Blues)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/36RjGyVt

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ws1Dzt2WRNZq8Df/file

The cover photo shows most of the band members at a concert in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1986. From right to left: Patrick Moraz, Justin Hayward, John Lodge and Ray Thomas. Moraz was further from the others, but I moved him closer using Photoshop.

The Moody Blues - BBC Sessions, Volume 7: In Concert, Wembley Arena, London, Britain, 11-29-1984

After posting five albums of the Moody Blues performing for the BBC, I thought I was all done with that. But it turns out I was wrong. I've found two unreleased BBC concerts that band did in the 1980s. They're different enough that I'm going to post both.

When it comes to concerts, the BBC has a habit of editing them down to fit the time slots they have available. That's the case here. If you're curious, you can see the full set list here:

The Moody Blues Concert Setlist at Wembley Arena, London on November 29, 1984 | setlist.fm

Furthermore, the BBC jumbled up the song order. For instance, "Question" is in the middle of this recording, but it was actually the second to last song played. I considered trying to put the songs back in order, but I decided it would be too tricky to be worth it, given the problem of matching the applause levels after each song.

On the plus side, due to the BBC's editing, this concert focuses almost entirely on the band's best known songs, making for a particularly strong concert.

This concert is an hour and five minutes long.

UPDATE: On February 19, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. The music is the same, but I changed the album title to "Volume 7" after discovering a 1981 concert I'd missed. I then had to change the cover art and mp3 tags as well.

01 Gemini Dream (Moody Blues)
02 talk (Moody Blues)
03 Sitting at the Wheel (Moody Blues)
04 talk (Moody Blues)
05 Tuesday Afternoon (Moody Blues)
06 Isn't Life Strange (Moody Blues)
07 The Voice (Moody Blues)
08 Question (Moody Blues)
09 I’m Just a Singer [In a Rock and Roll Band] (Moody Blues)
10 Driftwood (Moody Blues)
11 talk (Moody Blues)
12 Steppin' in a Slide Zone (Moody Blues)
13 Talking Out of Turn (Moody Blues)
14 The Story in Your Eyes (Moody Blues)
15 Nights in White Satin (Moody Blues)
16 Ride My See-Saw (Moody Blues)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/zoPNJCno

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/vvIrZDDlhGxAtxq/file

This cover photo only shows the band's main singer and songwriter, Justin Hayward. I would have preferred a photo of the whole band, but this was the one and only photo I could find that came from this exact concert.

Various Artists - Heart Beat 86, National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, Britain, 3-15-1986

Here's an impressive 1986 benefit concert with performances by the Moody Blues, Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), Robert Plant, George Harrison, Roy Wood, UB40, the Fortunes, and more. It's completely unreleased, but the sound quality is excellent.

The inspiration for the concert began with Bev Bevan, the drummer for ELO. He was inspired by the Live Aid benefit concert in 1985, and wanted to do something for his hometown of Birmingham, England. All the proceeds went to benefit the Birmingham Children's Hospital. The concert ended up having a unusual Birmingham focus, with the vast majority of the musical performers originally coming from Birmingham. Some acts that hadn't been in the spotlight for some time, such as the Fortunes and Applejacks, got back together for this concert.

The concert was massive, nine hours long. Big acts like ELO and the Moody Blues played sets that lasted an hour or so. However, this album only contains an hour and a half of that. That's because all I could find was the portion that was later broadcast on BBC TV and radio. Parts of it also was broadcast on MTV in the US, and two songs ("The Voice" and "Lucille") come from that, with slightly lower sound quality. If anyone has any more of this, please let me know so I can add it in. But while it's sad that so much of the concert is missing, at least what is here has excellent sound quality.

One big act to perform was Robert Plant. Although he was having a very successful solo career, he avoided that kind of music and played rockabilly covers with the backing band the Big Town Playboys instead.

I think the ELO set is particularly interesting. Normally, ELO concerts were big productions, with lots of orchestral instruments and backing tapes and so on. This was a much more stripped down kind of performance, but the band showed they could still rock. It also was the band's first concert in four years. They would only play an additional handful of concerts in 1986 before breaking up. I'd especially love to hear the rest of their set, because I don't know of any other concert recording by the original ELO from after 1978 with this level of sound quality.

The Moody Blues were the last big act of the concert. But then everyone from all the earlier acts joined them on stage for a finale. Three songs were played: "Lucille," "Money (That's What I Want)," and "Johnny B. Goode." Unfortunately, I couldn't find a recording of "Money." But probably the highlight of the concert was "Johnny B. Goode," because a very unexpected guest star showed up on stage: George Harrison. He sang lead vocals on part of the song. But just having him there was a big deal, since he'd been pretty reclusive for the last decade or so. Apparently, even most of the other musicians were starstruck to be on the same stage as the ex-Beatle. 

By the way, it was hoped that there would be a reunion of the 1960s band the Move, since two major figures from that band, Jeff Lynne of ELO and Roy Wood, were at the concert. Plus, this was all about highlighting the best musical acts from Birmingham, and the Move definitely were one of those. It was announced the Move would reunite for the concert, but band member Carl Wayne didn't show up for some reason, so the reunion never happened. This was the closest to a Move reunion ever. That is no longer possible since Wayne passed away in 2004.

