Almanac Obituary: Graeme Edge – The Moody Blues

 

 

Founding band member and drummer for The Moody Blues Graeme Edge died in Florida last Thursday aged 80. He was the second of the five Moody Blues to die following flautist Ray Thomas’s death in January 2018.

 

I never heard Edge actually say as much himself, however I’m sure he would have whimsically espoused Joe Walsh’s famous lament that “had I known I was going to live this long I would have looked after myself a bit better”.

 

Edge hailed from an era of well known drummers for high profile bands such as Charlie Watts, Ginger Baker and John Bonham. Perhaps not as widely known as those, Edge was every bit as good just the same.

 

In fact, he turned out to be the only band member who featured from its foundation in Birmingham in 1964 to its last series of concerts in 2018 although he was already too ill by then to play in most of them.

 

The Moody Blues were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame in 2018. Over that 54 year career they produced 18 platinum and gold albums which sold a total 70 million albums worldwide.

 

They always had something of a cult following outside the usual ‘line and length’ tastes of popular music radio stations. Their quirky existentialist lyrics and unmistakable harmonies would earn them a loyal army of devoted fans one of whom, most unashamedly, is your current writer.

 

The band’s first big hit in 1966 was ‘Go Now’ with Edge, Denny Laine, Mike Pinder, Ray Thomas and Clint Warwick although this combination didn’t last long.

 

Laine departed for the Electric String Band, Wings and a subsequent solo career. Pinder would later separate from the band in the mid 70s as his musical tastes changed and around the same time he wanted to stay in America with his young family while the band wanted to tour.

 

The critical turning point where the Moodies really took off was the arrival in 1967 of lead guitarist and lead vocalist Justin Hayward who replaced Laine and bass player John Lodge who replaced Warwick. Both would also become prolific song writers for the band for the remainder of its life.

 

It is fair to say Hayward and Lodge were undoubtedly the heavy hitters as both lyricists and musicians. However Edge’s drum work was the glue which held together the rhythyms, tempo and integrated balance of the band’s songs. His understated thoroughness was the perfect counterpoint to the dazzling brilliance of others especially Hayward’s precocious talent with his Gibson 335 and his soaring vocals.

 

For the record, in addition to those three, Mike Pinder on keyboards and Ray Thomas on woodwinds were the five musicians who featured on all seven of what Moodies’ purists – yes, your author included – refer to within the cognoscenti as their ‘classic 7’ albums of the late 60s and early 70s, namely,

 

    Days Of Future Passed

               In Search Of The Lost Chord

               On The Threshold Of A Dream

               To Our Children’s Children’s Children

               A Question Of Balance

               Every Good Boy Deserves Favour

               Seventh Sojourn

 

 

 

Within these albums, perhaps Edge’s best individual drum work can be found on the following tracks: ‘I’m Just A Singer (In A Rock ‘n Roll Band)’, ‘Question’, ‘Tortoise And The Hare’, ‘Higher And Higher’, and ‘Eyes Of A Child’.

 

Thankfully, I was lucky enough to see the Moodies’ last Melbourne concert at the Palais in 2011. By that stage they consisted of Hayward, Lodge and Edge with supporting musicians as Ray Thomas had developed health issues and no longer toured.

 

After lapping up an evening of Moodies’ favourites with other cult devotees, their final encore was the John Lodge composition ‘I’m Just A Singer (In A Rock ‘n Roll Band).

 

The Moody Blues perform “I’m Just A Singer” at the 2018 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony

 

Heading home to Geelong shortly afterwards, all the ‘in your face’ energy of that song along with Edge’s brilliant drum work in that frantic finale hovered musically over Port Phillip Bay.

 

They found the roof of the Palais sometime later. What a night!

 

Vale Graeme Edge.

 

You can read more from Roger Lowrey Here

 

 

 

We’ll do our best to publish two books in the lead-up to Christmas 2021. The Tigers (Covid) Almanac 2020  and the 2021 edition to celebrate the Dees’ magnificent premiership season(title is up for discussion at the moment!). These books will have all the usual features – a game by game account of the Tigers and Demons season – and will also include some of the best Almanac writing from these two Covid winters. Enquiries HERE

 

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About Roger Lowrey

Roger Lowrey is a Geelong based writer who lists his special interests as reading, writing, horse racing, Roman history and AEC electoral boundaries. Some of his friends think he is a little eccentric.

