Graeme Edge, the drummer and co-founder of the British band the Moody Blues, for whom he wrote many of the spoken-word poems that, appended to songs like “Nights in White Satin,” made the group a pioneer in the progressive rock movement of the 1960s and ’70s, died on Thursday at his home in Bradenton, Fla.
The Moody Blues first gained attention as part of the British Invasion that dominated the American rock scene in the mid-1960s.
“Nights in White Satin” was not originally a hit, but it reached the Top 10 when it was rereleased in 1972.
The band found a second wind in the 1980s, when it set aside its prog-rock past and embraced a synthesizer-driven pop sound.
“I never get tired of playing the hits,” Mr. Edge told The Sarasota Herald-Tribune in 2008.
Graeme Charles Edge was born on March 30, 1941, in Rochester, a city in southeastern England.
When he was about 10, he heard Bill Haley and the Comets’ “Ten Little Indians” on the radio and immediately fell in love with rock ’n’ roll.
When that band’s drummer quit unexpectedly, Mr. Edge was hired as a temporary replacement.
He founded and played in several bands before he and four other musicians — Denny Laine, Ray Thomas, Clint Warwick and Mr. Pinder — formed the MB Five in 1964.
They were big admirers of the Beatles’ use of an orchestra on some of their songs, and they decided to develop a sound that blended rock with classical instrumentation.
The Moody Blues have sold more than 70 million albums and in 2018 were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.