Note also that Denny Laine performed a set. However, his set was plagued by sound problems, and none of it was included in the BBC broadcast. He did sing lead on one verse of "Johnny B. Goode" for the final encore though. Also, Dave Edmunds was at the concert, but only had a minor role, playing a guitar solo on the song "Lucille" during the encore. And Noddy Holder, the lead singer of Slade, was at the concert, but his only role was singing a verse of "Lucille."

One final note. The emcee, Oliver Spencer (formerly known as Roger Spencer), used to be a member of the 1960s band Idle Race, also from Birmingham. The BBC recording included some stand-up comedy he did between acts, but I cut most of that out, since it doesn't have the same relistening value as the music.

This album is an hour and 37 minutes long.

01 Share It with You (Steve Gibbons Band)
02 B.S.A. (Steve Gibbons Band)
03 talk (Oliver Spencer)
04 Let It Be Me (Fortunes)
05 talk (Fortunes)
06 You've Got Your Troubles (Fortunes)
07 talk (Oliver Spencer)
08 See My Baby Jive (Roy Wood)
09 Are You Ready to Rock (Roy Wood)
10 talk (Roy Wood)
11 I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day (Roy Wood)
12 talk (Oliver Spencer)
13 I Got You Babe (UB40 & Ruby Turner)
14 Tell Me When (Applejacks)
15 talk (Oliver Spencer)
16 She Walks Right In (Robert Plant)
17 Come On (Robert Plant)
18 [Every Time I Hear] That Mellow Saxophone (Robert Plant)
19 He's in Town (Rockin' Berries)
20 talk (Oliver Spencer)
21 Telephone Line (Electric Light Orchestra)
22 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
23 Do Ya (Electric Light Orchestra)
24 Rockaria (Electric Light Orchestra)
25 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
26 Hold On Tight (Electric Light Orchestra)
27 Don't Bring Me Down (Electric Light Orchestra)
28 talk (Oliver Spencer)
29 Tuesday Afternoon (Moody Blues)
30 Question (Moody Blues)
31 Nights in White Satin (Moody Blues)
32 The Voice (Moody Blues)
33 Lucille (Noddy Holder, Roy Wood, Dave Edmunds & Everyone)
34 talk (Oliver Spencer)
35 Johnny B. Goode (George Harrison, Denny Laine, Robert Plant & Everyone)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/oygUAcFT

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ldz5LsvyWmzV42C/file

The cover photo shows Jeff Lynne and George Harrison during the "Johnny B. Goode" finale from this exact concert. The photo was originally in black and white, but I used the Palette program to colorize it, then made some additional changes in Photoshop. Note that Lynne and Harrison were just starting to get to know each other around this time. They would go on to become good friends, as well as band mates in the Traveling Wilburys.

Isle of Wight Festival, Afton Down, Isle of Wight, Britain, 8-27-1970 to 8-30-1970 - 8-30-1970: Part 3: The Moody Blues

Continuing to move forward chronologically, next up for the Isle of Wight Festival is the Moody Blues.

When the band started to play it was still light out, but by the time they finished over an hour later, it was dark.

The set is complete and sounds excellent, due to the fact that it was officially released in 2008 as the album "Threshold of a Dream: Live at the Isle of Wight 1970."

Murray Lerner, director of "Message to Love," the music documentary of the festival, looked back on the set with the eye of a director interested in the visual presentation. "It was at twilight, and the lighting was unusual. I liked the singing – it was more melodic than most of the other groups. Especially 'Nights in White Satin.' They were sympathetic to the crowd – that I remember quite well. And the beauty of the light at the time they performed was amazing."

This album is an hour and ten minutes long.

027 talk (Moody Blues)
028 Gypsy (Moody Blues)
029 talk (Moody Blues)
030 The Sunset (Moody Blues)
031 Tuesday Afternoon (Moody Blues)
032 Minstrel's Song (Moody Blues)
033 talk (Moody Blues)
034 Never Comes the Day (Moody Blues)
035 talk (Moody Blues)
036 Tortoise and the Hare (Moody Blues)
037 talk (Moody Blues)
038 Question (Moody Blues)
039 talk (Moody Blues)
040 Melancholy Man (Moody Blues)
041 talk (Moody Blues)
042 Are You Sitting Comfortably (Moody Blues)
043 The Dream (Moody Blues)
044 Have You Heard [Part 1] (Moody Blues)
045 Voyage (Moody Blues)
046 Have You Heard [Part 2] (Moody Blues)
047 Nights in White Satin (Moody Blues)
048 talk (Moody Blues)
049 Legend of a Mind (Moody Blues)
050 Ride My See Saw (Moody Blues)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15596295/IsleofWghtFestivlAftnDwnIsleofWghtBrtain__8-30-1970_Pt3TMoodyBlus.zip.html

The cover photo comes from this exact concert. I wanted a photo of the entire band, but I could only find good ones of individual band members. So I chose a photo of Justin Hayward, who sang and wrote most of their hits.

The Moody Blues - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: David Symonds Show, London, Britain, 12-17-1969

Note that I already posted a Volume 4 of the Moody Blues playing for the BBC. So what is this? I realized that with the way I'd compiled BBC albums for the band, I'd split up their 1969 concert between two albums, ruining the listening experience of hearing it as a single album. 

