The Moody Blues

The Birmingham band of "Go Now" and Days of Future Passed, whose Long Distance Voyager (1981) went to number one in the US with "The Voice".

From Go Now to Threshold

The band formed in Birmingham in May 1964 as the M&B5 and quickly renamed itself the Moody Blues, moving to London that summer. The original line-up was Graeme Edge on drums, Denny Laine on guitar and vocals, Mike Pinder on keyboards and vocals, Ray Thomas on multi-instruments and vocals and Clint Warwick on bass. Earlier, Thomas and John Lodge played in El Riot and the Rebels in 1958, and Pinder joined in 1963. "Go Now" was a UK number one in late 1964. Their management collapsed in 1965, leaving them in debt, and they signed directly with Decca and London. Warwick and Laine left in 1966, Justin Hayward and Lodge joined that October and the band relocated to Belgium. Tony Clarke became producer in 1967 and stayed eleven years.

Days of Future Passed (1967, Deram), In Search of the Lost Chord (1968), On the Threshold of a Dream (1969), To Our Children's Children's Children (1969), A Question of Balance (1970), Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (1971) and Seventh Sojourn (1972) came next; they founded Threshold Records in 1969. A hiatus began in 1974 after a world tour, with solo records in between, among them Blue Jays by Hayward and Lodge (1975), Hayward's Songwriter (1977), Lodge's Natural Avenue (1977), Pinder's The Promise and Edge's Kick Off Your Muddy Boots. Hayward sang "Forever Autumn" on Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds in 1978. They reunited in 1977 for Caught Live + 5, followed by Octave (1978), after which Pinder left and Patrick Moraz joined.

Long Distance Voyager (1981), The Present (1983), The Other Side of Life (1986), Sur La Mer (1988), Keys of the Kingdom (1991), Strange Times (1999) and December (2003), the last studio album, followed. Thomas retired at the end of 2002, and Norda Mullen has played flute and rhythm guitar since early 2003. A Night at Red Rocks (1992) was their first orchestral show, they made their Glastonbury debut in 2015 and in 2017 toured Days of Future Passed in full. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted them in 2018, and Wikipedia counts about 70 million albums sold. Edge retired in 2018 and died on November 11, 2021; Denny Laine died on December 5, 2023, Mike Pinder on April 24, 2024 and John Lodge on October 10, 2025.