Tuesday's List: My Favorite Songs of the Late Ray Thomas

Just who was Ray Thomas, you might ask.  He was one of the founding members of the English rock band The Moody Blues whose specialty was the flute...and who wrote and performed some of the group's most beautiful and memorable songs.  Some of these are commonly known, but most remain hidden as "deep tracks" on their albums.  With the arrival of singer/songwriters Justin Haywood and John Lodge in the late sixties, the Moody Blues reinvented themselves as one of the early progressive rock bands, steering away from their earlier more blues-orientation.  Although Haywood and Lodge penned most of the music, the band encouraged everyone to contribute...and that included Thomas.  Like the Beatles' George Harrison on their many albums, he was allotted one or two songs.  Usually, they had either a psychedelic or whimsical mood to them...or a curious mixture of the two.  The first Ray Thomas song I heard was Legend of a Mind, which got a lot of album rock radio station airplay around 1968-71...you might recognize it better from the repeated refrain "Timothy Leary's dead".  Another Thomas song popularized on the radio was For My Lady, from the 1972 Seventh Sojourn album...sometimes stations played it together with the more known Isn't Life Strange...

You may wonder why I'm picking this time to list my favorite songs written and performed by Ray Thomas.  Sadly, he died on January 4th at the age of 76, after a long bout with cancer.  He did live to hear of his longtime group's selection to enter the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but not to experience their induction, coming up this March.  I will miss Ray and always treasure the wonderful music he has given us.  And now, I rank my favorite songs of his, each entry followed by its album and year of release. Ray Thomas collaborated on some of his songs with other members, and I included their names following those songs...

1 FOR MY LADY...................Seventh Sojourn (1972)
2 LAZY DAY..........................On the Threshold of a Dream (1969)
3 LEGEND OF A MIND.........In Search of the Lost Chord (1968)
4 FLOATING...........................To Our Children's Children's Children (1969)
5 ARE YOU SITTING COMFORTABLY? (with Justin Haywood)....On the Threshold of a Dream (1969)
6 CELTIC SONANT................Keys of the Kingdom (1991)
7 VISIONS OF PARADISE (with Justin Haywood)...In Search of the Lost Chord (1968)
8 NICE TO BE HERE..............Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (1971)
9 AND THE TIDE RUSHES IN .....A Question of Balance (1970)
10 MY LITTLE LOVELY.......Strange Times (1999)
11 ANOTHER MORNING......Days of Future Passed (1967)
12 ETERNITY ROAD.............To Our Children's Children's Children (1969)
13 WATCHING AND WAITING (with Justin Haywood)...To Our Children's Children's Children (1969)
14 DR. LIVINGSTONE, I PRESUME...In Search of the Lost Chord (1969)
15 TWILIGHT TIME...............Days of Future Passed (1967)
16 DEAR DIARY.....................On the Threshold of a Dream (1969)
17 THE BALANCE (with Graeme Edge).....A Question of Balance (1970)
18 SORRY................................The Present (1983)
19 I AM.....................................The Present (1983)
20 UNDER MOONSHINE.......Octave (1977)