Denny Laine, founding member of Moody Blues and Wings died yesterday. Very late 70s. His age, and his era. Kind of.
I know everyone things of it as Paul McCartney & Wings, but really - for the most part - it was just Wings, founded McCartney, his wife and Laine.
While he was only in the Moody Blues for less than two years, it was an influential band that went into very progressive rock. It is for that band that Laine landed in the Rock Hall. He sang lead on their first hit, "Go Now".
But that tenure was short. He is most notable for his work in Wings. His lead guitar on the album Band on the Run and Venus and Mars shined. I loved his one lead song on Speed of Sound with "Time to Hide", which I feature on a MMM post almost 7 years to the day. It is my favourite song on Wings Across America - their triple live disk.
He and both McCartneys were the only mainstays of Wings for its 10 years.
I get he's not a huge name in music, but he's someone whom I liked in my formative years way back when.
I'm including Wings' version of "Richard Cory", which is a cover of a Simon & Garfunkle song. In reality Paul Simon is close to plagiarizing the late 1800's poem of the same name by Edward Arlington Robinson. ....but Wings does it better, and Laine takes the lead.
Song by: the Moody Blues
3 comments:
Despite having been well aware of the Moody Blues (and 'Go Now') in the late 60s, I ought to have known his name before Wings but he only really came to my attention in '77 when he was 'credited' as being, with Paul McC, the other co-writer of 'Mull of Kintyre', a song so widely derided here by disc-jockeys and comedians alike (despite topping our charts for weeks on end) that it was considered shameful to say that one liked it - which I did, and still quite do. But other than that I can't say I thought he was 'significant' in pop music - though may well be doing him an injustice.
There are a lot of boomers to die off.
A very interesting song very well done. RIP
Post a Comment