Chords for The Moody Blues - Norda Mullen interview

[Am] _ _ [G] _ _ _ _ [G] _ _
[E] Justin and John have written some other songs, but Reza's just out there with the lyrics and the ideas of them.
It's so amazing.
And the fans know this and they always want [N] him to do more. _
So when he left, I mean, I know the fans miss him like mad.
And when he left, nobody said he'd left.
_ And they were just sort of saying, oh, well, he'll be back.
I do miss him as a_
more as a chap and a friend, I miss him.
Than inside the group, because I don't believe his heart was in it in the last few years.
But in the mid-90s, I had a solo album out.
It's called The View From The Hill.
And it did okay and had some success and it took me around the world and made a lot of friends with it.
But I did a showcase in Los Angeles with a girl called Norda Mullin, who plays flute and guitar and sings.
I had done a Bugs Bunny on Broadway thing on piccolo for Warner Brothers.
And I believe that either Justin or the agent, Robert Norman, went to a conductor who had conducted me playing piccolo.
And he said, we need a flutist that can really play but can look the part of a rock and roll flutist,
instead of looking like a classical, you know, I don't mean to criticize classical musicians, but you know the look.
So this conductor said, I've got the perfect name for you.
And I think Justin or whoever said, give me 20 names.
And this guy said, this is the only name you're going to need.
Because when you're replacing a flute player, where do you find a rock and roll flute player?
There's one.
It's probably going to be on this series, isn't there, that everybody knows.
And funnily enough, I did meet Ian Anderson only recently.
I've known him for years, but we met again recently in Germany last year.
I think it was, was it 50 years of rock and roll, big TV show in Germany,
kind of three hour special covering the whole deal from Bill Haley and the Comets to the Rasmus or whatever was current at the time and on the show.
And I discovered the Moody Blues were on.
And I knew that Ray Thomas, flute player, had left.
So I thought, this is my big chance.
If I ask nicely, maybe they'll let me play, you know, I'll get to play flute in Nights of White Sasson.
Because I figured that's the one they would do, which of course they did.
But my heart fell when I saw that standing next to Justin Hayward,
there was a rather attractive young lady flute player who'd been enlisted after the demise of Ray Thomas.
So, I saw there's still no chance.
He came up to me in the corridor with this thing.
He says, why didn't you ask me when Ray left?
I said, well, it's just the solo, you know.
He said, I've always wanted to do that solo.
_ So, whether he meant it or not, I don't know.
But I remembered Norda, _ this girl, and she's from Mississippi.
She's Irish from Mississippi.
She's a wonderful combination.
I found her in Los Angeles doing a lot of session work and film work.
And she'd been brought up on the flute parts of the Moody Blues.
I had five older siblings.
Since I did grow up in Mississippi, I was influenced by a lot of different kinds of music.
But my older siblings were all kind of hippies and going through their whole 60s things.
And one of their favorite bands was the Moody Blues.
I remember a particular time when one of my sisters was having a party when I was maybe 12, I guess,
or 10 or 12.
And I wasn't allowed to go to the party, but it was going on in the next room.
And the door was closed.
And they kept playing this album, I guess it was Days of Future Past, that has Nights in White Satin on it.
And _ this song kept coming up, Nights in White Satin.
And I had my flute with me because I didn't have anything to do.
I couldn't go to this party.
So I sat and figured out the flute solo from Nights in White Satin.
And that was the first time in my life I ever realized I could play by ear on the flute.
And that I didn't have to read music to play because I'm very classically trained.
So that was a real awakening for me because it kind of freed me up as far as the music reading thing.
And how ironic that it was Nights in White Satin, which now I get to play nightly with these guys.
And it's quite an honor.
She knew all of the parts.
I found her.
We got together in Las Vegas, I think.
I introduced her to the rest of the guys.
And it was fantastic.
But it worked great.
I had about a month to learn the whole show because that's when Ray, I guess, had told them that he wouldn't be joining them.
And then we rehearsed for four straight days in Philadelphia.
And it went just fine.
It was great.
It's been a blast ever since.
This band is so lucky.
Where on earth do you go and find a classically trained virtuoto flutist with the heart of a rock and roller?
_ I mean, how did we come up with that one?
_ Yep, yep.
Not a problem.
That rock thing, which again, I don't even know if I'm that good at it because it's very, very hard.
Like I said, when you've been trained, it's so hard to back up, you know, and to just do a whole different style.
I mean, maybe it's not so hard, wouldn't be hard for Ian Anderson because he wasn't trained classically.
But I think when you're trained in such a regimented way, it's very much a challenge.
It's always been a difficult instrument to integrate into rock music because it's an acoustic instrument.
It's not easy to amplify.
And you just basically have to play it as loudly as you can into a microphone.
We rehearsed for about four days in Philadelphia.
And then it was the very last day that it occurred to me because I was so busy with the project I had, which was to learn.
I play rhythm guitar and I have to sing backgrounds and I have to learn all the flute stuff.
It really didn't dawn on me until that very last day.
And I just said, Justin, you know, I don't know.
I mean, I'm replacing Ray.
They're going to hate me.
You know, they're going to throw tomatoes at me.
And he's, oh, you know, he said probably some funny comment.
I can't remember.
But and it really did scare me.
And I was very sensitive to that because I'm sensitive anyway.
But I was sensitive to it.
And, you know, the first tour was very rough and I was very insecure about it.
And I would notice I can see people.
We can see a lot more than people think we can see.
And I could see their reaction.
And sometimes it wasn't good.
You know, and then they just kind of wanted to hate me for whatever reason.
I don't know why.
I mean, it wasn't like I locked Ray up in a closet and said, you're not going to do this anymore.
It was Ray's choice, you know.
But they kind of treated it like it was my [B] problem, my idea, which it just [Em] so wasn't.
So [D] then I just decided, you know what, I'm doing this.
I've been hired for a job.
It's a professional job.
I'm [G] just going to think of it in a professional [C] sense.
And they can have whatever problem they want to have.
And then, but then by the second tour, it all [D] just kind of flipped.
And they just [Am] somehow decided just to like me.
And now it's great.
[Fm] But it was definitely difficult at first.
I'm going to sing a song.
_ [G] _ _ _ [Em] _
[C] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ Lean on me. _
[F] I'll be there.
Whenever [G] you need [C] someone to share.
_ In [F] every breath.
In [G] every dream.
[A] You left [F] somewhere.
_ Till [Em] tomorrow will [Am] be just like [C] it was.
When we were [D] young.
[Dm] Today, the Moody Blues continue with the core trio of Hayward, [Em] Lodge and Edge.
I couldn't foresee a