Artist/Band Profiles | Hack's Back Pages

Don’t let ’em tell you that there’s too much noise

When a classic rock artist dies (as so many have in recent years), I like to write a tribute-type obituary here at “Hack’s Back Pages.” Typically, it’s someone whose work I have greatly admired, and I enjoy researching his or her career to perhaps learn a few things I didn’t know, and immerse myself more deeply in their musical repertoire.

Sometimes, though, it’s someone whose work I never cared for, and I struggle to write something complimentary and/or respectful. That happened last week when Paul “Ace” Frehley, lead guitarist for Kiss, died at 74.

Full confession: I never liked Kiss. A couple of years ago, I wrote a piece entitled “They’re just not my cup of tea,” which singled out ten commercially successful rock bands I just can’t stand, and Kiss was one of them. Here’s what I wrote:

“There is almost nothing musical to be heard from this band of costumed showmen. And let’s be clear, even Gene Simmons has said Kiss was born of the notion that it didn’t much matter what they played. It was all about the pyrotechnics, the light show, the sheer volume and, of course, the face paint and faux-threatening poses they struck onstage. To attend a Kiss concert was to be assaulted and overwhelmed by what you saw more than what you heard. Therefore, to listen to a Kiss album was an exercise in futility, for there was little there deserving of your time. But sure enough, the group’s fans lobbied for years until these clowns were inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. As showmen? Well, okay, I guess. As musicians? Not on your life, nor mine.”

So, what to do? I decided it might help to get input from some of my loyal readers, most of whom are pretty savvy music lovers, and most are in my generation (born between 1950-1965). What was their take on Kiss? Did they buy their albums? Did they ever see a Kiss concert?

I found their responses amusing, mostly dismissive, even contemptuous, and I figured it would be illuminating to share them here.

Bob P said, “Never a fan. They must have had something, but I didn’t see it.”

Kevin W. wrote, “Great band for a one-time teenager to smoke pot, drink beer and rock out to. Never saw them live, but had the ‘Alive’ album.”

Paul V concluded, “Their whole shtik left me cold.”

Patty M. noted, “My brother was a fan (age 12-14). His first concert was Kiss and he thought it was the best thing ever…until he discovered other music. I never cared for their gimmick, and their music was not my style.”

Mark F. warned, “Seems best if you don’t spend your time trying to make Kiss interesting enough for a blog entry.”

Andy W. recalled, “When I was in junior high, Kiss was the biggest band in the world. People would come to school in garish Kiss t-shirts. I never liked them one bit. I thought their music was bad.”

Chris A. added, “Saw them once, and it was what I anticipated — lots of makeup, lots of noise, a visually fantastic show, and that was it. Never owned one of their records, and never needed to see them again.”

Ed F. declared, “Kiss sucked! Face paint and heels? Enough said.”

Margie C. revealed, “Don’t like them. Couldn’t tell you the name of any of their songs.”

Glen K. observed, “I was an Alice Cooper fan, and I always thought Kiss was trying to ride the wave he perfected. But they certainly had a following that can’t be ignored.”

Irwin F. opined that writing something laudatory about Frehley or Kiss was “Mission Impossible…the rock and roll equivalent of eulogizing Charlie Kirk.”

Steve R. called Frehley “an ’80s shredder. Not my favorite style.”

Ira L. graciously said, “Not a fan of Kiss, but blessings to his family and all of his fans.”

One reader, Richard K., offered this hilarious anecdote: “In 1980, I was publishing the #1 Lifestyle magazine in Perth, Australia. Kiss came to town and we were sent free 4th-row seats to the concert, which I reluctantly attended. I’d been to many concerts but hadn’t been exposed to the theatrics or volume level of Kiss. I stuffed some candy wrappers in my ear to save my eardrums. At the end of the show, I couldn’t remove the wrapper because it was lodged too far in my ear and had to go the emergency room to remove it. A gossip writer from the Sunday Times heard about this and wrote it up in his column, which was the most embarrassing thing for me. The last thing I wanted was for anyone to know I had been to a Kiss concert!”

