Sunday morning music

 

Last week we heard the sad news that Graeme Edge, co-founder of and drummer for the fabled rock band The Moody Blues, had died at the age of 80.

Edge was the "poet laureate" of the group, composing a number of "songs" that were really poetry set to a musical background.  I hesitate to describe any music as "mystical", because mysticism is not about music at all, but something much deeper.  Nevertheless, in terms of the modern misuse of that term, you could call Edge the "mystic" of the Moody Blues.  His influence can be seen and heard not only in the music and poetry he composed for the group, but in the tone taken by the compositions of other members.

In his memory, I'd like to offer several Moody Blues songs/poems that he composed.  The first is "Late Lament", from their 1967 album "Days of Future Passed".

From the 1969 album "On The Threshold Of A Dream", here's "The Dream" (Edge's composition" in a medley with "Have You Heard", Parts 1 and 2.

Also from 1969, from the Moody Blues' fifth studio album "To Our Children's Children's Children", here's "Higher and Higher".

From the group's tenth album, "Long Distance Voyager", released in 1981, here's "22,000 Days".

And from the 1983 album "The Present", here's "Going Nowhere."

Graeme Edge was not the most prolific composer among the members of the Moody Blues, but he was one of its guiding lights in many ways.  I can't think of many other rock musicians who had his reflective, meditative, convoluted approach to their art.  His music wasn't to everyone's taste (including mine), but the more you listened to the group as a whole, the more you could hear the "Edge factor" in their work, and I think it greatly enriched the group as a whole.

Peter