Mike Pinder
| Mike Pinder | |
|---|---|
 Mike Pinder in 1974. | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Michael Thomas Pinder |
| Born | 27 December 1941 |
| Origin |
Erdington, Birmingham, England United Kingdom |
| Genres | Psychedelic rock, R&B |
| Occupations | Singer, songwriter, pianist |
| Instruments | Mellotron, piano, guitar |
| Years active | 1964–1978, 1994–present |
| Labels | Threshold, One Step |
| Associated acts | The Moody Blues, El Riot and the Rebels, Krew Kats |
| Website | Mike Pinder official site |
Michael Thomas "Mike" Pinder (born 27 December 1941, Erdington, Birmingham, England) is an English rock musician, and is a founding member and original keyboard player of the British rock group the The Moody Blues. He left the group following the recording of the band's album, Octave, in 1978. He is especially noted for his technological contribution to music.
Early life
Pinder was born to Bert and Gladys Pinder in Kingstanding, Birmingham, and as a young adult played in El Riot and the Rebels, a rock band that achieved some regional success. Bandmates in El Riot included future Moody Blues members Ray Thomas and John Lodge. After a spell in the British Army, later, Pinder and Thomas played together in a band called the Krew Cats; the band wound up in Germany playing at some of the cellars where The Beatles had polished their musicianship; however the Krew Cats' fortunes were not so bright - Pinder and Thomas, completely broke, wound up walking across northern Europe to get back home to England.
Around this time, Pinder was employed by Streetly Electronics, a firm that manufactured the Mellotron.
The Moody Blues
Pinder, Thomas, and members of other successful Birmingham bands (Denny Laine, Clint Warwick and Graeme Edge) formed The Moody Blues in 1964. The Moodies initial single, 'Steal Your Heart Away' on Decca, failed to chart. Their second release, however, stormed to the UK Top spot in January 1965. After their No.1 chart hit "Go Now" in 1965, the band went on to have a further UK hit with 'I Don't Want To Go On Without You' and then release 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 such as; '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 Clint Warwick and then frontman Denny Laine left the group.
A rare non-UK Pinder-Laine song from this era was 'People Gotta Give', 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.
Mike Pinder was instrumental in the selection of young Swindon guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Justin Hayward as Laine's replacement. It was Pinder who phoned Hayward up and then collected him at the train station. Old friend John Lodge from the El Riot days came in to replace the temporary Rod Clarke as permanent bassist/vocalist, thus setting the 'Classic' Moodies lineup in place.
After an initial abortive attempt to continue with R&B material, the band decided to drop all covers and record only original songs. Pinder and Hayward duly led the way. Hayward's 'Fly Me High' was the first release from the revised lineup, 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 Mike Pinder song from this time (1967) was the jazz-blues ballad, 'Please Think About it', which would later be included on the 'Caught Live Plus Five' 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, beginning with their single "Love and Beauty", a 'flower power' era song written and sung by Pinder (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".[1]
Pinder's 'Dawn (Is A Feeling)' - sung by Hayward, (Pinder himself singing the 'Bridge' section) - led off the 'Days of Future Passed' album, on which Pinder also contributed 'The Sun Set' and narrated drummer Graeme Edge's opening and closing poems, 'Morning Glory' and 'Late Lament'.
Pinder and Moodies Recording Engineer Derek Varnals, plus longtime producer Tony Clarke (a Decca Staff Producer assigned to them from 'Fly Me High' onwards) managed to create 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. This 'symphonic' sound would largely characterize the Moodies' famous 'core seven' albums between 1967 and 1972. (Pinder actually switched to the similar-sounding but less-troublesome chamberlin for 1971's 'Every Good Boy Deserves Favour' and 1972's 'Seventh Sojourn').
Pinder was one of the first musicians to use the mellotron in live performance, relying on the mechanical skills garnered from his time with Streetly to keep the 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 tool box 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 percussion, and both acoustic and electric guitars on Moody Blues recordings from 1967 onwards, as well as providing key vocal harmonies from 1964 to 1978. Pinder also acted as the group's main in-house arranger up to 1978.
The 1969 concert on 'Caught Live Plus Five' album and the 1970 'Isle of Wight' concert DVD show Pinder and Thomas acting as the group's onstage spokesmen.
Pinder wrote several of the Moodies more progressive, even mystic numbers, including; '(Thinking is) The Best Way To Travel', 'Om', (both from 1968's 'In Search of the Lost Chord'), 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 narrate Edge's poems, notably 'The Word' (1968); 'In The Beginning' (with Edge himself and Hayward) and 'The Dream' (both 1969); and 'The Balance' (1970).
On Edge's '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, to which he contributed 'Sun is Still Shining' and a rare co-written song (with John Lodge), 'Out And In'. Pinder's mellotron stood out particularly 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 to their UK hit single 'Ride My See Saw' on Deram; this song plus Pinder's other 'On The Threshold of A Dream' song 'So Deep Within You' (1969) were both later successfully covered by The Four Tops.
On 12 October 1968 The Moodies had also cut a (then) unissued version of 'A Simple Game', featuring Justin Hayward on lead vocal, considering the song as a potential UK single which never materialised. The Pinder sung version was used instead. The rare 'Hayward' version later appearing as a bonus track on the remastered CD version of 'In Search of The Lost Chord', issued in 2008.
Pinder's 1970 album track 'Melancholy Man' (from 'A Question of Balance') became a No.1 chart topping hit as an overseas single in France that year. Pinder's 'How is it (We Are Here)' was his other song contribution (a 'working' number; 'Mike's Number One' from the album sessions has since surfaced on later CD release).
Pinder's 'My Song', a deep, reflective atmospheric item, concluded The Moodies 1971 album 'Every Good Boy Deserves Favour', on which he also took co-credit with the entire band for the unusual opening track 'Procession' (an attempt to aurally depict the 'evolution' of vocal and musical harmony through time). He also sang a featured co-lead vocal and solo spot along with Hayward, Lodge, and Thomas on Edge's song 'After You Came'.
Also in 1971 Pinder guested on John Lennon's 'Imagine' album on 'I Don't Wanna Be A Soldier (I Don't Wanna Die)' playing tambourine.
By 1972 The Moodies, then at the height of their popularity, retreated to Mike Pinder's home studio to record 'Seventh Sojourn', which included two Pinder contributions: 'Lost In A Lost World', and 'When You're A Free Man', dedicated to Timothy Leary.
The Moody Blues took a break from recording in 1974, and Pinder relocated to California, releasing a solo album The Promise in 1976 through the Moodies' Threshold label. In 1977 the band returned to recording and performing; Pinder declined full participation, although he collaborated on the 1978 release Octave by recording an unused Promise-era song "One Step Into the Light" with the band. 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] After Pinder refused to tour, the band hired Swiss keyboardist Patrick Moraz in his place.
Later life
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 to 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), capitalised on Pinder's experience as chief reciter of Graeme Edge's poetry on the seminal 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 has continued to work in the studio on his own and others' projects, and in developing new artists and nurturing the creative process. Most recently, he has started a songwriters' contest website called Songwars.[2]
Family
Pinder's three sons are musicians. His eldest son Daniel is a film music editor and consultant, with many credits, including Pirates of the Caribbean and The Da Vinci Code. Matt and Michael Lee perform as The Pinder Brothers. They have two CDs, Jupiter Falls and Ordinary Man. Several songs from both albums can be heard on their website,[3] and their Myspace page.;[4] Mike Pinder plays his trademark mellotron on a few of the songs.
References
External links
- Official website
- Songwars - Contest website (includes pictures, etc. of Mike Pinder)
- Mike Pinder at AllMusic
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