I wanted to pick one more album for this year. One of the masterpieces of rock music. Released this month 47 years ago. Todays 2nd classic album is Days of Future Passed (1967) by The Moody Blues. Days of Future Passed is the second album and first concept album by English rock band The Moody Blues, released in December 1967 on Deram Records. After two years performing as a struggling white R&B band, The Moody Blues were asked by their record label in September 1967 to record an adaptation of Antonín Dvořáks Symphony No. 9 as a stereo demonstration record. Instead, the band chose to record an orchestral song cycle about a typical working day. This album marked the formal debut of the psychedelic-era Moody Blues; though theyd made a pair of singles featuring new (as of 1966) members Justin Hayward and John Lodge, Days of Future Passed was a lot bolder and more ambitious. What surprises first-time listeners -- and delighted them at the time -- is the degree to which the group shares the spotlight with the London Festival Orchestra without compromising their sound or getting lost in the lush mix of sounds. Thats mostly because they came to this album with the strongest, most cohesive body of songs in their history, having spent the previous year working up a new stage act and a new body of material (and working the bugs out of it on-stage), the best of which ended up here. Decca Records had wanted a rock version of Dvoraks New World Symphony to showcase its enhanced stereo-sound technology, but at the behest of the band, producer Tony Clarke (with engineer Derek Varnals aiding and abetting) hijacked the project and instead cut the groups new repertory, with conductor/arranger Peter Knight adding the orchestral accompaniment and devising the bridge sections between the songs and the albums grandiose opening and closing sections. The record company didnt know what to do with the resulting album, which was neither classical nor pop, but following its release in December of 1967, audiences found their way to it as one of the first pieces of heavily orchestrated, album-length psychedelic rock to come out of England in the wake of the Beatles Sgt. Peppers and Magical Mystery Tour albums. Whats more, it was refreshingly original, rather than an attempt to mimic the Beatles; sandwiched among the playful lyricism of Another Morning and the mysticism of The Sunset, songs like Tuesday Afternoon and Twilight Time (which remained in their concert repertory for three years) were pounding rockers within the British psychedelic milieu, and the harmony singing (another new attribute for the group) made the bands sound unique. With Tuesday Afternoon and Nights In White Satin to drive sales, Days of Future Passed became one of the defining documents of the blossoming psychedelic era, and one of the most enduringly popular albums of its era. Recording sessions for the album took place at Decca Studios in West Hampstead, London during 9 May – 26 November 1967. The band worked with record producer Tony Clarke, engineer Derek Varnals, and conductor Peter Knight. The albums music features psychedelic rockers, ballads by singer-songwriter and guitarist Justin Hayward, Mellotron played by keyboardist Mike Pinder, and orchestral accompaniment by the London Festival Orchestra. Music writers cite the album as a precursor to progressive rock music. Bill Holdship of Yahoo! Music remarks that the band created an entire genre here. Robert Christgau cites it as one of the essential albums of 1967 and finds it closer to high-art pomp than psychedelia. But there is a sharp pop discretion to the writing and a trippy romanticism in the mirroring effect of the strings and Mike Pinders Mellotron. Will Hermes cites the album as an essential progressive rock record and views that its use of the Mellotron, a tape replay keyboard, made it a signature element of the genre. An influential work of the counterculture period, Allmusic editor Bruce Eder calls the album one of the defining documents of the blossoming psychedelic era, and one of the most enduringly popular albums of its era. Tuesday Afternoon (sometimes referred to as Forever Afternoon (Tuesday?), or simply Forever Afternoon) is a 1968 single by English symphonic rock band The Moody Blues, which was presented in its original album form on their 1967 album Days of Future Passed in two parts. Tuesday Afternoon was released as a single in 1968, and was the second single from Days of Future Passed (the first being Nights in White Satin). It was backed with another Days track, Another Morning. The single version of Tuesday Afternoon was oddly edited down to 2:16, ending before the repeat of the opening riff and Tuesday afternoon verse. Justin Hayward wrote the song originally intending to name it Tuesday Afternoon. At the insistence of producer Tony Clarke, it was named Forever Afternoon (Tuesday?) for its release on Days of Future Passed. However, when it was released as a single a year later, its name was changed back to Tuesday Afternoon, and it has been more commonly known by this name ever since. Some of the Moody Blues compilation and live albums list the song as Tuesday Afternoon (Forever Afternoon) to reflect both titles. The band recorded each song live, then sent their finished product to conductor Peter Knight. He would then arrange appropriate orchestrated links, along with any supplemental accompaniment. “Forever Afternoon (Tuesday?)” is one of the finest examples of their somewhat de facto and highly unorthodox collaborative style. The track commences the second side of the album with one of the earliest and most memorable uses of the mellotron -- an instrument that allows the user to manipulate a frequency [read: tone] via a tape loop. The sound would continue until the pitch was changed on the piano-like keys. The produced effect would become an increasingly prominent sonic motif throughout the Moodies’ subsequent catalogue. Structurally, there are two distinct sections. The dreamy opening develops into a breezy and amicable mid-tempo rocker. The second segues into an almost lilting march and both exist effortlessly with the other. The song was a crossover hit on underground FM rock radio stations as well as the predominantly Top 40 and single driven AM. Nights in White Satin is a 1967 single by The Moody Blues, written by Justin Hayward and first featured on the album Days of Future Passed. It is in the key of E minor, and features the Neapolitan chord (F). When first released in 1967, the song reached #19 on the UK Singles Chart it was the first significant chart entry by the band since Go Now and the recent lineup change, it is an edited version of the album track that also has the orchesta removed. The song was re-released in 1972 once the band has had major album and single successes. and it charted at #2 in November on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on Cash Box in the United States, earning a Gold certification for sales of a million copies. It also reached #1 in Canada. The song also holds the dubious distinction of the highest complete Hot 100 disappearance from the pre-digital download era, vanishing entirely from the chart after falling to #17. It was also released in Spanish as Noches de Seda at the same time. In the wake of its US success, the song re-charted in the UK in late 1972 and climbed to #9. The song was re-released yet again in 1979, and charted for a third time in the UK at #14. Band member Justin Hayward wrote the song at age 19 in Swindon, and titled the song after a girlfriend gave him a gift of satin bedsheets. The song itself was a tale of a yearning love from afar, which leads many aficionados to term it as a tale of unrequited love endured by Hayward. The London Festival Orchestra provided the orchestral accompaniment for the introduction, the final rendition of the chorus, and the final lament section, all of this in the original album version. The orchestral sounds in the main body of the song were actually produced by Mike Pinders Mellotron keyboard device, which would come to define the Moody Blues sound. Late Lament The spoken-word poem heard near the six-minute mark of the album version of the song is called Late Lament. Drummer Graeme Edge wrote the verses, which were read by keyboardist Mike Pinder. On Days of Future Passed, the poems last five lines bracket the album and also appear at the end of track 1 (The Day Begins). While it has been commonly known as part of Nights in White Satin with no separate credit on the original LP, Late Lament was given its own listing on the two-LP compilation This is the Moody Blues in 1974 and again in 1987 (without its parent song) on another compilation, Prelude. Both compilations feature the track in a slightly different form than on Days of Future Passed, giving both spoken and instrumental tracks an echo effect. The orchestral ending is kept intact, but recording engineers have completely edited out the gong (struck by Mike Pinder) that closes the track on the original LP.
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 23:58:01 +0000
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