Around the same time, I came across some additional BBC material, allowing me to replace the versions on other albums. Thus, what had been "BBC Sessions, Volume 4" is now "Volume 5" instead, and there are no performances on any of the albums that are exactly the same. If you want the latest and greatest, I suggest downloading this, plus the revised versions of (what is now) Volumes 3 and 5.

As far as I can tell, this is one of the first full rock concerts recorded for the BBC. Their concert series wouldn't begin until 1970, so this was done for the David Symonds Show. Unfortunately, it's a relatively short concert at only 30 minutes, but consider by the conservative BBC standards at the time it would have been rule-breaking to play that much music by the same band all at once.

The material here has been officially released twice, as bonus tracks on the deluxe version of the band's 1969 album "To Our Children's Children Children," and as part of the "Live at the BBC" album. I didn't do much to it, other than breaking the talking between songs into their own tracks.

01 Gypsy [Of a Strange and Distant Time] (Moody Blues)
02 The Sunset (Moody Blues)
03 talk (Moody Blues)
04 Never Comes the Day (Moody Blues)
05 talk (Moody Blues)
06 Are You Sitting Comfortably (Moody Blues)
07 Poem- The Dream (Moody Blues)
08 Have You Heard, Part 1 - The Voyage - Have You Heard, Part 2 (Moody Blues)
09 Nights in White Satin (Moody Blues)
10 talk (Moody Blues)
11 Legend of a Mind (Moody Blues)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700811/TMODYBLUS1969_BBSessonsVolum4DavdSymndsShw__12-17-1969_atse.zip.html

The cover photo isn't the greatest, but it's pretty much the only color photo of the band I could find playing live in 1969. I don't know where or when exactly.

Justin Hayward - Acoustic - Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland, OH, 6-21-2002

Graeme Edge of the Moody Blues died five days ago as I write this, on November 13, 2021. He was 80 years old. To mark his passing, I thought I'd post something by the Moody Blues. It turns out I didn't have anything ready to post by the band, per se. But I do have an interesting acoustic concert by the band's main singer and songwriter, Justin Hayward. So here it is.

The Moody Blues weren't inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame until 2018. But for some reason, in 2002, Justin Hayward gave an unusual acoustic concert at the Hall of Fame in Cleveland. I say unusual because it was part concert and part interview. An emcee questioned him on stage, and he spent most of the time talking. You can watch the whole thing on YouTube; it's about an hour and a half long in total. But from time to time, he would play a song relevant to what was being discussed.

Personally, I think the whole thing is interesting to listen to once, but it doesn't have much replay value since it mostly consists of talking. So what I did was select just the songs, plus some banter leading up to the songs. In this way, it would be just like a concert, at least the kind in which the performer usually talks a bit before each song. I made clear to edit out any stray comments by the emcee, so it sounds like it's just Hayward on stage.

One really nice thing is that the sound quality is excellent. This was professionally recorded for the video, I think, so it sounds as good as an officially released live album. The only snag is that it's rather short. It's 36 minutes in all, with about six of those minutes being talking. In some cases, he only plays parts of songs rather than the whole thing. But still, it's a really nice way to hear Moody Blues songs, vastly different than the highly produced studio album versions. Oh, and he does a nice cover version of a Buddy Holly song, "Heartbeat."

01 Your Wildest Dreams (Justin Hayward)
02 talk (Justin Hayward)
03 Heartbeat (Justin Hayward)
04 talk (Justin Hayward)
05 Tuesday Afternoon [Forever Afternoon] (Justin Hayward)
06 talk (Justin Hayward)
07 The Actor (Justin Hayward)
08 talk (Justin Hayward)
09 Voices in the Sky (Justin Hayward)
10 talk (Justin Hayward)
11 English Sunset (Justin Hayward)
12 talk (Justin Hayward)
13 Who Are You Now (Justin Hayward)
14 talk (Justin Hayward)
15 Never Comes the Day (Justin Hayward)
16 talk (Justin Hayward)
17 Forever Autumn (Justin Hayward)
18 talk (Justin Hayward)
19 Driftwood (Justin Hayward)
20 talk (Justin Hayward)
21 Nights in White Satin (Justin Hayward)
22 Question (Justin Hayward)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15847702/JustinHywrd_2002_AcoustcRckandRollHallofFmeClevelndOH__6-21-2002_atse.zip.html

The cover art comes from a screenshot I took of the YouTube video of this concert.

The Moody Blues - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: 1970-1972

Here's the fifth and final album in my series of the Moody Blues performing for the BBC.

Note that this album significantly changed when I updated it in June 2022. Previously, this had been called "Volume 4." But I moved much of the content, a 1969 BBC concert, to a new "Volume 4" album, making this one "Volume 5."

After removing many songs from the previous version of this album, I wanted to replace them with something. It just so happens I recently came into a contact with a person who has access to transcription discs of the BBC radio show "Top of the Pops." To my surprise, those showed that the Moody Blues played some songs on the BBC in 1970 and 1972 that weren't included in their official album "Live at the BBC: 1967-1970," and generally haven't even been bootlegged. Those now make up tracks one through five, plus the last track.

