THE MOODY BLUES: ON TRACK

Geoffrey Feakes

TBirmingham’s symphonic prog icons dissected.

he reader’s enjoyment of a volume of this largely excellent series of books detailing the works of various bands is most likely going to run in conjunction with how close their affinity to the band in question aligns with the author’s. For example, this writer found Stephen Lambe’s Yes volume and Jacob Holm-Lupo’s Toto tome great reads, largely because he agrees with their takes on the music of those bands. When Geoffrey Feakes refers to himself in the intro as a fan of “a certain age” and talks dismissively of “the synthetic sounds of the 80s and 90s” the warning flags were raised. This writer is a Moodies fan, but probably being a bit younger than “a certain age” also loves Long Distance Voyager, The Present and Sur La Mer, as much as the symphonic grandeur of the 70s albums. Feakes certainly knows his stuff however, and this book is crammed full of interesting facts and delivered in an enjoyably chatty style. It’s just that from 1978’s Octave onwards, one feels that he’s writing largely through gritted teeth. This is a bit like the printed word version of declaring one’s fondness for a certain album online only to have the ‘experts’ point out the error of your ways. JE