Michael Thomas Pinder (27 December 1941 – 24 April 2024) was an English rock musician. He was a founding member and the original keyboard player of the rock group the Moody Blues. He left the group following the recording of the band's ninth album Octave in 1978. Pinder was renowned for his technological contributions to rock music, most notably in the development and emergence of the Mellotron in 1960s rock music. In 2018, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Moody Blues. He was the last surviving member of the group's original lineup.
Pinder was born in Erdington, Birmingham on 27 December 1941.[1] His father, Bert, was a coach driver and his mother, Gladys (née Lay),[2] was a barmaid.[1] As a child, he had an affinity for rocket ships and outer space which earned him the nickname "Mickey the Moon Boy".[3] These interests would be recurring themes throughout his career as a song writer.
He was a member of several bands in Birmingham in his teenage years, among them the Checkers, who won first prize of £50 in a talent competition. In his first band, rock'n'roll combo El Riot and the Rebels, Pinder played support to the Beatles in 1963 in a show at Tenbury.[4] As a member of the short-lived Krew Kats, he played for two months in clubs in Hamburg where the Beatles had played.[1]
Between 1962–63, Pinder worked for 18 months as a development engineer, responsible for testing and quality control,[1] at Streetly Electronics in Streetly, Birmingham, a factory manufacturing the first models of Mellotron in the UK.[5] In May 1964 he left Streetly Electronics to co-found The Moody Blues with Ray Thomas, Denny Laine, Clint Warwick and Graeme Edge.
The band moved to London and signed with Decca Records. Their first single, a cover of Bobby Parker's "Steal Your Heart Away", failed to chart. The breakthrough came with their second single, a cover of Bessie Banks' "Go Now", which became a UK No. 1 and US Top 10 hit in 1965. In the US the band was signed to London Records. The band had further UK hits with a cover of The Drifters' "I Don't Want to Go On Without You" and the Pinder/Laine original "From the Bottom of My Heart". They released their first album, The Magnificent Moodies, in July 1965. Pinder took his first lead vocal on a cover of James Brown's "I Don't Mind". "Bye Bye Bird" from this album was also a hit for the band in France. In the US the album was titled Go Now.
Pinder and Laine began a songwriting partnership, providing most of the band's B-sides from 1964–66, including "You Don't (All The Time)", "And My Baby's Gone", "This Is My House (But Nobody Calls)" and "He Can Win". They progressed to writing A-sides with "From The Bottom of My Heart" and another UK chart hit, "Everyday", in 1965. Two more Pinder/Laine originals, "Boulevard De La Madeline" (1966), and "Life's Not Life" (issued in January 1967 but recorded much earlier in 1966), were recorded for single release before Laine and Warwick left the group in 1966.
A rare, non-UK Pinder/Laine song from this era was "People Gotta Go", released on the France-only EPBoulevard De La Madeline and later included as a bonus track on a CD release of The Magnificent Moodies in 2006. The song is also known as "Send the People Away".
'Core Seven' period
Pinder was partly responsible for the choice of young Swindon guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Justin Hayward to replace Laine. It was Pinder who phoned Hayward and collected him from the railway station. Rod Clarke briefly replaced Warwick as bassist until John Lodge was recruited as bassist/vocalist, completing the 'classic' Moodies line-up.
After trying to continue with R&B material, the band decided to drop covers and record only original songs after an audience member told them their R&B material was rubbish.[1] Hayward's "Fly Me High" was the first single from the revised line-up, released on Decca in early 1967, with Pinder's old-style rocker "Really Haven't Got the Time" as the B-side. A recorded but unreleased Pinder song from this time (1967) was the jazz/blues ballad "Please Think About It". It was included on the Caught Live + 5 double album issued by Decca in 1977.
Pinder acquired a second-hand Mellotron from Streetly Electronics, and after removing all the special effects tapes (train whistles, cock crowing, etc.) and doubling the string section tapes, used it on numerous Moody Blues recordings, beginning with their single "Love and Beauty", a flower power song written and sung by Pinder, which was his only A-side after 1966. He introduced the Mellotron to his friend John Lennon and the Beatles subsequently used one on "Strawberry Fields Forever".[5]
His "Dawn (Is A Feeling)", with lead vocals by Hayward and Pinder singing the bridge section, opened the Days of Future Passed album. Pinder also contributed "The Sunset" and narrated drummer Edge's opening and closing poems, "Morning Glory" and "Late Lament". Days of Future Passed had been planned as a stereo demonstration album for the Decca Deram label, combining rock and orchestral music. It sold more than a million copies in the US.[1]
Pinder, Moody Blues recording engineer Derek Varnals and long-time producer Tony Clarke (a Decca staff producer assigned to them from "Fly Me High" onwards), devised an innovative way of playing and recording the unwieldy Mellotron to make its sound flow in symphonic waves, rather than with the instrument's usual sharp cutoff. This symphonic sound provided the basis of the musical style of the band's seven major albums between 1967 and 1972.
