Graeme Edge, Moody Blues Co-Founder And Drummer, Dies At 80

Graeme Edge, the drummer and last lone original member of The Moody Blues, passed away on Thursday at the age of 80 from cancer-related complications.

Rise to Prominence: Edge was 23 when he teamed with singer/guitarist Denny Laine, singer/bassist Clint Warwick, singer/keyboardist Mike Pinder and singer/flautist/harmonica player Ray Thomas in founding the Moody Blues in Birmingham, England. The band scored a hit song in the U.K. and the U.S. markets in January 1965 “Go Now,” but initially seemed unable to leverage their first chart-topper. 

Laine and Warwick quit the band and were replaced by Justin Hayward and John Lodge. The Moody Blues gained its first burst of popularity with the 1967 concept album “Days of Future Passed”, with Edge authoring the poems “Morning Glory” and “Late Lament” that opened and closed the recording.

“Days of Future Passed” reached the No. 3 ranking on the U.S. Billboard chart. In 1972, the song “Nights in White Satin” was released as a single and reached the No. 2 position on the charts.

An Enduring Presence: The Moody Blues continued releasing albums in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with the productions “Every Good Boy Deserves Favour” (1971) and “Seventh Sojourn” (1972) gaining gold certification for U.S. sales.

The band went on hiatus from 1974 to 1977, and during this time Edge formed The Graeme Edge Band, which released two studio albums. While the 1981 album “Long Distance Traveler” reached platinum certification, none of the band’s subsequent releases achieved chart-topping success.

Nonetheless, the band continued to be popular on the concert tour circuit and reached a national television audience in 1992 when their “Night at Red Rocks” concert was aired as public television fundraiser. The 2003 Christmas-themed “December” was the band’s last album to date.

The band and Edge were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018.

“To me he was the White Eagle of the North with his beautiful poetry, his friendship, his love of life and his ‘unique’ style of drumming that was the engine room of the Moody Blues,” said bandmate Lodge in a Facebook posting.

Photo: Graeme Edge in 2018, courtesy of The Moody Blues' Facebook page.