Mike Pinder

Michael Thomas Pinder (born 27 December 1941) is an English musician.

He is a founding member and the original keyboard player of the rock group the Moody Blues.

Pinder is renown for his technological contributions to rock music, most notably in the development and emergence of the Mellotron in the 1960s decade.

In 1964, Pinder, Ray Thomas, and members of other successful Birmingham bands (singer/guitarist Denny Laine, singer/bassist Clint Warwick and drummer Graeme Edge) formed The Moody Blues.

Their initial single, "Steal Your Heart Away" on Decca, failed to chart.

Their second release, "Go Now", however, became UK No. 1 in January 1965.

The band went on to have a further UK hit with "I Don't Want To Go On Without You" and then released their first album The Magnificent Moodies (Decca) in mono only, on which Pinder took the lead vocal on a cover of James Brown's "I Don't Mind".

"Bye Bye Bird" from this album was also a big hit for the band in France.

The album was released in the USA, retitled as Go Now, on London Records.

Pinder and guitarist/lead vocalist Laine began songwriting for the band, providing most B-sides over the 1965–66 period, 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, including the UK chart hits "Everyday", "From The Bottom of My Heart" (both 1965), "Boulevard De La Madeline" (1966), and "Life's Not Life" (issued in January 1967 but recorded much earlier in 1966), before bassist/vocalist Warwick and then frontman Laine left the group.

This began with their single "Love and Beauty", a flower power song written and sung by Pinder, and his only Moodies A-side after 1966.

Pinder introduced the Mellotron to his friend John Lennon.

The Beatles subsequently used the instrument on "Strawberry Fields Forever".

Pinder's "Dawn (Is A Feeling)" – with lead vocals by Hayward, and Pinder singing the bridge section – began the Days of Future Passed album, on which Pinder also contributed "The Sunset" and narrated drummer Edge's opening and closing poems, "Morning Glory" and "Late Lament".

Pinder, along with Moodies recording engineer Derek Varnals and longtime producer Tony Clarke (a Decca staff producer assigned to them from "Fly Me High" onwards) managed to devise an innovative way of playing and recording the unwieldy Mellotron to make the sound flow in symphonic waves, as opposed to the sharp cutoff the instrument normally gave.

Pinder and Hayward led the way: Hayward's "Fly Me High" was the first release from the revised line-up, released on Decca in early 1967 with Pinder's older-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", which would later be included on the Caught Live + 5 double album issued by Decca in 1977.

Pinder obtained a secondhand Mellotron from Streetly and, after removing all the special effects tapes (train whistles, cock crowing, etc.) and then doubling up the string section tapes, used it on numerous Moody Blues recordings.

This symphonic sound would characterise most of what later were seen as the Moodies' seven major albums between 1967 and 1972.

Pinder was one of the first musicians to use the Mellotron in live performance, relying on the mechanical skills he had gained from his time with Streetly to keep the reportedly unreliable instrument in working order.

Typical of his travails was the Moodies' first US concert.

When the band struck their first harmony, the back of the Mellotron fell open and all of the tape strips cascaded out.

Pinder grabbed his toolbox and got the instrument back into working order in 20 minutes' time, while the light crew entertained the audience by projecting cartoons.

In addition to the mellotron, organ and piano, Pinder also played harpsichord, Moog synthesizer, tablas, various forms of keyboards and percussion, autoharp, tambura, cello, bass and both acoustic and electric guitars on Moody Blues recordings from 1967 onwards, as well as providing key vocal harmonies and lead vocals from 1964 to 1978.

Pinder wrote and sang several of the Moodies' more progressive, even mystic numbers, including "(Thinking is) 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.

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.

He left the group following the recording of the band's ninth album Octave in 1978.

He also acted as the group's main musical arranger up to 1978.

A rare non-UK Pinder–Laine song from this era was "People Gotta Go", released on the France-only EP Boulevard 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".

Pinder was instrumental in the selection of young Swindon guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Justin Hayward as Laine's replacement.

It was Pinder who phoned Hayward and then collected him at the railway station.

Old friend John Lodge from the El Riot days came in to replace the temporary Rod Clarke as permanent bassist/vocalist, thus completing the 'classic' Moodies line-up.

After an initial abortive attempt to continue with R&B material, the band decided to drop all covers and record only original songs.

In 2018, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Moody Blues.

He is the last surviving member of the group's original five members.

Pinder was born in Erdington, Birmingham.

An affinity for rocket ships and outer space spawned the nickname Mickey The Moon Boy in his early youth.

Those interests would be recurring themes throughout his career as a song writer.