Pinder was one of the first musicians to use the Mellotron in live performance, and he had to rely on the mechanical skills he had gained from his time as an engineer with Streetly Electronics to keep the instrument functioning. In the band's first US concert, the back of the Mellotron fell open and all of the tape strips fell out. Pinder got the instrument back into working order in 20 minutes while the lighting crew entertained the audience by projecting cartoons.
On Moody Blues recordings from 1967 onwards, in addition to the mellotron, organ and piano, Pinder also played harpsichord, Moog synthesizer, tablas, various forms of keyboards and percussion, autoharp, tanpura (tambura), cello, bass and acoustic and electric guitars. He sang vocal harmonies and lead vocals from 1964 to 1978, and was the group's main musical arranger up to 1978. The 1969 concert on the Caught Live + 5 album and the Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 DVD show Pinder and Thomas acting as the group's onstage spokesmen.
Pinder wrote and sang several of the band's more progressive, even mystic, numbers, including "The Best Way to Travel" and "Om" (both from 1968's album In Search of the Lost Chord on Deram Records), plus the innovative symphonic rock piece "Have You Heard/The Voyage/Have You Heard (part two)" which concluded their 1969 album On the Threshold of a Dream. Parts of this track later featured on the Loving Awareness jingles on Radio Caroline during the 1970s. Pinder also continued to the narrating of Edge's poems, notably "The Word" (1968); "In The Beginning" (with Edge and Hayward) and "The Dream" (both 1969); and "The Balance" (1970).
On Edge's song "Higher And Higher" (1969), Pinder's Mellotron simulated the sound of a rocket blasting off to open the To Our Children's Children's Children album, for which he wrote and sang "Sun is Still Shining". He also sang lead vocals on a rare co-written song with John Lodge, "Out and In". Pinder's Mellotron was prominent on tracks such as Edge's instrumental "Beyond" and the Hayward–Thomas closing track "Watching And Waiting".
Pinder's earlier non-album song "A Simple Game" (1968), for which he won an Ivor Novello Award, was used as the B-side of the group's UK hit single "Ride My See-Saw" from In Search of the Lost Chord. This song and Pinder's "So Deep Within You" from On The Threshold of A Dream (1969) were covered by The Four Tops in the early seventies.
On 12 October 1968, the Moody Blues cut a version of "A Simple Game" featuring Hayward on lead vocal, considering the song as a potential UK single, but this recording was not issued and the version sung by Pinder was used instead. The rare 'Hayward' version appeared as a bonus track on the remastered CD version of In Search of the Lost Chord in 2006. In 1969 the Moody Blues established their own record company, Threshold Records, and in 1974 included the song on a compilation double-album, This is the Moody Blues, with the title "Simple Game."
Pinder's 1970 album track "Melancholy Man" from A Question of Balance became a No. 1 hit in France. His "How is it (We Are Here)" from the album sessions, with the working title "Mike's Number One", surfaced later as a CD release. On all three songs Pinder sang lead vocals. His composition and lead vocal, "My Song", a deep, reflective, and atmospheric piece, concluded the Moody Blues' 1971 album Every Good Boy Deserves Favour. He took co-credit with the entire band for the unusual opening track, "Procession", which was an attempt to illustrate the evolution of vocal and musical harmony, and he sang a featured co-lead vocal and solo with Hayward, Lodge and Thomas on Edge's song "After You Came".
In 1971, Pinder guested on John Lennon's Imagine album on "I Don't Wanna Be A Soldier (I Don't Wanna Die)" and "Jealous Guy". He played tambourine rather than the mellotron he had intended to use because, he said, the tapes in Lennon's mellotron looked like "a bowl of spaghetti".
In 1972 the Moody Blues, then at the height of their popularity, recorded the Seventh Sojourn album, which included two songs written and sung by Pinder: "Lost in a Lost World" and "When You're A Free Man", dedicated to Timothy Leary. For this album he played the similar-sounding but less troublesome tape-based Chamberlin keyboard.[6]
Band hiatus, reformation and departure
Pinder in 1974
The Moody Blues went on hiatus in 1974, largely because of tour fatigue and family considerations. By this time, Pinder had grown tired of the burgeoning crime and inclement weather in his homeland. This, along with an impending divorce, prompted him to re-locate to Malibu, California, where he recorded a solo album The Promise in 1976, released through the Moody Blues' Threshold label.
