<\/p>\n
John Lodge, who played bass and sang in the Moody Blues \u2014 including on the English band\u2019s \u201cNights in White Satin,\u201d a No. 2 hit in the United States in 1972, and on \u201cYour Wildest Dreams,\u201d which cracked the top 10 more than a decade later \u2014 has died. He was 82.<\/p>\n
His death was announced in a statement by his family, who said he died “suddenly and unexpectedly,” but didn\u2019t specify a cause or say when or where he died.<\/p>\n
\u201cJohn peacefully slipped away surrounded by his loved-ones and the sounds of The Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly,\u201d the statement said. According to Lodge’s website, he had tour dates scheduled this year starting Dec. 4 in Cerritos.<\/p>\n
Born in Birmingham, England, in 1943, Lodge joined the Moody Blues in 1966 along with singer Justin Hayward; the two replaced Denny Laine (who went on to form Wings with Paul McCartney<\/a>) and Clint Warwick.<\/p>\n The group had started out as one of countless young English acts aping American R&B in the mid-\u201960s. \u201cWe were originally a rhythm and blues band, wearing blue suits and singing about people and problems in the Deep South,\u201d Hayward recalled<\/a> in an interview with The Times in 1990. \u201cIt was OK, but it was incongruous, getting us nowhere, and in the end we had no money, no nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n Having been asked by their record company to come up with an LP that would show off the hi-fi possibilities of its new recording equipment, Hayward and Lodge pushed the band toward a more ornate sound that blended rock and classical music.<\/p>\n In 1967, the band released \u201cDays of Future Passed,\u201d an elaborate concept album featuring the London Festival Orchestra; today it\u2019s widely regarded as an early landmark of the progressive rock sound that would later encompass the likes of Yes and Emerson, Lake & Palmer.<\/p>\n In addition to \u201cNights in White Satin\u201d \u2014 heard recently in a sultry Chanel commercial<\/a> starring Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet \u2014 the album spun off \u201cTuesday Afternoon,\u201d a pastoral orchestral-rock number about \u201cgently swaying through the fairyland of love.\u201d<\/p>\n Read more:<\/b> Cyndi Lauper bid us farewell. It didn’t really take<\/a><\/p>\n Neither single was a smash at the time. Yet steady FM radio play kept the songs in rotation through the early \u201970s, by which time rock was full of proudly ambitious outfits such as Genesis and Electric Light Orchestra<\/a>.<\/p>\n In 1972, the Moody Blues topped the Billboard 200 with its album \u201cSeventh Sojourn,\u201d which included a hit single, \u201cI\u2019m Just a Singer (in a Rock and Roll Band),\u201d with Lodge on lead vocals.<\/p>\n The band broke up after \u201cSeventh Sojourn\u201d \u2014 Hayward told The Times that \u201cwe were getting more and more enclosed and introverted, and there was just nothing left to talk about\u201d \u2014 though he and Lodge released a duo album, \u201cBlue Jays,\u201d in 1975; two years later, Lodge put out his first solo LP, \u201cNatural Avenue.\u201d<\/p>\n The Moody Blues reconvened in 1977 and went on to find success in the synth-pop \u201980s with songs like \u201cGemini Dream,\u201d \u201cThe Voice\u201d \u201cand \u201cYour Wildest Dreams,\u201d the last of which became a hit on MTV with a music video starring Hayward as a musician looking back at his life.<\/p>\n The band toured through the late 2010s, performing at England\u2019s Glastonbury festival in 2015 and at the Hollywood Bowl in 2017. Ray Thomas, a founding member of the group who played flute, died in 2018; Graeme Edge, the band\u2019s founding drummer, died in 2021; Laine died in 2023; Mike Pinder, who played keyboards in the band until 1978, died last year. Hayward wrote Friday on Facebook that he was “very sad and shocked to hear of John\u2019s passing” and said he had “such happy memories of making music together.”<\/p>\n In 2023, Lodge released a solo album that he said represented a reimagining of “Days of Future Passed.” His survivors include his wife, Kirsten, two children and a grandchild.<\/p>\n In 2018, the Moody Blues were inducted<\/a> into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame by Heart\u2019s Ann Wilson, who said the band \u201ctook me from childhood to adulthood.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Moody Blues are not cool or ironic \u2014 they\u2019re not a construct,\u201d Wilson added. \u201cThere\u2019s a beautiful and approachable honesty about the poetry and a natural intelligence in the music.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can lie back and listen to any one of the albums, beginning to end, and go out of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n