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.