The Moody Blues ( B6 )

They had the support, however, of Decca A&R manager Hugh Mendl, who had been instrumental in the recent establishment of London/Decca's new subsidiary imprint Deram Records. With Mendl's backing, the Moody Blues were offered a deal to make a rock and roll version of Antonín Dvořák's New World Symphony to promote the company's new Deramic Stereo Sound audio format in return for which the group would be forgiven their debt.

The Moody Blues agreed, but insisted that they be given artistic control of the project, and Mendl (as executive producer) was able to provide this despite Decca's notoriously tight-fisted attitude to their artists. The group was unable to complete the assigned project, which was abandoned. However, they managed to convince Peter Knight, who had been assigned to arrange and conduct the orchestral interludes, to collaborate on a recording that used the band's original material instead.

Deram executives were initially sceptical about the hybrid style of the resulting concept album. Released in November 1967, Days of Future Passed peaked at number 27 on the British LP chart. Five years later it reached number 3 on the Billboard chart in the US. The LP was a song cycle or concept album that takes place over the course of a single day. The album drew inspiration in production and arrangement from the pioneering use of the classical instrumentation by the Beatles, to whom Pinder had introduced the mellotron that year. It took the form to new heights using the London Festival Orchestra, a loose affiliation of Decca's classical musicians given a fictitious name, adding the term "London" to sound impressive, to provide an orchestral linking framework to the Moodies' already written and performed songs, plus overture and conclusion sections on the album, including backing up Graeme Edge's opening and closing poems recited by Pinder. Strings were added to the latter portion of the album version of Hayward's "Nights in White Satin" (absent on the single) but the orchestra and group never performed together on the recording, with the band's rock instrumentation centred on Pinder's mellotron. 

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