The velvet seats at Windsor’s Chrysler Theatre have seen their share of legends, but there is something distinct about the arrival of Justin Hayward. He is the architect of a specific brand of English melancholia that somehow conquered the American charts without ever losing its polite, symphonic soul.
It has been a decade since Hayward last graced a Windsor stage. Back then, he was flanked by the full machinery of The Moody Blues at Caesars. This time, for his May 26 appearance, the scale is intimate. The stakes, however, feel higher. When a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee strips away the arena bombast, you either see the genius or the cracks. With Hayward, it is always the former.
He is touring with a lean, sharp solo band that has become his primary vehicle for expression. This is not a group of hired guns; it is a curated ensemble that understands the delicate balance between folk intimacy and prog-rock grandeur.
"Yes, Karmen Gould on flute joined us a little while ago, and I met Karmen a few years before at a one-off gig that I did," Hayward says. "She’s such a wonderful player. I’m very fond of these kids and it’s a lovely vibe we have together."
The "kids" Hayward refers to are technical monsters in their own right. He does not just lead them; he stands back and lets them tear into the arrangements. It is a rare display of ego-free leadership from a man who wrote "Nights in White Satin."
One of those standouts is Mike Dawes, a fingerstyle guitarist who treats the instrument like a percussion section and a symphony all at once. Watching Dawes work is a lesson in humility for anyone who thinks they know their way around six strings.
"Well, Mike Dawes, if you’ve never seen him, worth the price of admission and a truly remarkable guitar genius," Hayward says. "I don’t know how he does it. I’ve stood in front of him with my guitar tech and we’ve said play that again and then a minute later my tech says, no, I still don’t get it. I don’t know how he does it. Julie Ragins was with The Moody’s as well. I’ve known Julie for a long time. She may the finest musician I know, actually, can play anything. And she plays all the parts, she has the samples of the Mellotron from the old days."
The mention of the Mellotron is where the gear nerds lean in. That tape-loop keyboard is the DNA of the Moody Blues sound. It provided the haunting, orchestral wash that defined an era. But hauling an original Mark II Mellotron on the road in 2024 is a fool’s errand. They are temperamental, heavy and prone to mechanical heartbreak.
Hayward has embraced the digital shift, though he keeps the ghosts of the old machines close. The modern software is cleaner, but it lacks the grit of the original magnetic tapes.
"Well, Mellotron sounds, as you know, you can find on most keyboard software but I think I still have an old file," Hayward notes. "I was looking at it the other day, one that Tony Visconti and I did when we’d been in the studio with Ray, Graham and John that we sampled on a big old Mark II Mellotron. I think that the digital ones are probably better, mine are a bit clunky."
There is a fine line between a concert and a lecture. Hayward navigates this by focusing on the "vibe" rather than a dry recitation of dates and studio locations. He understands that for the audience, these songs are tied to first loves, old cars and moments that have long since faded into sepia.
"Ah, well, that’s a thing, isn’t it? I suppose it is, but I often finish a little sort of introduction and I thought, 'Darn, you know, I bet people would probably like to know what happened in the studio', and that kind of stuff," Hayward says. "On the other hand, if I do question and answer stuff, then the weirdest stuff comes up. It’s not like what was happening in the studio, which I thought people would be interested in, or what did you mean and what’s that about?"
His realization is that the audience provides the final layer of the mix. A song is not finished until it hits the ears of someone who spent 1967 listening to it on repeat.
"I think I realized a long time ago with this music that we can be perfect in a soundcheck and do these songs just perfectly, but the audience brings something to it," Hayward explains. "Yes, I know that we’re storytelling the song, but you really have to include their own experience of when they first heard this music. I often think, at night when we come home and we put on something and play it, I feel that we create an atmosphere and an aura around ourselves of a vibe. I think that is created in the room on tour as well. There is this kind of magic that’s created that the audience brings to it. I don’t know what that has to do with my stories, but it’s probably my experience of the songs. That’s more interesting than who did what or how many tracks were on it."
The history of the band is a series of happy accidents. Take *Days of Future Passed*. It was never supposed to be a conceptual masterpiece. It was a corporate assignment intended to sell stereo equipment to people who liked classical music.
