Noting the passing of Moody Blues founding member and flautist Ray Thomas.
September, 1972. Boston.
The day comes, too soon but then not soon enough. My parents dropped me off at White Hall, a dormitory on the campus of Northeastern University. A small town boy in several senses, I was in a totally alien environment...a big city.
White Hall was an older building, begging for renovation. It was not air conditioned, so we kept the windows open. It was not uncommon to have someone hoist microwave-sized speakers onto window sills and blast music into the courtyard. It always seemed to be The Moody Blues' Nights in White Satin.
The song, written by band member Jason Hayward, is a love song, of sorts. Love from afar, yearning love that is not returned. Perfect, cloying, to a seventeen year old on his own for the very first time.
Many people remember this song by the "Late Lament," spoken by band member Mike Pinder. "Cold-hearted orb that rules the night, removes the colors from our sight. Red is gray, yellow white. But, we decide which is right, and which is an illusion."
I always remembered Ray Thomas's haunting flute solo. For some reason, it seemed to capture perfectly the mixture of self-doubt, of naïve optimism, of an adolescent's fireproof belief in the hopeful possibilities of tomorrow. Whenever I hear that song, and that flute, I remember Boston in the fall of 1972.
I had no idea that, nearly thirty years later, daughter Katy's flute playing would have a similar effect - memories of days and nights at band competitions, at concerts and a university dormitory where she bid good bye to one life and embraced another.
Thank you, Mr. Thomas, for a gift of music.
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