Ray Thomas - Career

Career

In the 1960s, Thomas joined the Birmingham Youth Choir. He began singing with various Birmingham blues and soul groups, including the Saints and Sinners as well as the Ramblers. Taking up the harmonica, he then started a band with bass guitarist and future Moody Blues bandmate John Lodge. The two performed together in El Riot and the Rebels. After a couple of years, keyboardist and friend Mike Pinder, another future Moody, joined as well. Thomas and Pinder (without Lodge) were later in a band called Krew Cats. El Riot and the Rebels had once opened for The Beatles in Tenbury Wells; the Krew Cats formed in 1963 and played in Hamburg and other places in Northern Germany, possibly at some of the same venues which the Beatles had played although this is unconfirmed.

Thomas and Pinder then recruited guitarist Denny Laine along with drummer Graeme Edge and bassist Clint Warwick to form a new, blues-based band. The name of the band, chosen by Pinder, was "The Moody Blues", chosen from initials which were part of a hoped-for sponsorship from the M&B Brewery (which failed to materialise) and also as a subtle reference to Duke Ellington's "Mood Indigo."

Their first album, The Magnificent Moodies, yielded a #1 UK hit (#10 in the US) with "Go Now." The album also featured Thomas singing lead vocals on a cover of George and Ira Gershwin's "It Ain't Necessarily So", which was originally from the musical Porgy and Bess.

Following this album, Warwick left the band, followed by Laine a few months later. Thomas suggested an old bandmate, bassist John Lodge, as a replacement for Warwick (in between there had been another bass guitarist, Rodney Clark) and also recruited Justin Hayward to replace Denny Laine. With its new lineup, the band released 7 successful albums between 1967 and 1972, and became known for a pioneering orchestral sound. Some of Thomas' compositions on these albums are "Another Morning" and "Twilight Time" (from Days of Future Passed), "Dr. Livingstone, I Presume" and "Legend of a Mind" (from In Search of the Lost Chord), "Dear Diary" and "Lazy Day" (from On the Threshold of a Dream), "Eternity Road",and "Floating" (from To Our Children's Children's Children), "And the Tide Rushes In" (from A Question of Balance), "Our Guessing Game" and "Nice to Be Here" (from Every Good Boy Deserves Favour) and "For My Lady" (from Seventh Sojourn).

Thomas also co-wrote "Watching and Waiting" with Justin Hayward for 'To Our Children's Children's Children' in 1969. In addition Thomas also co-wrote with Hayward and sang "The Dreamer" c. 1971 which has been now added to the latest remastered CD version of Every Good Boy Deserves Favor.

In 1974, the band took a hiatus (reported at the time as a break-up), during which the members all did solo projects. Thomas released the albums, From Mighty Oaks (1975) and Hopes Wishes and Dreams (1976). It was during this period that he earned his nickname, 'The Flute'. Within the band he was also known as 'Tomo' (pronounced tOm-O).

The band then reformed in 1978 for 'Octave' (largely minus Mike Pinder who was only with them for this first album after the reformation), Thomas providing 'Under Moonshine' and 'I'm Your Man' and the group continued to release albums throughout the 1980s, with Thomas' "Veteran Cosmic Rocker" plus 'Painted Smile' being prominently featured on the album Long Distance Voyager. The former song has often been regarded as a theme song for the band itself as a whole and for Thomas in particular, and it again features his use of the harmonica. After contributing 'Sorry' and 'I Am' (both on 'The Present' album of 1983) during the mid-1980s, Thomas temporarily stopped writing new songs for the band. His last three songwriting contributions for the Moodies include "Celtic Sonant" and "Never Blame the Rainbows for the Rain" (co-written with Justin Hayward) on the album Keys of the Kingdom, and the brief "My Little Lovely" on Strange Times Thomas also provided a rare co-lead vocal with Hayward & Lodge on their song 'Sooner or Later (Walking On Air)' on 'Strange Times'.

Thomas took featured lead vocal on Graeme Edge's songs '22,000 Days' (on 'Long Distance Voyager') and 'Going Nowhere' (on 'The Present' 1983), however while he contributed backing vocals to 'The Other Side of Life' album in 1986, he took no lead vocal role, and appears to be totally absent from the 1988 album 'Sur La Mer' although he is included in the childhood photos depicted on the album's innersleeve and is given an overall 'group credit' although significantly is then not given an actual performing band credit at all unlike the others.

Although he most commonly plays tambourine and flute, Thomas is actually a multi-instrumentalist, playing various other woodwind instruments, such as Harmonica and the oboe on the album, In Search of the Lost Chord,. The 1972 video for "I'm Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band)" features Thomas playing the baritone saxophone, although Pinder has stated on his website that this was just for effect in the video, and that Thomas was not the sax player on the actual recording. Although typically comfortable singing in the lower tenor register, Thomas was also responsible for the distinctive falsetto voice on many of the group's earlier recordings, before the arrival of Hayward and Lodge.

Thomas retired at the end of 2002. The Moody Blues – now consisting only of Hayward, Lodge and Edge plus four long-serving touring band members, including Norda Mullen who has taken over Thomas' flute parts – have released one studio album, December, since his departure from the band.

In July 2009 it became known that Thomas had written at least two of his songs – "Adam and I" and "My Little Lovely" – for his son and grandson Robert, respectively. Also that he had married again, to his longtime girlfriend Lee, at a ceremony in Wales on 9 July 2009. Ray has released his two solo albums, remastered, in a boxset on 24 September 2010. The set includes, with the two albums, a remastered quad version of "From Mighty Oaks", a new song "The Trouble With Memories", a previously unseen promo video of "High Above My Head" and an interview conducted by fellow Moody Blues founder, Mike Pinder. The boxset was released through Esoteric Recordings/Cherry Red Records.