I Dreamed Last Night - Justin Hayward & John Lodge, studio track, 1975 + Justin, solo, acoustic, 2004

[highplainsdem]

5. The autumn of '72, when Seventh Sojourn came out, was when I first spent a lot of time listening to

the Moodies, because I fell in love with a Moodies fan, and Jim listened to almost nothing but their music.

My favorite music is usually blues rock. I thought the Beatles were cute and liked their music and even loved some of it - https://www.democraticunderground.com/103465451 - but I listened more to the Animals, the Stones, Yardbirds, Spencer Davis, Cream, Traffic, Clapton, Free, and so on.

It was an abrupt switch to mostly Moodies, because I remember the summer of 1972, I was listening mostly to the Stones, especially Sticky Fingers and Get Yer Ya-Yas Out (such great albums, with Mick Taylor). Making a career decision, which for some reason called for blues rock. And then I fell in love with a Moodies fan with blond hair and beautiful green eyes.

I'd heard the Moodies before that, of course. But I'd never listened to them so much. Jim would have their music playing all the time. If we were out at our favorite hippie bar, I'd head for the jukebox and play Clapton (I could listen to Layla forever), the Grateful Dead, the Kinks, Rod Stewart, but not the Moodies.

I left Jim the next year, had decided I was too addicted to someone who used more drugs than anyone else I'd ever been involved with. Left the state to make sure it wouldn't be easy to get involved with him again. Heard from him occasionally for years, even after he got married (and later divorced).

Didn't particularly want to listen to the Moodies for a while, but gradually went back to listening to them. I still have their early albums too linked to that relationship, since I can never hear any tracks from the albums without remembering Jim.

It was from Jim that I first heard about some Moodies fans being quite strange - convinced the Moodies were time travelers or aliens who were here to enlighten us. (Jim had done a lot of drugs and loved the Moodies but wasn't that crazy.) Years later I met some Moodies fans online, and most just liked their music, but some did view the band as spiritual teachers. Later met somone who knew them and heard from him about some particularly weird fan beliefs and behavior. Certifiably crazy.

From interviews I've read and heard, the Moodies were/are perfectly normal, nice Englishmen who did nothing to encourage their weirder fans. But people were doing a lot of drugs back then...