Vale, Denny Laine: 'It was a pleasure to know you'

Critically acclaimed English musician and singer-songwriter Denny Laine, best known for his work with the Moody Blues and Paul McCartney’s Beatles breakaway band Wings, has passed away following a brave battle with lung issues. He was 79.

Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Moody Blues in 2018, Laine’s career spanned six decades and included solo work as well as being a founding member of two major bands.

He was born Brian Frederick Arthur Hines in Birmingham, United Kingdom, on 29 October 1944 and learned to play the guitar while he was still in grammar school, greatly inspired by gypsy jazz musician Django Reinhardt.

He began his career as a professional musician at the young age of 12, fronting a band called Denny Laine and the Diplomats.

Laine said he changed his name because “Brian Frederick Hines and the Diplomats wouldn’t work”.

His first name came about because, as Laine explained, “everyone had a backyard and a den to hang out. I think I got that nickname from there.”

Laine took his surname from his sister’s favourite performer Frankie Laine.

Denny Laine and the Diplomats included future glam rocker Roy Wood and drummer Bev Bevan, who went on to achieve fame with the Move and Electric Light Orchestra (ELO).

The band became a fixture on the exciting and explosive “Brum Beat” blues and R&B scene in Birmingham in the early '60s, which spawned the Spencer Davis Group, the Move, the Rockin’ Berries and the Idle Race.

In 1964, Laine left the Diplomats after receiving a call from Ray Thomas and Mike Pinder who wanted to form a new band called M&B 5, which later became the Moody Blues. The progressive rock band went on to sell 70 million albums worldwide and Laine was crucial to their early success, singing lead and playing guitar on their first big hit, ‘Go Now’.

A cover of the Bessie Banks hit released in 1962, the Moody Blues version of ‘Go Now’ topped the UK charts in January 1965 and peaked at number ten on the U.S.-based Billboard Hot 100.

Billboard magazine said the song had a ‘rare beat’ and ‘interesting gospel-like piano support’.

Ben Beaumont-Thomas of The Guardian said the song was ‘powered by one of the most distinctive, melancholic openings to a pop song ever – a downbeat Laine soulfully singing “we’ve already said goodbye” to a newly ex-lover – and a stunningly harmonised chorus’.

Beaumont-Thomas added: ‘Laine’s hurt, jazzy delivery of the song’s top line helped make it a huge success...’

The Moody Blues initially struggled to match the success of ‘Go Now’, achieving a top 30 song in the UK in 1965 with ‘From the Bottom of My Heart (I Love You)’, which was co-written by Laine.

The following year, Laine decided to leave the Moody Blues and was replaced by Justin Hayward, who went on to achieve chart success with psychedelia such as ‘Nights in White Satin’ (released in 1967).

Laine himself considered psychedelic rock to be the way of the future and explored it with the Electric String Band, which shared the bill with the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Procol Harum at the Saville Theatre in London in 1967. Laine also did time with Ginger Baker’s Air Force in 1970 and formed another short-lived band called Balls, which only released one single called ‘Fight for Your Country’ with ‘Janie, Slow Down’ on the B-side. It was more of a curio for serious record collectors than an actual hit.

Much greater chart success was in store for Laine after Paul McCartney decided to leave the Beatles and form another band called Wings with his wife, Linda. Laine and McCartney had become friendly when the Moody Blues were a support act for the Beatles and mutual respect abounded.

McCartney recalled:

“I’d known [Laine] in the past and I just rang him and asked him: ‘What are you doing?’ He said ‘Nothing’ so I said, ‘Right. Come on then!’”

Laine spent the next ten years with the band and, along with the McCartneys, was the only permanent member of Wings.

The band had numerous personnel changes and was reduced to a trio during some of its most successful times, most notably on the album Band On The Run, released in 1973. The third studio album for Paul McCartney and Wings, it spawned two massive hits – ‘Jet’ and the title track, ‘Band On The Run’ – and was the top-selling studio album of 1974 in Australia and the UK.

The multi-talented Laine contributed lead and rhythm guitar, woodwind, keyboards and backing vocals. His backing harmonies with Linda McCartney were critically acclaimed and Laine received various co-writing credits, most notably on the soaring Celtic ballad ‘Mull of Kintyre’, which was a massive hit.

Laine and McCartney wrote the song while overlooking the mull of the title where McCartney was living. A mull in the Scottish dialect means a rounded hill, summit or mountain that is bare of trees.

Laine said:

“Paul and I sat with a bottle of whisky one afternoon outside a cottage in the hills of Kintyre and wrote the song — Paul had written the chorus and we wrote the rest of it together.”

The song, released at Christmas time in 1977, featured a local band of bagpipers and became the biggest-selling album in the UK since the Beatles’ smash hit ‘She Loves You’, released in 1964. ‘Mull Of Kintyre’, the first British single to sell two million copies, held the top spot until 1984 when Band Aid’s ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ topped the charts.

Laine left Wings in 1981 due to McCartney’s reluctance to tour following the assassination of former bandmate John Lennon.

He went on to have a moderately successful solo career and as late as January 2023, Laine announced U.S. tour dates and said he was working on new material for an album.

However, Laine was suffering ill health following a bad bout of COVID in 2022, which led to a collapsed lung. He had multiple surgeries for lung issues and his wife, Elizabeth Hines, started a GoFundMe page to raise money for his medical expenses. Fellow musicians rallied around and organised a benefit concert at the Troubadour Nightclub in West Hollywood, California, on 27 November 2023.

Following Laine’s passing, his wife wrote on Instagram:

My darling husband passed away peacefully early this morning. I was at his bedside, holding his hand as I played his favourite Christmas songs for him.

He fought every day. He was so strong and brave, never complained. All he wanted was to be home with me and his pet kitty, Charley, playing his gypsy guitar.

Denny was an amazingly wonderful person, so loving and sweet to me. He made my days colourful, fun, and full of life — just like him.

My world will never be the same.

Laine received many other accolades, particularly from fellow musicians.

Nancy Wilson of Heart said:

A sad day to lose the great Denny Laine. We recently played Carnegie Hall for the Music of Paul McCartney benefit.

I’ll forever cherish the thrill of singing and playing with him on my birthday. The best gift of all.

Micky Dolenz of The Monkees described Laine as ‘A friend, a wonderful person and a great musician’ while Christopher Cross called him ‘...an icon and a sweet man’.

In a heartfelt tribute on Instagram, Paul McCartney wrote:

I have many fond memories of my time with Denny from the early days when The Beatles toured with the Moody Blues. Our two bands had a lot of respect for each other and a lot of fun together. Denny joined Wings at the outset. He was an outstanding vocalist and guitar player.

We had drifted apart but in recent years managed to reestablish our friendship and share memories of our times together.

Denny was a great talent with a fine sense of humour and was always ready to help other people. He will be missed by all his fans and remembered with great fondness by his friends. I send my condolences and best wishes to his wife, Elizabeth, and family. Peace and love Denny. It was a pleasure to know you. We are all going to miss you.

Reflecting on his long career, Laine said:

“I’m just a normal musician who doesn’t really think about the fame side of it. That always surprises me, the fame side of it. I never really had a big hit, but then people will come up to me and say: ‘I’ve got all of your solo stuff. I know every song you’ve ever written.’ It’s a compliment and it does give you a good feeling. You’ve gotten across to a lot more people than you thought you did.”