No sooner had I heard the news on the radio that Duane Eddy had died (and Richard Tandy of ELO too) than I opened the Guardian’s obituary page to find that Mike Pinder of the Moody Blues has made his final voyage.
Pinder was the last of the original five members of the Moody Blues still standing. Now only Justin Hayward and John Lodge remain of the later classic line-up.
Pinder’s contribution to that classic line-up was immense. It is fair to say that without his ability on the mellotron (an instrument he personally brought to the attention of The Beatles) The Moody Blues would not have sounded as they did, nor had the same success.
His piano solo on the original group’s biggest hit Go Now was no small part of its effectiveness.
This song written by Pinder was the B-side to Ride My See-saw but later appeared on the odd album Caught Live + Five. It was later a hit for The Four Tops but as usual Levi Stubbs shouted his way through it.
The Moody Blues: A Simple Game
This is another of my favourite Pinder songs:-
The Moody Blues: The Best Way to Travel (from In Search of the Lost Chord)
I always loved the piano ending to this track which was sandwiched between Have You Heard Part 1 and Have You Heard Part 2 on the LP On the Threshold of a Dream.
The Moody Blues: The Voyage
Michael Thomas (Mike) Pinder: 27/12/1941 – 24/4/2024. So it goes.
During the week came the news that Denny Laine, first singer with The Moody Blues, the voice of number 1 hit Go Now, has gone.
The Moody Blues: Go Now
Laine later became a founder member of Wings, As co-writer of Mull of Kintyre (with Paul McCartney) he had a bigger selling single than any the Beatles had.
In between The Moody Blues and his stint with Wings he was briefly in various other bands and found time to release two singles under his own name of which the song below was one I liked from first hearing his version. It wasn’t a hit for Denny but in 1972 became one for Colin Blunstone.
Denny Laine: Say You Don’t Mind
Brian Frederick Arthur Hines (Denny Laine) 29/10/ 1944 – 5/12/2023. So it goes.
I was saddened to read in the Guardian of the death of Graeme Edge of the Moody Blues on Armistice Day.
As a drummer he perhaps wasn’t spectacular but he did the job. He was one of the group’s original members (in the days of Denny Laine, Clint Warwick and Go Now) and continued on to the glory days of the late 60s and early 70s. His contribution to the group’s œuvre was not initially musical but spoken word (poetry if you will) starting with the Morning Glory sequence from Days of Future Passed whose first verse,
“Cold hearted orb that rules the night,
Removes the colours from our sight,
Red is grey and yellow white,
But we decide which is right,
And which is an illusion,”
is returned to in Late Lament, the spoken coda which comes after the final song, Nights in White Satin. Unfortunately this clip omits the gong right at the end.
The Moody Blues: Late Lament
Graeme Charles Edge: 30/3/1941 – 11/11/2021. So it goes.