Blues Traveler

By Dan McCarthy 

FIVE QUESTIONS FOR MOODY BLUES FRONTMAN JUSTIN HAYWARD

WITH SUMMER settling in, the magnificent Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in the heart of Great Barrington will host a U.K. music legend whose career and sound are woven into the fabric of many people’s lives and have left an indelible mark in rock-and-roll history books for the better part of six decades. 

Justin Hayward performs Friday, July 19, at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington. (photo by John Nichols)

Justin Hayward, lead guitarist and songwriter for era-inspiring symphonic progressive rockers The Moody Blues, continues commanding devoted audiences and acquiring new fans with a fiery new group of standout musicians for his Blue World Tour. He’s billed as “The Voice of The Moody Blues,” but Hayward’s unabated musical exploration, as well as his legendary status, has captivated audiences and fellow musicians as few multi-generational artists have done. 

“The Moody Blues took me from childhood to adulthood as a disciple,” said Ann Wilson of the rock band Heart when inducting the Moodies into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018. She cited their “philosophic, spiritual, and everyday messages” were opening her mind and laying the tracks of her own expressions in art to come. “When I dreamed and began writing songs of my own, Justin Hayward’s work was my standard of beauty and purity.” 

The Moody Blues sound, as the proto-progressive rock band, married classic orchestral sounds and masterful rock sonic tapestries with a poet's soul backing them up. They were trailblazers in the new idea of concept albums—entire works meant to be put on and played all the way through instead of a collection of single releases—and have sold well over 70 million albums worldwide since their debut, including 18 platinum and gold LPs. 

In 1967, the band released its second album (and first concept album), the highly influential Days of Future Passed, only several months after the Beatles’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. While the Beatles rode the wave that Sgt. Pepper’s conjured, The Moody Blues sound and live shows brought philosophy into the rock mainstream, and the direction the Moodies were moving into opened the door for a new era of music as popular culture transitioned from the 1960s to the 1970s. Days of Future Passed has influenced an entire generation of progressive rock musicians, from the likes of Genesis, ELO, Yes, and others. 

Fan favorites such as "Nights in White Satin" and "Tuesday Afternoon" may be expected staples in Hayward's live performances. But singles alone aren’t enough to power the longevity of a career like his. His post-Moody Blues career has been one of reinvention and self-realization, with mid-’70s successful solo releases and performances, both being noted for their intimate feel and songwriting prowess. That gave way to success in the 1980s, with Hollywood soundtrack composing, production work at large (he mixed a Prince studio album, as if he needed another notch in his enviable belt of cool), and continues to perform live shows through the years to legions of devoted fans. It was always on his own terms, with a deep respect for the past. 

“I don’t want to replicate what the Moodies did,” Hayward says. “I respect the legacy of the band too much. It’s very precious to me.” 

Hayward has reunited with some of the original Moodies for performances over the years (founding member Mike Pinder, sadly, passed away in the spring); has shared the stage with members of Jethro Tull and Iron Maiden; has hosted rock cruises; and so on. Along the way, Hayward has worked to acclaim on various PBS and BBC projects, and has continued to write and perform. To this day, he works in a studio in Genoa, Italy, not far from his home in the south of France. 

Hayward has made a couple sojourns to the Berkshires over the years, as well. He played Tanglewood in Lenox in 1987 and the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield in May 2014. On this latest Blue World Tour, he’s bringing Mike Dawes, an English acoustic guitar player and instrumentalist who composes, arranges, and performs multiple parts on one instrument using finger tapping and micro-techniques of his own design. (Give a search on YouTube to see what kind of energy he’ll bring to the Mahaiwe.) Singer Julie Ragins and flutist Karmen Gould also join Hayward on stage, underscoring the fact that within the vibrancy of his past and latest performances, a simple driving point exists for Hayward: “I just want to be with brilliant musicians.” 

We had the opportunity to ask Hayward more questions, before his performance on the Mahaiwe stage on Friday, July 19.

What are your memories of the first time you came to the U.S. to play? We first came to the U.S. in 1968 with The Moody Blues. At the time, I was young, and I was kind of disappointed that we weren't going to Los Angeles or places like that. We were opening for a group called Canned Heat on their tour, and we went straight up through the middle of America. Right in the industrial belt of America, which was great, but, you know, we didn't know on our very first tour in 1968 whether we'd ever be invited back to the U.S. again. However, we eventually played in New York at the Fillmore East. I knew there were lots of other places that I would really like to go in the U.S. 

You must be reminded of so much while on the road, playing at venues from the Moodies days. We were kind of like ghosts going through this business at first. We were never celebrities or personalities, and we were lucky enough to come to America. English groups did not want to come to the U.S. if they weren't top of the bill. But we came because we were offered some gigs and took them, to play the Fillmore East in New York and then Fillmore West in San Francisco, about ten weeks apart. We just gigged our way across America. Most English bands really weren't prepared to do that. They wanted to be top of the bill. They had hit records in England, and they wanted that same status in America. But not for us; there was never any focus on us as celebrities or personalities. We were always second or third on the bill. Eventually, we played Madison Square Garden in the early 1970s, and we played two shows in one day each time. I've got an award at home from those days called the “golden ticket” that Madison Square Garden gave us for selling more tickets than anybody else had ever done at the time. Me and Ray Thomas would go out to the pavement between the shows back then, and in the time of peace and love we’d say “peace man, you know, you need some tickets to see the Moodies, have a couple” to people walking down the street. Then Ray and I just looked up at this giant sign on that had our name on it and realized what those people that came to the show must have thought seeing the guys who gave them tickets to the show up on stage playing in the band!

Do you have any new projects in the can that you can talk about? I do have things in the can! I wish I could share it with you, but I’m sworn to secrecy until the record label wants to bring it out. I'm always doing things and working, and I seem to be called on as well when Universal wants anything done for the Moodies, like remastering or compilations or something like that. I'm offered a lot of gigs, and I'm at that stage where I say “yes” to quite a lot of things because it’s still a great pleasure for me to be touring. I just did a U.K. tour, and then I was in the U.S. again until recently, and now I'm going back to the U.S. to do some gigs on my own, and then to do a double header, which I've done before with Christopher Cross, which really gives me a lot of pleasure. I'm still offered a lot of work on the road, and I think I'm always inclined to say “yes,” as long as they're nice venues. 

Let’s talk your current band lineup and the show in Great Barrington.Well, I put together a little group of my own, with Mike Dawes, a virtuoso guitar player; Julie Ragins, who's been with me for a few years and used to sing harmonies with me with the Moodies; and then Karmen Gould, who's a flute player. This is a show that's based around my own songs, and so I feel I'm much truer to that. I loved every moment of the Moodies, and it's true that we were kind of two different bands. One was a studio band and the other was a touring band; both had different sounds and I loved every minute of that. But now the show that I'm doing with Julie and Karmen and Mike really focuses on my songs, and I'm lucky to bring my acoustic guitars out from home for them and rise to their level as well. They love these songs, they love this music, and they play it immaculately. I'm having the most satisfying time of my life playing with them. 

You seem to be very content with your direction, and that is coming through in the response to your shows by crowds. That’s sometimes rare for rockers with a career spanning the time and changes yours has, wouldn’t you say? What I’m doing now is what I want to do, and working with these musicians is exactly what I’ve always really wanted to do musically, and I’m going to stick to that. Because, do you know how old I am? (laughs) I don’t have time to mess around. I’ve got to please myself, and now. It’s time.