Imagine

Imagine

Quiz by Sharon Michiko Yoneda

artists:   Music Travel Love (Bob and Clint Moffat)

songwriters:  John Lennon

date released:  1971 by John Lennon; 2021 by MTL

*Teacher alert:  With a studio in Nature and very simple acoustics, the lyrics are clearly heard and easy for students to hear.  This is key feature for using MLT in the classroom.  In addition, the songs are American classics and uncomplicated as opposed to the productions of hip-hop and pop where grammar is often skewered and pronunciation of words altered for rhyming.  

Music Love Travel is the latest iteration of the talented Moffat family. The Moffatts were a Canadian pop/rock country band composed of four brothers: Scott, Clint, Bob, and Dave Moffatt. Scott was born on March 30, 1983, in Whitehorse, Yukon, and 11 months later, triplets were born to the family in Vancouver, British Columbia, on March 8, 1984. Bob and Clint are identical twins, while Dave is a fraternal triplet —three plus one equals four Moffats.  Now the band is down to two; yet, other brothers join in as guests, so the family is still united  and embodied in the Love.  

Growing up in Faro, Yukon, Tumbler Ridge and later Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, the Moffatts learned to sing early in their lives. Their first recording was at Studio 86 in West Edmonton Mall, where they sang the song "Grandpa" by the Judds in 1987. They began singing country music with their mother, Darlana and father, Frank Moffatt. The boys first appeared on stage in 1988 at Timmy's Springtime Telethon. In 1992, after performing at several large-scale country music festivals, the British Columbia Country Music Association nominated the group for five awards.

In 1992, the Moffatt family moved to Branson, Missouri where they performed with The Osmonds at the Osmonds Family Theatre. In March 1993, they moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where they became regulars on TNN's Nashville Now with Ralph Emery. In October, they joined the cast of the Country Tonite Show at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas. In 1994, Country Tonite opened a new theatre in Branson, and the Moffatts became a part of that cast. In 1995, they appeared on Good Morning America and performed "Guns of Love". In 1996, their parents divorced, and they lived primarily with their father, who also managed the group until their 2001 break up.

During their childhood as a foursome, they released three records under Polydor Nashville: "It's a Wonderful World" (1993), "The Moffatts" (1995), and "A Moffatt Christmas" (1996). At the time, it was said that they were the youngest band ever to sign a major label recording contract. They released their first pop album "Chapter I: A New Beginning" (1998). They released one more album "Submodalities" in 2000 before disbanding in 2001. 

In February 2017, Scott, Bob and Clint Moffatt embarked on an extensive promotional tour in Asia for The Moffatts Farewell Tour before being rejoined by Dave in 2018 for the second leg of the Reunion Tour.

The group then splintered, and Bob and Clint have since formed a duo called Music Travel Love.  Accordingly, they do exactly that as they create music with the globe as their studio and recruit locals as a larger family.