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The Artist - The Moody Blues The Song - "A Winter's Tale" The Album - December |
"December will
stand among fans' and collectors' libraries for its lasting quality,
a perfect year-capper, every year"
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When you hear Justin Hayward sing "A Winter's Tale", you'll wonder whether it had been written expressly for him and the Moody Blues to perform. They don't just play it --nor do they adopt it-- they become it. On a worldwide scale, this is how transmorphing ownership of a song is done. Just listen.
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Tasteful as ever, the Moody Blues (minus founding member Ray Thomas who retired for health reasons), hold steadfast to their tact and strength with a just-in-time-for-the-holidays release, aptly titled, December. I'm lucky enough to have among my earliest radio memories that of hearing the Moodies' timeless among all-timers, "Nights in White Satin," their mid-60's rock staple. And in thinking that far back with respect to the mode of true classic performance, I'm in full realization that in their rightful way, they're as important as any of the celebrated rock 'n roll artists of the same origin-era. Many of the others seemed to opt for a rockier road, indulging perhaps in fools' excess, swaggering tough and knowing perilous times and returning in a roll-of-the-dice redemption, or not, thereby fading out.
Not the Moody Blues. They didn't sellout. And they managed to remain all the while, even having reasonably significant hits in the otherwise politically drenched, drug-addled and commitment-weary nineteen eighties, on top of their already well-seasoned stature of many albums past.
Justin Hayward has always had one of the most pleasant voices you can listen to, and it comes through especially here, song after song, filling us with holiday spirit, warming the house alongside the fireplace, the family, and friends. I just had to check to see if "A Winter's Tale" is a Hayward original, sure that it would be as I searched. Much surprise, it isn't, but what a piece performed! You'd think they'd written it, and they've quite made it their own.
[Editor's note: The song of note, "A Winter's Tale," is co-credited to Mike Batt, with whom Hayward has worked--including collaboration on "Classic Blue," a CD released in 1994. Batt has been producer, arranger and composer for as high a stature as the London Philharmonic Orchestra.]
John Lodge contributes nicely with a couple of originals of his own, and his bassing is solid-as-the-woodwork so as to almost go unnoticed, which underlyingly fits thematically here, as in, the spirit of Christmas. The Hayward-Lodge team, it goes without writing, remains the most underrated duo in the history of rock and roll.
We're treated also within this tender and touching disc to the Moodies' version of "White Christmas," and they even do a rendition of John Lennon's lyrical plea for a better treatment of humanity, "Happy Xmas." This album will stand among fans' and collectors' libraries for its lasting quality, a perfect year-capper, every year. Thanks, Moodies, for a cozy, sweet gift for us to always have.
-Morgan Field
reviewed in November 2003