Since Kiss has always tended to appeal mostly to pre-teen boys (even the band agreed this was true), perhaps the proper perspective came from Sean M., who is 15 years my junior: “I was pretty young, about 9 or 10, when Kiss was huge in the late ’70s. They completely captured my attention, and the attention of every kid I hung out with. They were my introduction to hard rock. The theatrics made them seem like slightly dangerous superheroes to us. Ace was my first guitar hero. The image of his smoking Les Paul is lodged in my brain. I definitely grew out of them as I got older. My friend and I went to the reunion tour in 1996 because we’d never seen them as kids and, well, we had to. Damned if I didn’t remember every song and every lick that had been stashed away in my brain all that time. Lots of guitarists are now paying tribute to Ace. The guy left a mark.”

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Sean M. has a point. Kiss not only left a mark, they set new records, they changed the boundaries of rock concert presentations, and they were innovative (some might say shameless) marketers.

*“Destroyer,” Kiss’s biggest selling studio LP (1976)*

Between 1974 and 2012, they released 19 studio albums and six live albums, ten of which reached platinum status in the US (a million copies sold). They had less success with singles, but still found a way to chart five songs in the Top 20 on US charts (the highest was #7 for the uncharacteristic romantic ballad “Beth” in 1977).

Other bands before them had unusual visual elements to their stage shows, but Kiss was pretty much the first rock group whose concerts featured everything: overwhelming pyrotechnics displays, glittery costumes, over-the-top stage sets and, perhaps most important, full face makeup that gave each member a specific stage persona. For their first decade of existence, no one knew what they really looked like because they were never photographed, nor appeared in public, without their face paint on.

There were predecessors in rock history who sold all sorts of merchandise featuring the band’s likenesses (The Beatles come to mind), but Kiss was the first to sell stuff at the shows. Not just the usual t-shirts and posters but lunch boxes, games, watches, badges, stickers, action figures, you name it. Call it crass or cheesy, but it earned them a ton of money that helped offset the growing cost of the elaborate staging requirements.

*Millions of these were sold over the years to the “KISS Army”*

Over the span of their career, Kiss has been classified under the genres of hard rock, heavy metal, shock rock, glam metal and glam rock. They dabbled in a disco-ish pop rock briefly, and even some progressive rock, but mostly kept returning to the hard rock that marked their 1974-1979 heyday. One critic described their stuff as “a commercially potent mix of anthemic, fist-pounding hard rock, driven by hooks and powered by loud guitars, cloying melodies, and sweeping strings.” Love it or hate it, Kiss offered an onslaught of sound that laid the groundwork for both arena rock and the pop-metal that dominated rock in the late 1980s.

You may have noticed that, so far, I haven’t talked about the actual music Kiss recorded and performed. That’s because, with only a couple of exceptions, it was mind-numbingly average, even pretty awful. Before sitting down to write this, I felt that, to be fair, I needed to give their catalog another listen (actually a first listen, for much of it), so I spent a few hours on Spotify (I own none of their albums), and tried, really tried, to find something I liked.

I found five songs. The aforementioned “Beth” is a delicate, melodious tune carried by acoustic guitar and adorned with orchestration, sounding 180 degrees different from Kiss’s typical fare; “Hard Luck Woman,” which is reminiscent of “Maggie Mae”-era Rod Stewart but with far worse vocals; two catchy hard rock radio faves (“Rock and Roll All Nite” and “Shout It Out Loud”) that I don’t mind hearing maybe once every other year; and “I Was Made For Lovin’ You,” which starts like ZZ Top before heading off into an ’80s pop rock groove more like Richard Marx.

*Gene Simmons (“The Demon”) and Paul Stanley (“The Starchild”)*

Bassist Gene Simmons and rhythm guitarist Paul Stanley were the primary songwriters and singers in Kiss, so I guess they’re mostly to blame for the band’s lame repertoire. Frehley’s guitar chops and rock star attitude, on the other hand, were easily the most satisfying part of their sound and stage presence. The fact that several notable guitarists from recent years spoke out in praise of Frehley’s talents in the wake of his death speaks, um, volumes.

Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready added, “All my friends have spent untold hours talking about Kiss and buying Kiss stuff. Ace was a hero of mine, and I would consider him a friend. I studied his solos endlessly over the years. I would not have picked up a guitar without Ace’s and Kiss’s influence. R.I.P. it out, Ace. You changed my life.”

Geddy Lee of Rush said, “Back in 1974, we were the opening act for Kiss, and Alex, Neil and I spent many a night hanging out together in hotel rooms after shows. We’d do whatever nonsense we could think of, just to make him break out his inimitable and infectious laugh. He was an undeniable character and an authentic rock star.”

