This was the sunrise on the North Carolina shore my dear wife, Carrie, and I were looking at yesterday morning. Yesterday the temperature got to the mid-50s and that was a heat wave my friends. Right now we are in a warm hotel room in Asheville, North Carolina and there are cars running off the roads out there as I type these words.
After Carrie and I checked in to our hotel, we went walking around and it was spitting snow in this mountain town. It is a beautiful place, I would suggest a visit to anyone. That big house is not far, the Biltmore Estate, and the Asheville Tourists play baseball in the summer and there are more unique eateries here than you can begin to name. Carrie and I settled on pizza after a wandering period. We ate slowly and watched football on a large television and just enjoyed each other’s company and occasionally enjoyed the particular sound of a young man’s unique, genuine laughter sitting near us.
After our meal we went out to discover a light glaze of ice EVERYWHERE! Our hotel was two blocks…uphill. Where we could find dirt, we walked on it. Where we could find a crack in the sidewalk, we hoped for traction from it. In a town that had always been kind to us, we were wondering if we would make it up the hill without the aid of an ambulance. We lived to tell the story. I was worried.
It was the year in microcosm out there. Never quite knowing what we were going to get and hoping and praying we would live through it. I am glad this night will be over and a new year will begin tomorrow.
These photos we from the sound side of Topsail Island at the end of the day yesterday.
It was forever beautiful. I wish I could have held it and Carrie together for just twenty minutes longer than we were given yesterday. Note the bird on the dock.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a mess. I knew it before the latest news. On December 13th The Moody Blues’ nomination for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was confirmed into Induction status and the ceremony is to be held April 14th in Cleveland.
The Moodies had never been nominated before, even though they had been eligible for induction since 1989 and had never gotten so much as a smell before this year. Well, they got their nomination…and then they got more than what they had bargained for. In it’s pathetic infinite wisdom, just before Christmas, the Hall of Fame included Denny Laine to the line-up of members of the band to be inducted. That is a problem.
Denny Laine, Clint Warwick, Ray Thomas, Mike Pinder, and Graeme Edge were the first group of guys called The Moody Blues. They lasted from 1964 to 1966. Denny and Clint left. The other three recruited Justin Hayward and John Lodge in the fall of 1966. They released the classic Days of Future Passed album in 1967 and released six more albums through 1972. These are called the Moodies’ core 7 albums. In 1978 Mike Pinder left the band. In 2002 Ray Thomas retired. But, those five guys belong to the classic Moody Blues line-up. I won’t argue that. I never saw Mike Pinder play with them.
So the classic five member line-up finds out they are being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Fine. Then the Hall higher-ups decide Denny Laine, who never played with Justin Hayward and John Lodge in the group, is to be included. Hogwash. The only hit song that old Moody Blues recorded was the single “Go Now” (a song written by someone else) and that is exactly what Denny Laine did. He left leaving the door open for Justin and John to join and the band changed their image and the way they approached music and starting writing their own songs…the songs The Moody Blues are famous for. You know…Nights in White Satin, Tuesday Afternoon, Question, Ride My See-Saw, I’m Just a Singer (in a Rock and Roll Band), Your Wildest Dreams, The Voice, I Know You’re Out There Somewhere.
The real Moody Blues have had a career longer than 50 years of making great music. Denny Laine wasn’t around long enough to buy a new pair of shoes. But…Denny Laine did play in Wings with Sir Paul McCartney and that in itself holds more influence than the the two measly meaningless years he had playing with Ray, Mike, and Graeme. Graeme has said as much as that the “Go Now” Moody Blues were not the real Moody Blues.
So on April 14th it is going to be odd there with Justin Hayward standing near to Denny Laine fifty-two years later and having never shared a stage before as band mates. I suppose the real question is: How dumb is that. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Dumb…that is how dumb.
But that is where we are these days. This is the dumb age. Just watch the television news channels. But, if you do that, I suppose that means you have taken sides.
I never expected to see such a divided country in my lifetime. Me, a life-long Republican, I am embarrassed by what I see out of the GOP these days.
The problem, I think, is we are dealing with a leadership crisis. It won’t get better for a long time. The generation nearly two decades behind me, I will be fifty in March, will be the next group ready lead with brain cells in tact.
The children of the Summer of Love are in charge now and they are as lost now as they were then. They argued in 1967 and they still argue and their vitriol has permeated and poisoned our country in the process.
Bridges are being built.
Here’s to 2018! It has to get better!
Speaking the rights…
Danny Johnson