Justin Hayward has many stories to tell.
And on April 21, the front man of the legendary Moody Blues who wrote songs such as “Nights in White Satin”, “Tuesday Afternoon” and “Your Wildest Dreams”, will be at the Miller Theater as part of his “The Story in Your Eyes” tour.
“There’s five of us most of the time on stage, and we will be presenting these shows in the way that I wrote these songs. They are more like my original demos. That’s what it sounds like,” said Hayward in a recent phone interview. “These are venues that suit me. There’s an intimacy between me and the audience. I like talking to them and I think they like talking to me.”
The British born singer knew early in his life that music would play a large role. He just didn’t know how huge it would become.
He recalled the morning assemblies of his early school days with Miss Martin playing the piano and children singing from the book, “Hymns Ancient and Modern”.
“I thought ‘I really like this. I really love this.’ I knew from that moment on that music would be in my future…I didn’t know that I was going to make it but even if I hadn’t had the success with my songs, I think I’d still be doing it now in a bar somewhere,” he said.
But his songs have taken him far beyond the local pub.
As part of the Moody Blues from 1966 until the band dissolved in 2018, the singer-songwriter has experienced many highs in his musical career. Hayward named “Nights in White Satin” hitting No. 1 on the charts five years after he wrote it, being inducted into the Rock ‘N Roll Hall of Fame in 2018 and being featured on a 1999 episode of “The Simpsons” as some of his most memorable highlights.
He was honored by Queen Elizabeth shortly before her death in 2023 being named as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. She died before a ceremony could be scheduled. He went through the formal ceremony with King Charles at Windsor Castle.
Although the band, who sold more than 70 million albums worldwide never received a Grammy Award for an individual song, the Moody Blues were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.
While he’s achieved many accolades, Hayward said the magic is in the music and playing in front of a live audience.
“Music has the ability to take you back to a moment in time and give you the gift of reliving that moment whenever you hear it. It’s a mystical kind of thing. We can play ‘Nights in White Satin” during a sound check technically perfectly, but when an audience comes into a room, they bring some magic with them, with their own relationship with these songs. The magic is created in the room. It’s really quite tangible,” he said.
For his Augusta concert, Hayward will be joined by Julie Ragins, Karmen Gould, Billy Adamson and Josh Johnson, who he said are exceptional musicians.
“There are certain songs I can’t get off stage without playing – ‘Nights in White Satin’, ‘Tuesday Afternoon’ ‘Wildest Dreams’, but there are deeper cuts that resonate with me that I play,” he said.
Hayward said he continues to write music and has a few songs in the can waiting to be released. He doesn’t plan to play any of those but he doesn’t rule it out completely.
Audiences should come expecting to hear their favorites but allow for the element of surprise.
“Unless it’s on the spur of the moment, you never know. I present the songs that I love,” he said.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years. She’s won multiple Georgia Press Association awards, is the recipient of the 2018 Greater Augusta Arts Council’s media award and was named Augusta Magazine’s best local writer in 2024 and 2025. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.