"Exactly. It was more for the label and they had a consumer division where they made stereo systems and they wanted to demonstrate that stereo could be as interesting for rock and roll as it was for classical music, because their biggest catalogue was classical music, which is why they were eventually bought out by Deutsche Grammophon," Hayward says.
Mike Dawes, if you’ve never seen him, worth the price of admission and a truly remarkable guitar genius. ... Julie Ragins was with The Moody’s as well. I’ve known Julie for a long time. She may the finest musician I know, actually, can play anything.
The album became a pivot point for the industry. It proved that rock could be sophisticated without being pretentious. Much of that is thanks to Hugh Mendl, the executive producer who saw the potential in the band's shift away from standard pop.
"Days of Future Passed was seen as that," Hayward says. "I think even when we were making it, Hugh Mendl, who was the executive producer, realized that it had changed into something else. When Hugh delivered it to the Decca board, even though they said, well, this is not what we were expecting. But Hugh always stuck by it. He always said he knew it was different, but he had to try and elevate it because when it was first released, it was a budget price album, and within a few weeks, they put it up to full price and realized that this was a proper album. I don’t think that any one of us thought that anybody would ever hear it so it."
Then there is "Nights in White Satin." It is the kind of song that feels like it was unearthed rather than written. It has a gravity that few tracks in the rock canon can match. Yet, its birth was remarkably domestic.
"Yeah, it was quite a few months before Days of Future Passed, but I think the other guys knew that I’d always have a song ready to go and they were expecting me to come up with something," Hayward recalls. "I came home one night, sat on the side of the bed and just wrote the basic couple of verses. I then took it into the rehearsal room in Barnes in West London the next day and I played it to everybody and they were a bit nonplussed."
The song needed a hook. It needed a texture that the standard rock palette could not provide. Mike Pinder and his new toy provided the breakthrough.
"And then Mike Pinder said he’d just got an instrument called the Mellotron. He rediscovered it and thought it would be good for my songs and his songs, so he said, 'Play it again.' And Nights in White Satin went da da da da da da da on the Mellotron and that was the key," Hayward says. "Everybody else suddenly thought, oh, that’s interesting. And then everybody wanted to find a part to play. Not that there’s much. It’s hardly anything on the record, Dan, so there’s not much to play anyway. Just a lot of echoes. Very quickly we were doing it on stage and recorded it first for the BBC, as a matter of fact."
Before Hayward and John Lodge joined, the Moody Blues were a different beast entirely. They were a rhythm and blues outfit, chasing the ghost of Bessie Smith in a way that did not quite fit their DNA.
"Well, I think, yes, that’s right. A rhythm and blues band doing covers and Mike didn’t want to do covers," Hayward says. "I think that was quite clear and I was lousy at rhythm and blues and I think even Ray was, so our purpose was to try and get our own songs into it somehow. The first couple of months when I was there, we would do a set of covers, 45 minutes, and then we would do our own songs, and you can guess which ones didn’t go down as well as the other. The first set went down better."
Hayward’s writing process has always been tethered to the acoustic guitar. One specific 12-string has a history that reads like a Guy Ritchie script involving Lonnie Donegan and a missing instrument.
"Well, yes, I got the guitar from Lonnie Donegan. He had a few guitars up in his loft above his bungalow and he gave it to me to fix up," Hayward says. "So, I did fix it up and I started playing with it. I understood that he gave it to me and I didn’t have anything else. I only had a Telecaster, so I was writing on that guitar."
The guitar eventually vanished, taken by a member of Donegan’s circle under the guise of a "loan" that lasted decades.
"A couple of months later, me and Graeme were out and Lonnie’s guitar player came round while our girlfriends were at the flat and said, 'Oh, you know that guitar? Can we borrow it for something?' My girlfriend gave it to him and he never came back. I bought it back not long ago as a matter of fact," Hayward says.
Recognition has come in waves for Hayward. Last year, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire. It is a formal nod from the Crown, a far cry from the sweaty rehearsal rooms of West London.
"I was, yeah. In the Queen’s last birthday honours list, it was absolutely wonderful. I was thrilled and I’m pleased about that," Hayward says.
But the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction remains the most emotionally complex milestone. It arrived late. Too late for Ray Thomas, who passed away just weeks before the ceremony. The induction felt less like a trophy and more like a hard-won victory for the fans who had campaigned for years.