Unfortunately, the Moody Blues played for the BBC on a regular basis through late 1970, then basically stopped. This isn't too surprising. Once a musical artist got fairly big, it was common for them to stop their BBC sessions. Take for instance the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Both of them played for the BBC a lot until they stopped in 1965. But the Moody Blues are generally considered to have a golden era from 1967 to 1972 and I wanted this to cover that entire era. To make matters worse, the band didn't seem to promote their music on any other TV or radio shows that I could find, unless it was done with lip-syncing.

So I did two things to make up for the lack of BBC or other similar recordings from 1970 to 1972. First, I found a recording of a concert the band did in 1970 that had excellent sound quality. (It was included on the band's "Timeless Flight" box set, but only as a DVD feature.) So I used that to get performances of songs (tracks six through nine) that appeared on the band's 1970 album "A Question of Balance" that otherwise weren't done for the BBC.

Unfortunately, after 1970, the situation becomes even more difficult. I couldn't find ANY bootlegs from 1971, 1972 or 1973 in worthy sound quality that would match the rest of this BBC series. Luckily, when I updated this album in 2022, I discovered they did a version of "Isn't Life Strange" exclusively for the BBC in 1972. So I used that.

But two of their biggest hits and best songs come from those years: "The Story in Your Eyes" and "I'm Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band)." For "The Story in Your Eyes," it just so happens though that later releases of their 1971 album has a bonus track that 's an alternate version each of that song. So I've added it in, in lieu of anything that fits better. But unfortunately, I couldn't find any adequate version to use for "I'm Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band)."

Still, all in all, this BBC series serves as kind of an alternate "best of" for their music from 1965 to 1972, though admittedly it's light on songs from their 1971 and 1972 albums.

This album is 40 minutes long.

UPDATE: On June 12, 2022, I updated the mp3 download file. I already described the changes I made up above, including changing the name of this album from "Volume 4" to "Volume 5."

01 Melancholy Man [Edit] (Moody Blues)
02 And the Tide Rushes In [Edit] (Moody Blues)
03 Minstrel's Song [Edit] (Moody Blues)
04 It's Up to You [Edit] (Moody Blues)
05 Don't You Feel Small [Edit] (Moody Blues)
06 Question (Moody Blues)
07 Tortoise and the Hare (Moody Blues)
08 Lazy Day (Moody Blues)
09 Candle of Life (Moody Blues)
10 The Story in Your Eyes [Alternate Version] (Moody Blues)
11 Isn't Life Strange (Moody Blues)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700812/TMODYBLUS1970-1972_BBSessonsVolum5_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from an appearance on "The Top of the Pops" TV show in 1971. Ironically, that kind of appearance is exactly what I was looking for musically and couldn't find. I believe they lip-synced on that show, so I couldn't use it.

The Moody Blues - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: 1968-1969

This is the third out of four albums of the Moody Blues playing at the BBC.

This was a fairly straight-forward album to make. There is an official BBC album called "Live at the BBC, 1967-1970." All but two of the songs here come from that. 

Note the lack of "[Edit]" notations in the song titles, which means I didn't have to edit any of these to removing BBC DJs talking over the music. I suppose the Moody Blues were generally hosted by the more FM-styled DJs that didn't like to talk over the music, compared to the AM-styled ones who did.

However, this isn't entirely from that official BBC album. Two songs here, "Om" and "The Best Way to Travel" come from a different source. In 1968, the band played on a short-lived BBC TV show called "Colour Me Pop." They played seven songs on that show, but I've only included the two songs that they didn't play elsewhere on this album. Those come from the "Timeless Flight" box set, but only on the DVD portion of it.

UPDATE: On June 12, 2022, I updated the mp3 download file. The last few songs had been from a 1969 BBC concert. I removed those, and put them on "Volume 4," which now consists entirely of that concert. Instead, I added a version of "Nights in White Satin" that was played on a Tom Jones TV show. I also added a bonus track, "The Morning: Another Morning," which is the other song played on that show. It's only a bonus track because another version, actually done for the BBC, is on this album.

Additionally, I moved some songs that had been on the next volume of this series to this album, so its length is about the same as it was before.

This album is 36 minutes long, not including the bonus track.

01 Nights in White Satin (Moody Blues)
02 Dr. Livingston, I Presume (Moody Blues)
03 The Morning- Another Morning (Moody Blues)
04 House of Four Doors (Moody Blues)
05 Visions of Paradise (Moody Blues)
06 The Actor (Moody Blues)
07 Om (Moody Blues)
08 The Best Way to Travel (Moody Blues)
09 Tuesday Afternoon [Forever Afternoon] (Moody Blues)
10 So Deep within You (Moody Blues)
11 Lovely to See You (Moody Blues)
12 Send Me No Wine (Moody Blues)

The Morning- Another Morning (Moody Blues)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700813/TMODYBLUS1968-1969_BBSessonsVolum3_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from 1969. If you look at their ultra-psychedelic cover photo from Volume 2, I think it's interesting how drastically they changed again, dropping that look entirely in favor of "normal" clothes.

The Moody Blues - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: 1967-1968

Volume 2 of the Moody Blues' BBC sessions is drastically different from Volume 1. In 1965 and 1966, the British band focused on R&B music. They discovered a new style with their 1967 album "Days of Future Passed," helped along by a change of personnel. They've maintained that poppy progressive rock sound ever since.