Tom Morello, the astonishing guitarist from Rage Against the Machine who inducted Kiss into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014, called Frehley his “first guitar hero.” Said Morello, “The legendary Space Ace Frehley inspired generations to love rock and roll, and love rock and roll guitar playing. His timeless riffs and solos, the billowing smoke coming from his Les Paul, the rockets shooting from his headstock, his cool spacey onstage wobble and his unforgettable crazy laugh will be missed but never forgotten. Thank you, Ace, for a lifetime of great music and memories.”

Frehley was noted for his aggressive, atmospheric guitar playing, and for the use of many outlandish custom guitars that produced smoke or emitted light to each song’s tempo. Guitar World called him one of the best metal guitarists of all time.

As a kid growing up in the Bronx, Frehley was torn between sports and rock music but he soon decided the guitar came first. He became even more certain at age 16 when he saw the Who and Cream at RKO Theater in Manhattan. “The Who really inspired me towards theatrical rock,” he said. “When I saw them, it totally blew me away. I’d never seen anything like it. It was a big turning point.”

In 1972, Frehley stumbled across a Village Voice ad that forever changed his life: “Lead guitarist wanted with Flash and Ability. Album Out Shortly. No time wasters please.” When he showed up to audition, “I just soloed through the whole song,” he recalled. “They all smiled. We jammed for a few more songs, and then they said, ‘We like the way you play a lot.'”

The band’s distinct stage makeup, black and silver costumes and bombastic show generated instant attention when they started gigging around New York City in 1973, but they didn’t find mainstream success until their 1975 concert album Alive! took off. To a certain segment of young fans, Frehley was the coolest member of the band, and such adulation sometimes went to his head. “When I play guitar onstage, it’s like making love,” he told Rolling Stone in 1976. “If you’re good, you get off every time.”

Frehley and the other band members sometimes had tense disagreements behind the scenes, and Frehley admitted that drug and alcohol abuse played a role in that. “There was so much cocaine in the studio, it was insane,” Frehley recalled in a 2015 interview. “I liked to drink, but once I started doing coke, I really liked to drink more, and longer, without passing out, so I was really off to the races. I made my life difficult because there were so many times I’d walk in with a hangover, or sometimes I wouldn’t even show up.”

By 1982, Frehley simply had had enough. “I was mixed up,” he said. “We were this heavy rock group, but now we had little kids with lunchboxes and dolls in the front row, and I had to worry about cursing in the microphone. It became a circus. I believed that if I stayed in that group I would have committed suicide. I’d be driving home from the studio, and I’d want to drive my car into a tree.”

Interestingly, when all four members simultaneously released solo albums in 1978, it was Frehley who had the only Top 20 single, a remake of the Russ Ballard rocker “New York Groove.” After a spell of inactivity after leaving Kiss, Frehley formed his own band, Frehley’s Comet, who had two modestly popular LPs, but successive releases were met with comparative indifference.

*Frehley performing with his solo band on his “Space Invader” tour, 2014*

A brief reunion of all four original members at the band’s 1995 “MTV Unplugged” special lead to a massive reunion tour in 1996 where they put the makeup back on, dusted off the old songs, and returned to stadiums and arenas all over the world. In 1998, they cut the new studio LP “Psycho Circus,” but Frehley only played on a single track. “I wasn’t invited to the studio,” he said in 2014. “When you hear Paul and Gene talk about it, they say I didn’t show up. The reason I’m not on any of the songs is because I wasn’t asked. They tried to make it look like I was absent.”

He once again left the band in 2002 following the conclusion of that year’s Farewell Tour. He was replaced by Tommy Thayer, who wore his signature Starman makeup and replicated all of his guitar parts. “Tommy played the right notes, but he didn’t have the right swagger,” Frehley claimed. “He just doesn’t have my same technique.”

Frehley continued performing and recording over the past 20 years but to smaller and smaller venues. In a 2013 interview,, he spoke about the mighty devotion of the band’s fanbase. “They’ve always been there for me through ups and downs. My life has been a roller coaster ride, but somehow I’ve always been able to land on my feet and still play the guitar.”