Comments

  1. Great obit. Never a big Moody Blues fan. Always thought “Go Now” was their best song.
    But if you can make a mountain out of that molehill, I’m wondering if I could engage you on a personal contract?
    I was listening to a podcast with a US writer who makes her living doing “shelf” obits for the New York Times and other journals. Says she has become good friends with a number of the subjects that she contacted in her research. Much better knowing what people are going to read or say about you.

  2. RDL, thank you for this tribute. Like you, I’ve been a fan since ‘Go Now’. There’s no doubt in my mind that the advent of Hayward and Lodge changed everything for the band – and all for the better.

    These two might have scored all the kudos but the consistent chops of Edge and other sublime extras such as Ray Thomas’ flute solo on ‘Nights in white satin’ made the sound that identified the group. I also appreciated their capacity to play every tempo from soft ballad to raunchy rock’n’roll, every mood (no pun intended) from the gentle and ethereal through prog to pure commercial.

    I also saw The Moodies in 2011, albeit in Brisbane, and it was worth the almost 50 year wait. Edge spoke at one stage as he had just celebrated his 70th birthday. I’m an unadulterated devotee of ‘Nights in white satin’ and it alone was worth the cost of the ticket – note and pitch perfect. I particularly like the 8 minute version with the huge orchestral climax.

    RDL, our age is catching up with us but what an era we were blessed to be a part of. Another one may well have bitten the dust but what a drummer in a rock and roll band Edge was!

  3. Mark Savage says

    Beautiful RDL. Had an argument 50years ago about who I would rather see live – The MBs or Yes. I voted for the latter… suspect I was wrong.
    Great salutation for a great band and a ripper drummer.

  4. My CD collection includes Days of future passed, Every good boy deserves favour, and a Best of Moody Blues compilation. These albums are very consistent, such that it’s hard to single out any favourite songs. But I will make special mention of “You can never go home” (which is from Every good boy deserves favour). A truly majestic piece of music, particularly the part from 1.50 to 3.07.

  5. A fine tribute, RDL.

    As a boy learning to play the drums at the Billy Hyde Drum Clinic, my tutor advised me that one of the drummers I should study was Graeme Edge of the Moody Blues.

  6. Roger Lowrey says

    Thanks everyone.

    Peter, I suppose there are harder ways to earn a quid than writing proposed obituaries for people who aren’t yet dead but I fear the practice would scramble my mind too much after a few of them.

    Ian, what a marvellous fellow you are. Lovely to know there is still an army of loyal Moodies’ fans out there.

    Mark, yeah it would have been a hard call back then but look at the bright side – at least you got to see Ian Anderson and Yes but I didn’t. I think that makes us about square.

    Smokie, I never knew Billy Hyde was an Edge fan but young drummers could certainly do plenty worse than study Edge’s work. At very least, I hope he improved your technique.

    And Liam, thanks for that. Yes, “You Can Never Go Home” also makes into my top 10 favourite Moodies’ songs too. If you really twisted my arm I would confess that my all time fav track is from that same album, namely, “The Story In Your Eyes”. The lyrics and guitar work are an absolute Justin Hayward masterclass.

    And for the record, the other nine which finish equal second, in no particular order, go like this:

    Never Comes The Day
    Nights In White Satin
    Question
    Watching and Waiting
    You Can Never Go Home
    Just a Singer in a Rock and Roll Band
    Legend of a Mind
    For My Lady
    Isn’t Life Strange

    Readers unfamiliar with the band could dive anywhere into that little list and get some sense of the magic we Moody Blues nuts have been enjoying all these years.

    RDL

  7. Knights made an impact on my young self: haunting, mystical and melancholy. I’m unsure if they were to blame or thank for my very teen interest in that most troubled of genres: the concept album. Thanks RDL.

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