Ten of the 13 songs here come from the official album "Live at the BBC, 1967-1970." I've augmented that with a few songs I've found from other radio or TV shows. The first song, "I Really Haven't Got the Time," is from a French TV show. Both it and the second song "Fly Me High" appear on Volume 1 in this series as well, in different versions. Both of those songs are important as transitional works between the two versions of the band. You can hear key differences in the different versions, which is why I've included multiple versions when I rarely do that.

The songs "I've Got a Dream" and "Bye Bye Bird" come from a 1968 French TV show. I've posted that entire show on this blog already. You can find that here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-moody-blues-ce-soir-on-danse-ortf.html

I've included two those here as well because they're the only two songs from that show that weren't otherwise played at a BBC session featured here. Note that a different version of "Bye Bye Bird" was also on Volume 1. Again, I include both because they're considerably different from each other.

01 I Really Haven't Got the Time (Moody Blues)
02 Fly Me High (Moody Blues)
03 Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood (Moody Blues)
04 Love and Beauty (Moody Blues)
05 Leave This Man Alone (Moody Blues)
06 Peak Hour (Moody Blues)
07 Nights in White Satin (Moody Blues)
08 I’ve Got a Dream (Moody Blues)
09 Bye Bye Bird (Moody Blues)
10 Twilight Time [Evening] (Moody Blues)
11 Ride My See-Saw (Moody Blues)
12 The Best Way to Travel (Moody Blues)
13 Voices in the Sky (Moody Blues)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700823/TMODYBLUS1967-1968_BBSssonsVlum2_atse.zip.html

Before I say anything else about the cover art, please take a moment to compare how the band looks here versus how it looks on the cover of Volume 1. Talk about a total transformation! I don't know anything about where this cover art photo comes from, but judging by their outfits and hair I think it's a good guess that it's from 1967. I changed the background from white to yellow to make a better contrast with the band name lettering.

The Moody Blues - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1965-1966

Next up with BBC sessions is the Moody Blues. The vast majority of their BBC performances have been officially released, but in my opinion they haven't been presented in an ideal manner, all together, so that's what I'm doing here. I've found enough for four volumes.

This first volume just deals with the years 1965 and 1966. At that time, the Moody Blues were a drastically different band than what they'd become just one year later, with the 1967 album "Days of Future Passed." In this early phase, the band's lead singer was Denny Laine, and they mainly played R&B music. Laine left in late 1966 for a solo career. He was replaced by Justin Hayward as the new main lead singer, as well as John Lodge. Hayward would go on to write and sing most of the band's hits.

The Hayward-Lodge band line-up is represented on this album, but just barely. They're only on one song, "Fly Me High," which was written by Hayward. It was performed on the very last day of 1966. I've included it here because I have a different version of the song on the next volume in this series.

It seems to me that the version of the band from 1967 until the current day would prefer to act like the earlier Denny Laine-led version of the band never existed. Nearly all of their compilations and archival recordings start from 1967. That's the case with their main BBC release, "Live at the BBC, 1967-1970." All the band's BBC performances prior to that have been included as bonus tracks on a deluxe version of the Laine-led band's sole album, "The Magnificent Moodies." So that's where 12 of the songs here come from.

But I didn't stop there. All of those songs are from 1965. The band didn't have any BBC sessions in 1966 at all, probably because of declining popularity due to a lack of new hit singles. I've tried to fill this gap with four unreleased performances done for French or German TV shows. (The early band was especially popular in France because "Bye Bye Bird" was a number three hit single there while not being a hit anywhere else.) I also found an unreleased performance of the band playing "Hey Bo Diddley" in concert in 1965 that sounded good, so I added that too.

This volume ends with a song that's kind of a quasi-bonus track. Technically, it's not a Moody Blues song at all, and it also doesn't fit the time frame, being recorded in the latter half of 1967. I'm referring to "Say You Don't Mind," a solo single by Denny Laine. I'm including it because I think it's a great song (written by Laine, by the way), that really should have been a hit. It fits here better than it would in Volume 2, since this volume focuses on songs sung by Laine. 

(Note there are some more songs Laine performed for the BBC as a solo artist, but I didn't want to go too far down that path here. I want to keep the focus on the Moody Blues, but this one song is too good to be ignored.)

By now, I must sound like a broken record, complaining about how BBC DJs talked over the beginnings and ends of some songs. That was the case here too, but it wasn't that bad this time, with only six of the songs needing editing. All of those have "[Edit]" in their titles. I used X-Minus to wipe the DJ chatter while keeping the underlying music.

This album is 51 minutes long.

01 Go Now (Moody Blues)
02 I Don't Want to Go On without You [Edit] (Moody Blues)
03 I'll Go Crazy (Moody Blues)
04 Hey Bo Diddley (Moody Blues)
05 From the Bottom of My Heart [I Love You] (Moody Blues)
06 Jump Back [Edit] (Moody Blues)
07 I've Got a Dream (Moody Blues)
08 And My Baby's Gone [Edit] (Moody Blues)
09 It's Easy Child [Edit] (Moody Blues)
10 Stop (Moody Blues)
11 Everyday (Moody Blues)
12 You Don't [All the Time] (Moody Blues)
13 I Want You to Know (Moody Blues)
14 Bye Bye Bird (Moody Blues)
15 Can't Nobody Love You (Moody Blues)
16 I Really Haven't Got the Time (Moody Blues)
17 Fly Me High [Edit] (Moody Blues)
18 Say You Don't Mind [Edit] (Denny Laine's Electric String Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700803/TMODYBLUS1965-1966_BBSssonsVlum1_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo dates from January 1965, when the band made an appearance on the "Top of the Pops" TV show.

