THE MOODY BLUES had no choice but to take a huge gamble as the calendar turned to 1967. While the Birmingham, England-bred band had made an initial splash during the first wave of The British Invasion in late 1964 and on into early 1965 with “Go Now”—a peppy No. 10 U.S. pop-chart hit sung by guitarist/vocalist Denny Laine—they found themselves somewhat behind the curve when forward-thinking songwriting, adventurous composition, and outright psychedelia began dominating the rock milieu in the latter half of the decade.
What was a poor working-class band to do? Personnel issues, financial straits, and other typical growing pains had resulted in Laine—who recently passed away at age 79 in December 2023—and bassist Clint Warwick departing the fold in 1966, paving the way for guitarist/vocalist Justin Hayward and bassist/vocalist John Lodge to enter the Moodies picture alongside co-founding members keyboardist/vocalist Mike Pinder, drummer/spoken-word specialist Graeme Edge, and flautist/jack-of-all-trades Ray Thomas. This staunch five-man outfit would put their collective careers on the line in order to create the cross-genre hybrid concept LP that became November 1967’s Days of Future Passed, a gutsy album that meshed the band’s core pop sensibilities with brave compositional choices. At the same time, Decca, the Moodies’ parent record company, was intent on putting out a demo record of sorts on the burgeoning Deram imprint that would champion their recently new stereo-centric audio format dubbed Decca Panoramic Sound—a.k.a. the Deramic Sound System (DSS)—by marrying The Moody Blues’ pop/rock sensibilities with classical music elements courtesy the London Festival Orchestra as conducted by arranger/composer Peter Knight.
While rock musicians recording with and playing alongside orchestras is essentially these days—if not an expected rite of passage for many an artist at this point in the 21st century—it was literally unheard of in the heart of the swinging 1960s. But once made its way into the public consciousness with truly transcendent tracks like “Nights in White Satin” and “Tuesday Afternoon” leading the way, The Moody Blues never looked back. They capitalized on the tenets of the Deramic Sound conscription by taking a keen interest in forging how their music would sound on vinyl—as well as on the then-emerging stereo-oriented component of the airwaves known as FM radio. To do so, they worked closely with producer Tony Clarke and recording engineer Derek Varnals to craft a signature sound that set a tone for how the mostly in quad—and because of their multitrack/multichannel proclivities, their albums were ripe for eventual 5.1 upmixes near the turn of the century as well as a number of subsequent, all-new surround mixes and (we hope) eventual forays into the full-on Dolby Atmosverse at large.