*Simmons and Stanley without makeup, 2016*

Considering the testy relationship Frehley had with Simmons and Stanley since 2002, it’s fairly remarkable that the two men did the right thing and released a compassionate joint statement. “We are devastated by the passing of Ace Frehley. He was an essential and irreplaceable rock soldier during some of the most formative foundational chapters of the band and its history. He is and will always be a part of Kiss’s legacy.”

R.I.P., “Spaceman.” Hope you enjoyed your stay on Earth.

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I’ll probably never listen to it again, but for the record, here’s a playlist of selected tracks from Kiss’s albums, and a few from Ace Frehley’s solo releases. You’ll note I didn’t call the playlist “Essential Kiss.”

Isn’t life strange, a turn of the page

Posted on October 17 by brucehhackett

Popular music is full of stories of rock groups that were lucky enough to have a #1 single almost right away but then unable to duplicate their success. The record label might stick with them for a year or two, but without sales, the groups lose their contracts and are never heard from again. You’ve no doubt heard such artists referred to as “One-Hit Wonders.”

The Moody Blues, who went on to become one of the most successful British progressive rock groups in history, came pretty close to being saddled with that dubious distinction. They signed a deal with Decca in early 1964 and, before the year was out, they topped the charts in England with “Go Now,” which also broke into the Top Ten in the US. Like much of their repertoire at the time, “Go Now” was a cover version of a rhythm and blues song recorded by an American soul singer, Bessie Banks, with lead singer/guitarist Denny Laine as the front man.

*Their 1964 #1 single, featuring (L-R): Thomas, Warwick, Edge, Laine and Pinder*

But then they struggled unsuccessfully for nearly two years to come up with another hit, and Decca was ready to drop them from their roster of artists. Laine grew frustrated and left, as did bassist Clint Warwick. The core group of keyboardist Mike Pinder, flutist Ray Thomas and drummer Graeme Edge soldiered on by welcoming new members Justin Hayward on guitar and John Lodge on bass.

(Lodge died last week at age 82, and with Pinder, Thomas and Edge all passing away over the past eight years, this leaves Hayward as the sole surviving member.)

The group had built up a debt that Decca wanted to recoup, so they came up with a plan: Use the Moody Blues to create a rock music version of Dvorak’s classical music piece, “New World Symphony,” to help promote the label’s new subsidiary, Deram Records, and its new high-end sonic development they called Deramic Stereo. The band had little choice but to go along.

The Moodies’ revised lineup quickly reached the conclusion that the project wasn’t going to work, but with support from their producer and engineer, they boldly proposed to write a cycle of original songs about “everyman’s archetypical day” (dawn, morning, mid-day, late afternoon, evening, night) which would then be expanded and connected by classical music passages, written and conducted by Peter Knight and recorded with a session “orchestra” that called themselves the London Festival Orchestra. To their everlasting credit, the label agreed.

The album they got, “Days of Future Passed,” was fairly astounding. It is regarded as one of the very first concept albums, released in 1967 in the wake of The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper” and Pink Floyd’s “Piper at the Gates of Dawn,” neither of which utilized classical music structures and instruments as comprehensively as The Moody Blues did. Although Decca had little hope that the album would sell much, it became a surprise hit, reaching #27 in the UK on the strength of its two singles, “Nights in White Satin” and “Tuesday Afternoon” (#19 and #24 respectively).

It should be noted that the album tanked badly in the US at the time, and critics savaged it. Rolling Stone said, “The Moody Blues have matured considerably since ‘Go Now,’ but their music is constantly marred by one of the most startlingly saccharine conceptions of ‘beauty’ and ‘mysticism’ that any rock group has ever attempted. They are strangling themselves in conceptual goo.” Truth be told, I’ve found the album to be a bit tiresome to listen to all the way through, and the orchestral sections seem rather heavy-handed. But “Days of Future Passed” stands as a landmark LP in its creative blending of rock and roll arrangements with classical song structures and instrumentation.

In the UK, the album’s success gave the group the green light to continue their experimentation. Fortunately, Pinder was exceptionally well versed in the Mellotron, an analog antecedent to the synthesizer. It was designed as an organ-like device that used tape heads activated by the touch of keys, and tape loops comprised of the sounds of horns, strings and other instruments generating an eerie, orchestra-like sound. Pinder, who not only knew how to play it but also once worked for the company that developed and built them, was able to perpetuate the group’s use of orchestral sounds without the expense of hiring classical musicians for the recording process.

