Ray Thomas (born on 29 December, 1941, in Stourport-on-Severn, England) is an English musician best known as the flutist and a singer and composer in the rock band The Moody Blues.

Career

In the 1960s, Thomas joined the Birmingham Youth Choir. He began singing with various Birmingham blues and soul groups, including the Saints and Sinners as well as the Ramblers. Taking up the harmonica, he then started bands with keyboardist and future Moody Blues bandmate Mike Pinder. The two performed together in such bands as El Riot and the Rebels and the Krew Cats in Hamburg, Germany, at times opening for a then-little-known band called The Beatles.

Thomas and Pinder then recruited guitarist Denny Laine along with drummer Graeme Edge and bassist Clint Warwick to form a new, blues-based band. The name of the band, chosen by Pinder, was "The Moody Blues." The name was a subtle reference to Duke Ellington's "Mood Indigo."

Their first album yielded a #1 UK hit (#10 in the US) with "Go Now." Following this album, Laine and Warwick left the band. Thomas suggested an old bandmate, bassist John Lodge, as a replacement for Warwick and also recruited Justin Hayward to replace Denny Laine.

With its new lineup, the band released 7 successful albums between 1967 and 1972, and became known for a pioneering orchestral sound. Some of Thomas' compositions on these albums are "Another Morning" and "Twilight Time" (from Days of Future Passed), "Dr. Livingstone, I Presume" and "Legend of a Mind" (from In Search of the Lost Chord), "And the Tide Rushes In" (from A Question of Balance), "Floating" (from To Our Children's Children's Children), "Nice to Be Here" (from Every Good Boy Deserves Favour) and "For My Lady" (from Seventh Sojourn).

In 1974, the band took a hiatus (reported at the time as a breakup), during which the members all did solo projects. Thomas released the albums, From Mighty Oaks (1975) and Hopes Wishes and Dreams (1976). It was during this period that he earned his nickname "The Flute." Within the band he is also known as "Tomo" (pronounced tOm-O).

The band then reformed (largely minus Mike Pinder who was only with them for the first album after the reformation) and continued to release albums throughout the '80s, with Thomas' "Veteran Cosmic Rocker" being prominently featured on the album Long Distance Voyager. This song has often been regarded as a theme song for the band itself as a whole and for Thomas in particular, and it again features his use of the harmonica. During the mid 1980s, Thomas temporarily stopped writing new songs for the band. His last three songwriting contributions for the Moodies include "Celtic Sonant" (1991), "Never Blame the Rainbows for the Rain," (1991), and "My Little Lovely" (1999).

Although he most commonly plays flute, Thomas is actually a multi-instrumentalist, playing various other woodwind instruments, such as the oboe on the album In Search of the Lost Chord. The 1972 video for "I'm Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band)" features Thomas playing the saxophone, although Mike Pinder has stated on his website that this was just for effect in the video, and that Thomas was not the sax player on the actual recording.

Thomas retired at the end of 2002. The Moody Blues - now consisting only of Hayward, Lodge and Edge - have released one album, December, since his departure from the band.

• Official Ray Thomas Biography

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