Leaving On Top

We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago…..

It was their first #1 album in America spending five weeks on top of the charts. It spawned two hit singles. And it was the last original LP the group would record for five years. It was ‘Seventh Sojurn” from the Moody Blues.

The recording of the LP was difficult which led the band to go on hiatus after a 1973 tour. The songs are a bit more dark lyrically although the romanticism of Justin Hayward is still apparent in songs like “New Horizons” and Graeme Edge’s “For My Lady.

Michael Pinder would leave the group after delivering songs like “Lost In A Lost World” and “When Youre a Free Man…the signs were there.

The album is very strong and reminiscent of their previous work…although side 2 rocks a little harder then we were used to.

The hits are here…”Isn’t Life Strange” and “I’m Just A Singer in a Rock & Roll Band” (great record), both John Lodge songs. It’s funny though, both hits were overshadowed at the time because the record company re-released “Nights in White Satin” as a single at the same time. It had originally been released way back in 1967.

The multi-layered sound is still intact with Lodge’s bass, Justin Hayward’s guitar, Ray Thomas’s reeds, and Graeme Edge’s drumwork weaved into aural patterns developed by Michael Pinder’s keyboards highlighted by a new mellotron like instrument called the Chamberlin.

One critic called this music” you can feel in your pores as well as with your ears”. It sweeps over you in waves of sound and even if the lyrics are sometimes hard to discern in the mix…you don’t really care.

I’m sure the record company was thrilled that the group quit after delivering a #1 LP.