''Long Distance Voyager'' is the tenth album by

the Moody Blues The Moody Blues were an English rock band formed in Birmingham in 1964, initially consisting of keyboardist Mike Pinder, multi-instrumentalist Ray Thomas, guitarist Denny Laine, drummer Graeme Edge and bassist Clint Warwick. The group came to ...

, first released in May 1981 on the group's Threshold record label. It was the group's first album featuring

keyboardist A keyboardist or keyboard player is a musician who plays keyboard instruments. Until the early 1960s musicians who played keyboards were generally classified as either pianists or organists. Since the mid-1960s, a plethora of new musical instr ...

Patrick Moraz Patrick Philippe Moraz (born 24 June 1948) is a Swiss musician, film composer and songwriter, best known for his tenures as keyboardist in the rock bands Yes and The Moody Blues. Born into a musical family, Moraz learned music at a young age a ...

(who previously had worked with bands such as

Refugee A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution.

and Yes) in place of co-founder

Mike Pinder Michael Thomas Pinder (born 27 December 1941) is an English rock musician, and is a founding member and original keyboard player of the British rock group the Moody Blues. He left the group following the recording of the band's ninth album ''O ...

, who left after ''

Octave In music, an octave ( la, octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been refer ...

'' in 1978. Upon release in 1981, ''Long Distance Voyager'' became the Moody Blues' second American number one album, and was also the source of the US Top 20 singles "

Gemini Dream "Gemini Dream" is a 1981 single by the progressive rock band The Moody Blues. It reached number 12 on the US Hot 100, as well as number 1 on the Canada ''RPM'' Top 100 Singles chart. It is ranked as the 28th biggest Canadian hit of 1981. Histor ...

" (#12) and "

The Voice The Voice may refer to: Fictional entities * The Voice or Presence, a fictional representation of God in DC Comics * The Voice (''Dune''), a fictional ability in the ''Dune'' universe * The Voice, a character in the American TV series ''Cleo ...

" (#15). It also continued their winning streak in their native United Kingdom, reaching #7 there. In November 2008, the album was remastered and released on CD with one extra track.

Overview

The songs on ''Long Distance Voyager'' were recorded at the band's own Threshold Studios. The songs were recorded and mixed by Greg Jackman, while

Pip Williams Philip Malcolm "Pip" Williams (born 7 October 1947) is a record producer, arranger and guitarist, best known for producing albums for Status Quo and The Moody Blues and acting as well as supervising the orchestra parts and orchestra arrangem ...

was the album's producer. Supplementing the Moody Blues—

Justin Hayward David Justin Hayward (born 14 October 1946) is an English musician best known as the lead singer, songwriter and guitarist of the rock band the Moody Blues. Hayward became the group's principal lead guitarist and vocalist over the 1967–1974 ...

, John Lodge,

Ray Thomas Raymond Thomas (29 December 1941 – 4 January 2018) was an English multi-instrumentalist, flautist, singer, founding member and composer in the English progressive rock band the Moody Blues. His flute solo on the band's 1967 hit single "Night ...

Graeme Edge Graeme Charles Edge (30 March 1941 – 11 November 2021) was an English musician, songwriter and poet, best known as the co-founder and drummer of the English band the Moody Blues. In addition to his work with the Moody Blues, Edge worked as t ...

, and

—was a string section performed by the New World Philharmonic, which Pip Williams

arranged In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orchest ...

. ''Long Distance Voyager'' is only partially a

concept album A concept album is an album whose tracks hold a larger purpose or meaning collectively than they do individually. This is typically achieved through a single central narrative or theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, or lyrical. Som ...

, as only half of the songs relate to the "voyager" referred to in the album's title. The final three tracks comprise a mini-suite that combines themes of carnival jesters and the chaos experienced backstage at a rock show. The cover for the album was a painting entitled "Punch" (1840) by Thomas Webster from the Art Union of Glasgow,Boston Athenaeum Digital Collections.
/ref> while the sleeve was based on a concept by the Moody Blues which was designed by Cream, who were in charge of the album's cover artwork.

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

's '' Voyager'' spacecraft is at the top of the front side of the album cover. Both ''

Voyager 1 ''Voyager 1'' is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977, as part of the Voyager program to study the outer Solar System and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. Launched 16 days after its twin ''Voyager 2'', ''Voya ...

'' and ''

Voyager 2 ''Voyager 2'' is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, to study the outer planets and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. As a part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, ''Voyager 1'', on a ...

'''s flybys of

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...

were in the news in 1980–81.

Original track listing

Personnel

– vocals, guitars * John Lodge – vocals, bass guitar *

– vocals, flute, harmonica *

– drums, percussion *

– keyboards, synthesizers, arrangements

Additional personnel

* B. J. Cole –

pedal steel guitar The pedal steel guitar is a Console steel guitar, console-type of steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings to enable playing more varied and complex music than any previous steel guitar design. Like all s ...

on "In My World" *New World Philharmonic – orchestrations *Pip Williams – string arrangements and director of the orchestra *Dave Symonds - spoken word

Production

– producer, string arrangements *Greg Jackman – recording engineer, mixing *Norman Goodman – assistant to Greg Jackman *Melvyn Abrahams – mastering *

Ted Jensen Ted Jensen (born September 19, 1954) is an American mastering engineer, known for having mastered many recordings, including the Eagles' ''Hotel California'', Green Day's '' American Idiot'' and Norah Jones' ''Come Away with Me''. Biography Ted ...

– mastering for US release *Cream – sleeve design, artwork

Charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

External links

*
''Long Distance Voyager'' at Yahoo! Music.
{{Authority control The Moody Blues albums 1981 albums Threshold Records albums Albums recorded at RAK Studios