The Moody Blues - Fly Me High - Non-Album Tracks (1967-1972)

I just posted a version of the Moody Blues album "Days of Future Passed" with the orchestral elements reduced and some other songs from the time period added in. While I made that, I had to consider what I wanted to do with the songs from that time that didn't fit. So I created this stray tracks album as kind of a byproduct. I figure I might as well post it at the same time.

Most fans of the Moody Blues would agree that their classic, peak period was from 1967 to 1972. That's exactly the time frame for this album. As far as I can tell, the band doesn't have many stray tracks. (Or if they do, they keep them locked up in their vaults.) PJ at the Albums I Wish Existed blog made a similar album with many of the same songs. But this has some differences, especially because I used four 1967 songs for my version of "Days of Future Passed," and thus they aren't included here.

All these songs are officially released, except for "Beautiful Dream." That one comes from a 1968 concert that was broadcast on French TV. I've already posted that entire album at this blog. The sound quality of that one is the same as the rest. I removed the audience noise to make it fit in with the studio tracks.

In my opinion, if you consider this album as a whole, it's just as good as most of the band's studio albums from 1967 to 1972. For instance, some of the songs here could have been hits, like "Fly Me High." And "A Simple Game" actually was a hit for the Four Tops, even though it was written by the Moody Blues. It barely made the charts in the US, but it reached the Top Five in Britain. 

This album is 42 minutes long.

01 Fly Me High (Moody Blues)
02 Leave This Man Alone (Moody Blues)
03 Please Think about It (Moody Blues)
04 Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood (Moody Blues)
05 Beautiful Dream (Moody Blues)
06 King and Queen (Moody Blues)
07 Gimme a Little Somethin' (Moody Blues)
08 What Am I Doing Here (Moody Blues)
09 A Simple Game (Moody Blues)
10 Mike's Number One (Moody Blues)
11 The Dreamer (Moody Blues)
12 Island (Moody Blues)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700816/TMODYBLUS1967-1972_FlyMHgh_atse.zip.html

The cover art is based on a concert poster. The poster is from a 2007 concert, which is way off chronologically, but I figure the artistic style is timeless. The poster is rectangular, so I had to crop it to get it to fit the square space of an album cover.  The band name is exactly how it was in the poster, but I changed the text at the bottom.

The Moody Blues - Days of Future Passed - Alternate Version (1967)

In 1967, the Moody Blues released the album "Days of Future Passed." It was a groundbreaking album in many respects. Previously, they had been a British R&B band, but that musical genre had fallen out of favor due to rapidly changing musical trends, especially the rise of psychedelic music that year. This album established a whole new sound for the band that they would stick with for the rest of their career. It also was one of the first rock concept albums, and an early form of "progressive rock."

That said, I've always felt the album is a mixed bag. It has some truly great parts to it, most especially the songs "Tuesday Afternoon" and "Nights in White Satin," which are all time classics. But in my opinion the album was saddled down by the fact that it was a collaboration between the Moody Blues and the London Festival Orchestra, a symphonic orchestra. This was pretty much hoisted on the band by their record company Decca, who wanted an album that mixed rock and classical music to best demonstrate the company's new stereo recording techniques. I've always felt the orchestral sections dragged the album down. I strongly suspect the band would have never had those sections except they had to go along with the record company's demands in order to get an album out.

It so happens that the band recorded some other songs at the same time that are quite good. Furthermore, the album had a concept about a day in the life of an ordinary man, and many of these other songs fit that concept. So I've attempted to make a version of this album that minimizes or eliminates the orchestral aspects whenever possible, and replaces them with the other songs that fit. In my opinion, this makes for a much stronger album overall. 

Let me get more specific about what I did. The names of the songs on the original album are somewhat tricky, and even differ on different editions, because sometimes more than one song is lumped together. Suffice to say that I've removed all of the purely orchestral songs. In their place, I've added "Cities," "Love and Beauty," "I Really Haven't Got the Time," and "Long Summer Days." The first three were released in 1967 and A- or B-sides, and the fourth one was an outtake. Additionally, in some cases I've used alternate versions or BBC versions where the orchestral elements were lessened or removed. 

In an attempt to cut the orchestral elements even further, I found a 5.1 mix of the album, which means it was mixed for surround sound and thus has five channels instead of the typical two stereo channels. I hoped I could find channels with just the orchestral parts on them and then remove them. Unfortunately, that didn't work out in most cases, because the orchestral parts were mixed in with the rest. This only worked for the last song, "Late Lament," which is actually a poem recitation over music.  Using the 5.1 mix, I created a special edit that lessens the strings swelling in the background, but doesn't eliminate them altogether.

So this isn't the ideal version I'd hoped to make. Hopefully someday a true multitrack mix of the album will emerge and allow me to reduce the orchestral element even further. The two best known songs, "Tuesday Afternoon" and "Nights in White Satin," aren't changed at all. Maybe that's for the best, since these are the versions that people are familiar with. But in any case, I think the major improvement here are the four added songs, and the removed songs, or parts or songs. It's rather amazing to me how well they fit into the conceptual theme of the album. I suspect the band wrote songs about that concept and had more than they were able to use. Since the album more forward chronologically through a typical day, it usually was fairly straightforward to figure out where the additional songs fit in.

