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David Justin Hayward (born 14 October 1946) is an English musician. He was the guitarist and frontman of the rock band the Moody Blues from 1966 until that group's dissolution in 2018. He became the group's principal vocalist and its most prolific songwriter over the 1967–1974 period, and composed several international hit singles for the band. Singles written by Hayward for the Moody Blues include "Nights in White Satin", "Tuesday Afternoon", "Question", "The Voice", "I Know You're Out There Somewhere" and "English Sunset"; he wrote 20 of the group's 27 post-1967 singles. He also has a solo career. His first album outside the Moody Blues, Blue Jays, a collaboration with John Lodge, reached the UK top five in 1975. The single "Blue Guitar", recorded with 10cc as the backing band, reached the UK top ten in 1975, and his 1978 recording of "Forever Autumn" from Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds reached the UK top five. In 2018 Hayward was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Moody Blues and in 2022 was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to the music industry. Early life and early career Hayward was born in Dean Street, Swindon, Wiltshire, the son of two teachers. He was educated at Shrivenham Primary School in nearby Shrivenham, Oxfordshire, and at the Commonweal School in Swindon. Tall for his age, at Commonweal School he acquired the nickname "legs". He was playing in several bands as early as the age of 15, when he bought a Gibson 335, a guitar that appears on nearly all of his records throughout his career, and a Vox AC30 amplifier. All previous guitars were "unsatisfactory" and required modification. He performed with local Swindon groups in clubs and dance halls playing mostly Buddy Holly songs. One of Hayward's early groups was All Things Bright, which opened for The Hollies and Brian Poole and the Tremeloes. When he was 18 he signed an eight-year publishing contract as a songwriter with the skiffle artist and record producer Lonnie Donegan, a move Hayward later regretted, as it meant the rights to all his songs written before 1974 would always be owned by Donegan's Tyler Music. In 1965 he answered an advertisement in Melody Maker and auditioned as guitarist for Marty Wilde and he went on to work with Wilde and his wife in The Wilde Three. The Moody Blues In 1966, after answering another ad in Melody Maker, this time placed by Eric Burdon of The Animals, Hayward was contacted by Mike Pinder of the Moody Blues after Burdon had passed on Hayward's letter and demo discs to Pinder. Within a few days, Hayward had replaced departing Moody Blues vocalist and guitarist Denny Laine. At the same time bassist John Lodge replaced the departed Clint Warwick. After beginning by singing the old blues-inspired repertoire of the Moody Blues' 1964–1965 era, Hayward's initial artistic contribution to the Moody Blues was his song "Fly Me High", which was a Decca single early in 1967. It failed to chart, but gave the revised band a new direction forward from the R&B sound they had been largely producing up to that point. Hayward's driving rocker "Leave This Man Alone" was then used as the B-side of their next single on Decca, backing Pinder's "Love And Beauty" (1967), the first Moody Blues record to feature the Mellotron. Hayward and Lodge's integration into the Moody Blues along with Pinder's use of the Mellotron sparked greater commercial success and recognition for the band, transforming them into one of pop music's biggest-selling acts. The 1967 album Days of Future Passed, one of the first and most influential symphonic rock albums, gave rise to the Hayward-penned singles "Tuesday Afternoon" and "Nights in White Satin". The latter record went on to sell over two million copies, charting three times in the UK (1967, 1972 and 1979), and has been recorded by many other recording artists. Hayward's B-side song "Cities" was an early ecology-themed item. The Moody Blues' attempts to come up with another hit single during 1967–68 had them record three other Hayward compositions; "Long Summer Days", "King and Queen" and "What Am I Doing Here?", all of which were then left unissued, but together with unissued songs by Pinder and Lodge they later formed the 'studio side four' of Decca's 1977 release Caught Live Plus Five which largely comprised a December 1969 live recording of a concert at the Royal Albert Hall (issued against the group's wishes). Hayward also co-wrote with Ray Thomas the album tracks "Visions of Paradise", "Are You Sitting Comfortably?", "Watching and Waiting", and, much later, "Never Blame the Rainbows for the Rain". He later co-wrote many songs with John Lodge for the Moody Blues, notably "Gemini Dream" (a US chart hit), "Meet Me Halfway", "Talkin' Talkin'", "Want to Be With You", "Once is Enough", "Strange Times" and "Sooner or Later (Walkin' on Air)", among others. In addition to delivering the lead vocals on his own compositions, Hayward took a featured lead or co-lead vocal on other band members' songs, including "Dawn is a Feeling" (Pinder); "Gimmie A Little Somethin'", "Isn't Life Strange", "Candle of Life" (Lodge); "After You Came", "I'll Be Level With You", "The Spirit" and "Nothing Changes" (Edge). Hayward's songs opened each of the Moody Blues albums in their 'post-Mike Pinder era' since Long Distance Voyager in 1981, and his songs, both solo compositions and those co-written with Lodge, plus his lead vocals, harmony voice and guitar playing, were a major factor in the band's work from 1981 onward. Their album sales from 1978 to the present total more than 60 million. This is the regularly quoted estimate of their album sales, since the total sales of their albums before 1978 are disputed owing to lack of official record company data, However, the period 1967 to 1974 was when their albums (and singles) were charting highest in the UK and US plus worldwide (album track "Melancholy Man" made number one in France as a single in 1970) - Days of Future Passed topped the US album charts on reissue in 1972, then was followed into the album charts by the new studio album Seventh Sojourn. Hiatus and Blue Jays / solo work In 1974, the Moody Blues decided to take what ended up being a four-year break from performing and recording. Hayward continued working with Lodge and producer Tony Clarke, using musicians from the Moody Blues' label, Threshold, and sounding very much like the mother group. Together, they had a hit in 1975 with "Blue Guitar" (a Hayward recording with the band 10cc) and released an album titled Blue Jays. In 1977, Hayward recorded his first solo album Songwriter. He enjoyed international solo success in 1978 when he appeared on Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds concept album, which yielded his hits "Forever Autumn" and "The Eve of the War". Wayne later contributed to Hayward's 1980 album Night Flight. Hayward issued a rare non-album .... Discover the Jeff Moody popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Jeff Moody books.