*“In Search of the Lost Chord” cover, 1968*

The next Moodies LP, “In Search of the Lost Chord,” revealed the depth of talent of the band’s five multi-faceted musicians. Pinder worked the Mellotron and added piano, harpsichord, autoharp and tambura; Hayward took over on lead vocals and played acoustic and electric guitar, sitar and keyboards; Lodge handled bass, cello and vocals; Thomas provided flute, oboe, sax and French horn and vocals, and Edge played drums and percussion and contributed spoken vocals. All five were songwriters as well, giving the album a wonderful diversity within the group dynamic. Lyrically, the songs examined themes like higher consciousness (Thomas’s ode to Timothy Leary and LSD, “Legend of a Mind”), spiritual development (Hayward’s “Voices in the Sky”), quest for knowledge (Lodge’s rocker “Ride My See-Saw”) and imagination (Pinder’s “The Best Way to Travel”). All this proved to establish the group as pioneers of the new “progressive rock” genre, and gurus of the counterculture on both sides of the Atlantic, while also showing robust sales in the mainstream, reaching #5 in the UK and #23 in the US.

Not that the Moodies were purveyors of 20-minute epics with multiple time signatures like their prog-rock successors (Genesis and Yes, for example). They wrote what were at heart pop songs, but wrapped them in gorgeous arrangements, with lush harmonies and rich instrumentation (the defining sound in “Nights in White Satin” isn’t guitar, it’s flute). They understood the capabilities of the studio in a way few of their contemporaries did, and in a band packed with capable songwriters, Lodge more than held his own. “Ride My See-Saw” showcased Lodge’s talents: you can hear the earlier R&B band in the rhythm section, but the vocals are layered so deeply the song becomes almost hymnal. It’s very much of its time, but also entirely fantastic — the sound of pop evolving in the moment, in the studio.

Over the next four years, The Moody Blues honed and embraced this formula, offering five rich, diverse, sonically engrossing albums that achieved ever-higher positions on the charts in both the UK and the US, and Canada and Australia as well. “On the Threshold of a Dream” and “To Our Children’s Children’s Children,” both released in 1969, cemented their reputation as an “album band,” with tracks that segued into one another. Their trippy album cover art further sealed the deal, giving their attitude-adjusted audience something to look at while the music played on. “A Question of Balance” in 1970 and “Every Good Boy Deserves Favour” in 1971 brought The Moodies back to the singles charts with two vibrant Hayward compositions: the melodramatic “Question,” with its frenetic acoustic strumming, and my personal Moodies favorite, the hard-rocking “The Story in Your Eyes.”

The band toured incessantly throughout this period, and because some of their pieces proved too daunting to attempt on stage, they found themselves consciously writing tunes that could be more easily recreated in a live setting. Consequently, “Question,” “It’s Up to You,” “Melancholy Man,” “Dawning is the Day,” “The Story in Your Eyes” and “Our Guessing Game” from the 1970-1971 LPs became regulars on their concert setlist.

*The Moody Blues in 1970: Ray Thomas, Mike Pinder, Graeme Edge, Justin Hayward, John Lodge*

An unusual thing happened in 1972. While the group’s accurately titled album “Seventh Sojourn” became the first to reach #1 on the US album charts, its two Lodge-penned singles — “Isn’t Life Strange” and “I’m Just a Singer (in a Rock and Roll Band)” — made the Top 40 but were completely overshadowed by the re-release of “Nights in White Satin.” A disc jockey in Washington had been signing off with the five-year-old song, and listeners began clamoring for it. Interest spread to other US markets, and soon Decca/Deram chose to re-release it as a single. It not only soared to #2 on the US Top 40, but also brought “Days of Future Passed” to #3 on the US album chart, giving The Moodies TWO albums in the Top Five in December 1972.

*Re-release single of “Nights in White Satin,” 1972*

Non-stop touring and recording eventually took their toll. The 1973 tour to support “Seventh Sojourn” saw the Moody Blues living a lifestyle more commonly associated with Led Zeppelin. As Lodge recalled in the liner notes for a reissue of the album: “We had our own Boeing 707 aircraft which was decked out with TVs and sound systems everywhere. We had our own butler and our name written on the outside of the plane. I had a very empty feeling knowing that things had got this excessive.”

