THE MAGNIFICENT MOODIES [AKA: THE BEGINNING]

The classic (67-72) Moody Blues means a lot to me, but I can't say I was very excited to get the Eoteric Recordings' reissue of this sole album of the MB Mk. 1, served with each non-album track they recorded up to the end of 1966. As you probably know, this was a totally different band than the one featuring the new guy Justin Hayward and John Lodge, who had already been around in pre-Moody Blues phases.

This single-oriented band played basically r&b of the black American artists, doing mostly covers (such as their biggest hit 'Go Now'). The singer-guitarist Denny Laine was the keyboard player Mike Pinder's songwriting partner as they gradually shifted to their original repertoire on further singles. I won't deal with the songs very deeply, because they just don't interest me enough to listen to more than [barely] once, which is not to say they wouldn't be good within the genre in question, or as the popular music preceding the great watershed year 1967.

The Gershwin tune 'It Ain't Necessarily So' is among the nicest tracks on the main album, thanks for the recognizable Ray Thomas vocals. A 7" B-side song 'Time Is on My Side' (better known as the Rolling Stones version) is a good example of the vocal harmonies, the one feature that was continued and improved in the classic era. The Laine/Pinder compositions at the end of this phase are naturally more interesting to hear than the numerous covers. My favourite - and frankly the only one I knew besides 'Go Now' - is easily 'Boulevard de Madeleine', which I also know as a good Finnish cover by Pate Mustajärvi.

The ER reissue gets the biggest applauses for Mark Powell's very detailed and long liner notes that tell everything you ever want to know of the early history of the Moody Blues. (When it comes to the rating, I would prefer not to give any rating at all. Please note that my two stars are very subjective, completely ignoring the context of pre-1967 pop music that I don't care much about in the first place.)