"You’re absolutely right Dan. You put it very well. Ray had died only a few weeks before, which was very sad," Hayward says. "None of us had seen him for quite a long time. He left the band in 2003, I think it was but Mike (Pinder) was there, and he came to see me on a couple of solo gigs not long before, so I’d seen him. But yeah, for the Moody Blues fans, it was a real validation of all the music that they really love and that’s tremendously important. For us as a group, I think it was a wonderful thing. We were all very thrilled, and rightly so, and particularly as we were inducted in the same company as Nina Simone. Should we be in the same town, let alone the same breath? It was a great night and it was a big thrill. My family was there. My grandson, it was just brilliant. Brilliant."
The fans were the engine behind the induction. They turned the voting process into a relentless campaign that the Hall’s committee could no longer ignore.
"The fans made it happen," Hayward says. "They had a little window when they were let in by that committee or panel of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and man, they took it. It was just like a steamroller. Then it’s like, OK, you want votes? There, you’ve got them. It was fantastic."
Even with the accolades, Hayward is not content to live in a museum. He is still recording, still tinkering with new sounds alongside his longtime partner Alberto Parodi in Italy. But he is realistic about the modern industry. He is not chasing a viral TikTok moment; he is making music for the sake of the craft.
"I released a couple of other songs as well, just doing them in my own time," Hayward says. "I don’t want to release anything now that I’m not pleased with. I’ve worked with the same recording partner for a long time, Alberto Parodi, not far from here in Genoa, and I think we’re asked to do a lot of stuff because people come to us about The Moodys. There’s been a lot of videos and recordings of my solo things and The Moodys are always sort of remastering. There’s always something to do, but new things, I don’t tend to finish them until the time is right. I’m not sure who’s listening anymore, and I think I’m back to the days when I’m in the world of buying a 45. I don’t prefer that, but that’s what I think I do now. I hear a snippet of a song and I find out what it is and then I’m hooked on it."
There is a sense of duty in his continued presence on the road. At 77, the voice is still there, and the hands still find the chords.
"I think I find I almost have a duty to do it," Hayward says. "As long as my voice and my hands can get around the guitar, as long as it’s there, I’ll be doing it. I’m offered a lot of stuff. It’s whether I say yes, that’s the only thing, and I’m very happy, surprised to be even asked to be in your part of Canada. I’m absolutely thrilled. It was never a particularly great area for the Moody’s to be, but I’m thrilled to be asked and I hope after one time I’ll be asked back. That’s the way I think."
The "Moody Sound" was a product of a specific time and place—specifically Decca’s Studio 1. It was a vast, airy space that allowed the flute and acoustic guitar to breathe in a way that a cramped rock studio never could.
"Oh, that’s interesting. Yeah, I think it did," Hayward says. "The old Decca studios where we recorded, you know, you asked me before about Nights, that is really the sound of those studios and the flute and acoustic guitar. Graeme maybe wasn’t the best drummer in the world, but the sound of his drums was always so nice and they just suited that studio. That’s why it worked for us. I think there were a lot of other groups in Decca downstairs in the rock and roll studio that were absolutely great. We did a couple of tracks down there. Fly Me High was one of the first things I ever did with the band. But when we moved upstairs to the number one studio, this vast space with the height, we just sounded right in there. With the flute, we created something that wasn’t deliberate, but that became our identity in there. We realized what works for us and I know what works for me now. Acoustic guitars, Mike, Julie and Carmen. That sound works for me."
Even the visual legacy of the band is being updated. A recent lyric video for "Tuesday Afternoon" captured a vibe that Hayward initially doubted but eventually embraced.
"It was the people who own the rights to do that kind of stuff and not particularly me," he admits. "If you said live video, it’s me and Alberto and David Minasian and we’re done properly. But that Tuesday Afternoon video, I wasn’t sure about it, but after a while, I respect yourself and other people. I respect my family and they saw it and said, 'Yeah, that’s great!' I became convinced."
When asked if the visual transportive nature of the video was the goal, Hayward simply nods to the collaborative nature of his current era.
"That’s pretty much what happened," he says.
Windsor is waiting. The Chrysler Theatre is a far cry from the Royal Albert Hall, but for Hayward, the "vibe" remains the same. He is a man who understands that his songs are no longer just his—they belong to the room. And on May 26, that room will be full.