Encouraged by the band’s propensity for vague but faintly profound-sounding lyrics, fans took to thinking the group members possessed more wisdom than they actually did, a situation that provoked these lyrics in Lodge’s “I’m Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band)”: “And if you want the wind of change to blow about you, / And you’re the only other person to know, don’t tell me, / I’m just a singer in a rock and roll band.”

Consequently, The Moodies chose to go on hiatus for a few years, much to the displeasure of their record label. Pinder had grown tired of England and relocated to California to start a new family there, and Hayward, under pressure to come up with new Moody Blues-like material, teamed up with Lodge and their longtime producer Tony Clarke to make an album as a duo (“Blue Jays”) in 1975, which reached a respectable #16 in the US and #4 in Britain, even without any noteworthy singles.

The whole band reunited in 1978 to record the rather flat “Octave” LP with the below-average single “Steppin’ in a Slide Zone,” but Pinder was so dissatisfied with the result that he refused to participate in the subsequent tour and officially left the group for good. It seemed that the music scene had moved on, eschewing prog rock for disco, funk, New Wave and heavy metal.

In 1981, though, The Moody Blues came roaring back with “Long Distance Voyager,” a synthesizer-driven #1 pop/rock album carried by two Top 20 Hayward hits, “Gemini Dream” and “The Voice.” Pinder’s replacement was Patrick Moraz, a keyboard wizard who had similarly replaced Rick Wakeman in Yes for a spell several years earlier. The Moodies’ triumphant return to touring, including songs from throughout their catalog, was made possible by the industry’s improved technical improvements in concert sound. I saw them in concert that year, and again a decade later in a double bill with Chicago, and found their show exhilarating.

This album, and those that followed over the next decade (1983’s “The Present,” 1986’s “The Other Side of Life,” 1988’s “Sur La Mer” and 1991’s “Kings of the Kingdom”), bore only a little resemblance to the psychedelia and mind-expanding albums of the band’s prime, but the accessible melodies, crisp production and Hayward’s ever-present voice kept the band in the limelight. Indeed, Hayward’s catchy pop song, “Your Wildest Dream,” and its similar sequel, “I Know You’re Out There Somewhere,” got as much exposure as anything they’d ever done. Still, there were precious few memorable deep tracks behind the singles, certainly a discouraging development to older fans.

*The Moodies in 2002, L-R: Edge, Hayward, Lodge, Thomas*

The band’s last time in the recording studio was in 2003 when they cobbled together a Christmas-themed album called “December,” which came and went quickly, like most seasonal records. The Moody Blues, augmented by additional performers on stage, continued performing well into the 2010s, with Hayward and Lodge carrying the load. First Thomas and then Edge were forced to reduce their participation due to health issues. Thomas ultimately died of cancer in 2018, and Edge passed away of cancer in 2021.

Lodge never took music lightly. He always saw in it the potential for something more than entertainment. In a 2023 interview, he was asked what “psychedelic” meant to him, and his answer was thoughtful: “I hope your mind will explore the music and take you wherever the music takes you. It’s not a case of just singing along, it’s listening. It can be one note and that transports you somewhere. And I think you can conjure up experiences and stories in your mind where the music takes you. To me, that’s psychedelic. You have to listen to things, not just hear them.”

I can’t think of any other rock band that had the audacity to offer tracks of cosmic poetry, spoken rather than sung, on almost every album. “In the late 1960s we became the group that Graeme always wanted it to be, and he was called upon to be a poet as well as a drummer,” said Hayward about Graeme Edge in the wake of his death. “He delivered that beautifully and brilliantly, while creating an atmosphere and setting that the music would never have achieved without his words.”

There’s a song on “Long Distance Voyager” that, while not one of their better efforts, perfectly describes how The Moody Blues were perceived in their later years — “Veteran Cosmic Rockers.” Their spacey music and intelligent lyrics mesmerized a sizable fan base during their 1967-1974 era, and their 1981-1991 period perpetuated The Moodies brand as a worthy rock band that absolutely deserved their long-overdue induction in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018.

As Edge himself put it in a 2008 interview, “I never get tired of playing the hits. I think we have a duty. You play ‘Nights in White Satin’ for them. You’ve got to play ‘I’m Just a Singer (in a Rock and Roll Band),’ and you’ve got to play ‘Tuesday Afternoon’ and you’ve got to play ‘Question.’ It’s our duty, and the audience’s right.”

R.I.P. John Lodge, and The Moody Blues as a band. You left a valuable legacy.

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