There are three more songs from this time period that I wanted to add: "Fly Me High," "Leave This Man Alone," and "Please Think about It." Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to get them to fit into the theme. Instead, I've created a stray tracks album for the band that includes this time period, and I've put those songs there.

The official version of "Days of Future Passed" is 41 minutes long. After all the additions and subtractions I made, this version is 40 minutes long.  So it's essentially the same.

01 Dawn Is a Feeling [Alternate Version] (Moody Blues)
02 Cities (Moody Blues)
03 Another Morning (Moody Blues)
04 Love and Beauty (Moody Blues)
05 I Really Haven't Got the Time (Moody Blues)
06 Peak Hour (Moody Blues)
07 Tuesday Afternoon [Forever Afternoon] (Moody Blues)
08 [Evening] Time to Get Away (Moody Blues)
09 Long Summer Days (Moody Blues)
10 The Sun Set [Alternate Version] (Moody Blues)
11 Twilight Time [BBC Version] (Moody Blues)
12 Nights in White Satin (Moody Blues)
13 Late Lament [Edit] (Moody Blues)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700797/TMODYBLUS1967_DysFturePassdAlternte_atse.zip.html

At first glance, the album cover may seem the same as the officially released one. But there's a key difference: the art is turned 90 degrees. That's to show how the seemingly random psychedelic art style actually makes up a large human face.

The Moody Blues - Ce Soir on Danse, ORTF, Paris, France, 7-13-1968

As I mentioned in a recent blog post, I'm working on posting some more Moody Blues music. As part of putting that together, I came across a very interesting concert recording from them that I never knew existed. It's got great sound quality and comes from a time when there are very few live recordings, even as bootlegs. So here you go.

You might say this is officially released, but just barely. In 2018, a super deluxe edition of the band's 1968 album "In Search of the Lost Chord" was released. As part of that, it contained two DVDs. One of them had the video footage of this concert. I've converted it to mp3 files. I don't believe this was available anywhere as music files until now.

This is a very interesting concert, because it combines the music of the first and second versions of the band. Basically, from 1964 to 1966, the Moody Blues were one of many R&B based British bands, best known for their hit "Go Now." At the start of 1967, they lost two band members and gained two others, including Justin Hayward, who would be the main singer and songwriter. The band was practically reborn into a different style of lush and somewhat poppy prog rock.

At the time of this concert, the band had released their 1967 album "Days of Future Passed," but they hadn't released any music in 1968 yet. This concert took place in France, and that's important. They were much more popular as a R&B act in France than anywhere else, thanks to their 1966 single "Bye Bye Bird," a cover of a song by blues legend Sonny Boy Williamson, which hit number one in France but stiffed everywhere else. Thus, they played "Bye Bye Bird" and other songs in that R&B style, even though they no longer had their lead singer (Denny Laine) from their R&B era. This was probably the very last gasp of the band with even one foot in that earlier mode.

I broke the video up into the songs listed below. The sound quality is excellent, because the concert was recorded for a French TV show. There are no talking tracks between songs, because the band members hardly said a single word, other than the occasional "thank you." I'm guessing maybe they worried the French audience wouldn't understand them. 

If you look at the song list, you might notice they played "Nights in White Satin" twice. Normally I hate to have the same song twice on an album, but since that's what they did, I'm leaving in both versions. Of course it makes sense that they particularly wanted to promote that classic song. Also, note that the band didn't exactly play "God Save the Queen" (which by the way has the same melody as "My Country 'Tis of Thee"). That song is listed because there was about a minute of drumming as the next song started, and somehow the melody to that song can be clearly heard. So it's more like a snippet of that song briefly and accidentally happened.

I've added two extra songs at the end as quasi-bonus tracks. These two come from a different appearance on the same French TV station a few months later. Both of those songs are from their next album "In Search of the Lost Chord" because it finally got released in the meanwhile. There's no applause after those songs because there was no studio audience, apparently.

Oh, by the way, the song "Beautiful Dream" is a song by band member John Lodge that has never been officially released in any form except on the DVD mentioned above. 

The main concert is 46 minutes long, but this album is 53 minutes long if you count the two extra songs as well.

01 Tuesday Afternoon [Forever Afternoon] (Moody Blues)
02 Nights in White Satin (Moody Blues)
03 Legend of a Mind (Moody Blues)
04 Bye Bye Bird (Moody Blues)
05 God Save the Queen [Instrumental] (Moody Blues)
06 Fly Me High (Moody Blues)
07 I’ve Got a Dream (Moody Blues)
08 Beautiful Dream (Moody Blues)
09 Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood (Moody Blues)
10 Peak Hour (Moody Blues)
11 Nights in White Satin (Moody Blues)
12 Dr. Livingstone, I Presume (Moody Blues)
13 Ride My See Saw (Moody Blues)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700820/TMODYBLUS1968_CeSoirDanseORTFPrisFrnce__7-13-1968_atse.zip.html

I have to admit I kind of got lazy with the album cover art. I wanted to use an image from the exact concert in question, which is possible since one can watch it on DVD. But the show was only recorded in black and white, and I hate black and white album covers, so I decided to take a screenshot and colorize it. I took a screenshot of just Justin Hayward instead of the whole band because the band was playing in a crowded room with people on all sides, and colorizing all the band members and lots of the audience on top of that would have been too much trouble for me. I chose a rare angle where there was nothing but darkness behind him, again 'cos it was the easiest way to go.