In 1977 the band reformed and began work on the 1978 release Octave. Pinder's only writing contribution to the album was "One Step Into the Light", an unused song from The Promise. He also added some synthesizer and backing vocals to the album, notably the album intro to Lodge's "Steppin' in a Slide Zone" and the instrumental climax on Edge's "I'll Be Level with You"; he then stopped coming to the sessions when interpersonal conflicts (mostly with Edge) arose.[citation needed] During this time, Pinder was also in a new relationship resulting in marriage and children, thus he preferred not to tour with the band at the time. As a result, the band chose to continue without him, hiring Swiss keyboardist Patrick Moraz, formerly of Yes, in his place.
After the Moody Blues
Pinder took employment as a consultant to the Atari computer corporation (primarily working on music synthesis), remarried, and started a family in Grass Valley, California. He remained out of the public eye until the mid-1990s, when he began to grant interviews and work on new recording projects. The year 1994 saw the release of his second solo album, Among the Stars, on his own One Step label, to limited success. Another One Step release, A Planet With One Mind (1995), and "A People With One Heart " (1996), capitalised on Pinder's experience as chief reciter of Graeme Edge's poetry on the Moody Blues albums; in this recording, Pinder reads seven children's stories from different world cultures, accompanied by appropriate world music. As his first spoken word album, it was well received among its contemporaries in the genre – it was a finalist for the Benjamin Franklin Award for Excellence in Audio as an outstanding children's recording.
Pinder continued to work in the studio on his own and others' projects and in developing new artists and nurturing the creative process.
Hall of Fame induction
In April 2018, Pinder was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Moody Blues.[7] He was the only one among the five on stage, however, not to give an acceptance speech. Some fans and critics took his decision to be a silent protest against the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for its perceived snub of the group in previous years. Pinder subsequently explained on his website:
The rock hall of fame people were wonderful. The ceremony was too long and the sound too loud for the room but there were moments of great interest. For the Moody families it was the opportunity to share in several days of love, past memories and making new memories for our families. All the band brought their children and grandchildren and that was magic. The grandchildren got to see that the music has remained relevant and impactful for 50 years.
Many MB fans have asked why I did not speak at the induction but by the time the Moodies took the stage we were 5 hours into the ceremony. The oldest of the inductees were up the latest. The speeches were a bit anti-climatic at that point and it was only fitting that the current touring members (Edge, Hayward and Lodge) spoke first. I am happy that we finally got inducted for our fans sake.
As I have said for the last 30 years 'the fans are my hall of fame.'
Family and personal life
Pinder's first marriage was to Donna Arkoff, with whom he had a son, Daniel. The marriage ended in divorce.[8][9] In the early 1980s Pinder married an American, Tara Lee, with whom he had two sons, Matt and Michael Lee.
All three of his sons became musicians: his eldest, Daniel, is a film music editor and consultant with many credits, including Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and The Da Vinci Code. Matt and Michael Lee perform as The Pinder Brothers and have issued a number of CDs, including Jupiter Falls and Ordinary Man; in 2015 they released Melancholy Sea.[10] Several songs from both albums can be heard on their website and their Myspace page. Mike Pinder plays his trademark Mellotron on some of the songs.
In 2013, Justin Hayward spoke of Pinder's learning Transcendental Meditation in 1967, along with other members of the Moody Blues.[11]
Death
Pinder died at his home in northern California on 24 April 2024, at the age of 82.[12] He had been suffering for some years from dementia.[13]
Solo discography
During and after his stint with the band, he released three solo albums — 1976’s “The Promise,” 1994’s “Among the Stars” and 1995’s “A Planet With One Mind.”
1966: "People Gotta Go" (with Denny Laine) (France-only EP track)
1966: "Sad Song" (with Denny Laine) (recorded for abandoned second album to be titled Look Out, released as a bonus track on 2014 reissue of The Magnificent Moodies)
1966: "Jago & Jilly" (with Denny Laine) (Look Out sessions, released on 2014 Magnificent Moodies reissue)
1966: "We're Broken" (with Denny Laine) (Look Out sessions, released on 2014 Magnificent Moodies reissue)
1966: "Boulevard de la Madalaine" (with Denny Laine) (single A-side)
1966: "This is My House (But Nobody Calls)" (with Denny Laine) (single B-side)
1966: "Life's Not Life" (with Denny Laine) (single A-side)
1966: "He Can Win" (with Denny Laine) (single B-side)
1967: "Really Haven't Got The Time" (single B-side)
1967: "Love and Beauty" (single A-side)
1967: "Please Think About It" (first released in 1977 on Caught Live + 5)
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