I took the band name font and style from that same DVD. I also took the cursive title of the TV show from the DVD too. Note the lack of a capital "D" in "danse" is exactly how it appeared on screen, so that isn't my fault. I added in the line of text below the TV show name in the same font.

Justin Hayward & the Moody Blues - Acoustic (1986-1996)

I have to admit I'm not a very big Moody Blues fan. I think their well-known songs are great, and include some all-time classics, but I don't like them enough to have entire studio albums from them. I think the issue for me is their production. I generally prefer a more sparse and acoustic sound, whereas the Moody Blues goes in the opposite direction, slathering the Mellotron and strings on their music, making it sound more like muzak to my ears.

Since they do have a lot of great songs, I try to approach them from an unusual angle. For instance, I like their official BBC collection, because that has them at least somewhat more of a stripped down sound. But what I'd really like to hear from them is an "unplugged" album of some sort, but no such album exists. So I decided to make one myself.

I noticed from YouTube that when the Moody Blues played full concerts, they went for the "everything but the kitchen sink" approach, often even playing with full orchestras. But when they made short promotional appearances on TV shows and radio stations, they often played in a very different acoustic style. In fact, typically, it was only lead singer and songwriter Justin Hayward making these appearances with an acoustic guitar, though he was sometimes supported by band member John Lodge, also usually with just an acoustic guitar. Poking around YouTube, I was able to find a bunch of songs done in an acoustic style, all from 1986 to 1996.

I'm really happy how this album came out. It goes without saying that songs like "Nights in White Satin" and "Tuesday Afternoon" are great. Most of this album is composed of Moody Blues songs from the 1960s and 1970s. They sound drastically different in acoustic format. They work really well because they're solid songs underneath all the lush production.

But what really surprised me is how good the songs from the 1980s and 1990s sound. I'd been dismissive of nearly all of that stuff, and I still am, in their officially released versions. The songs from those years suffered from the usual production trends of the time, such as drum machines and too much synth sound. When you strip all that way to just an acoustic guitar or two, the songs are even more dramatically transformed. Frankly, I think their latter songs hold their own with their older classics, and that's pretty high praise.

Another thing this album shows is what a fantastic vocalist Justin Hayward is. His voice has hardly changed at all over the decades. It definitely is in top form for these recordings.

By the way, I wasn't sure if I should credit this to Justin Hayward or the Moody Blues. In my opinion, this is nearly all Hayward. Some of the songs credited to the Moody Blues actually appear to be just him, or maybe him and one other person. There are only about three or four songs here that have more than him and one other Moody Blues band member. But still, it's not all him, and John Lodge does show up some. So I decided to credit it to both Hayward and the band as a whole.

The sound quality is generally good to excellent, since these all come from radio and TV shows, and those usually sound better than concert bootlegs. But one song, "Want to Be with You," had half of the first verse cut off. So I made a cut, having it start at the second verse. This way, it sounds like a complete song.

The length of this album is less than ideal for me. I prefer an album length of anywhere from 35 to 50 minutes. This album is 66 minutes long, which is long for a single album but still too short to make a double album out of it. Perhaps I'll eventually find more acoustic versions and I'll be able to split this into two albums If you know of anything that would fit, please let me know.

Oh, one more note. Only one song is repeated here, and that's "Nights in White Satin." I included two versions of it because it's an incredible song of course, but also because the two versions are significantly different from each other. One is just Hayward with his acoustic guitar. The other is one of the very few tracks here with four members of the Moody Blues playing - but still on acoustic instruments, and no drums.All the other songs are in chronological order, but if I did that with the two versions of "Nights in White Satin," they would almost be right next to each other. So instead I have the simple version start the album and the fuller version end it.

01 Nights in White Satin (Justin Hayward)
02 I Just Don't Care (Justin Hayward)
03 Want to Be with You (Justin Hayward & John Lodge)
04 Blue Guitar (Justin Hayward & John Lodge)
05 Question (Justin Hayward & John Lodge)
06 Your Wildest Dreams (Justin Hayward & John Lodge)
07 Lovely to See You (Moody Blues)
08 Tuesday Afternoon [Forever Afternoon] (Justin Hayward)
09 Say It with Love (Moody Blues)
10 Forever Autumn (Moody Blues)
11 Bless the Wings [That Bring You Back] (Moody Blues)
12 Never Blame the Rainbows for the Rain (Moody Blues)
13 Driftwood (Justin Hayward)
14 Voices in the Sky (Moody Blues)
15 The Actor (Moody Blues)
16 It's So Easy (Justin Hayward & Mal Pope)
17 Children of Paradise (Justin Hayward)
18 The Way of the World (Justin Hayward)
19 Troubadour (Justin Hayward)
20 Nights in White Satin (Moody Blues)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700814/TMODYBLUS1986-1996_Acustc_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I took a screenshot of Justin Hayward playing an acoustic guitar from a 1990 DVD.