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Not Friday on my Mind 82: A Simple Game. RIP Mike Pinder

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.

 

Not Friday on my Mind 51: Ride My See-saw

Previously all my Moody Blues posts have been of Justin Hayward songs. Neither he nor the writer of this, John Lodge, were original members of the band when it had its number one hit Go Now but replaced Denny Laine and Clint Warwick after a subsequent lack of chart success led to that pair leaving the band.

It was the arrival of Lodge and Hayward though which coincided with a change of direction – to which they made a significant contribution.

This video is a clip from the BBC2 late night programme Colour Me Pop partly introduced to showcase the then new colour TV broadcasts. Note the psychedelic effects. The Moody Blues’ appearance on the show was on 14th September 1968. I either watched it at the time of its first broadcast or on a reasonably quick repeat. Despite doing nothing but singing (or miming) on the clip Ray Thomas still manages to give an extravagant performance.

Though this track was written by Lodge it is Hayward’s guitar solo and the group’s signature vocal sound which stand out. The song quickly became a staple of the group’s live shows, more or less the band’s signature tune.

The Moody Blues: Ride My Seesaw

 

Live It Up 20: It Won’t Be Easy (Without You)

This is a curiosity. The theme from the 1987 TV series Star Cops. Written and performed by Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues.

Star Cops Theme – It Won’t Be Easy (Without You)

This is how the opening credits looked.

Reelin’ In the Years 88: Blue Guitar

After their next LP, Seventh Sojourn, which spawned two singles in Isn’t Life Strange and I’m Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band) both of which – unlike The Story in Your Eyes – troubled the charts, the Moody Blues broke up.

During the five years they spent apart most of them released solo LPs but the most successful venture was a collaboration between Justin Hayward and John Lodge which produced the LP Blue Jays but most memorably the song Blue Guitar, a no 8 hit in the UK. According to the Wiki article above Hayward actually recorded this with 10cc rather than Lodge but nevertheless the two took “Blue Jays” on the road mainly – as I recall Lodge introducing the track on stage – because of Blue Guitar.

Here they are performing it (ie miming) on Supersonic.

Justin Hayward and John Lodge: Blue Guitar

Not Friday On My Mind 20: Never Comes The Day

Tuesday Afternoon was followed as a single by Voices in the Sky (with its flute flourishes and distinctive vocal from Justin Hayward) which, like its follow-up, the hard-driving perennial favourite Ride My See-Saw, featured on the next LP, the even more pretentious concept album, In Search of the Lost Chord. That was the first Moody Blues LP I bought – possibly my first ever and there’s barely a dud on it – with the possible exception of the spoken passages and the final track Om. Its standout is the Ray Thomas song Legend of a Mind embedded within the House of Four Doors sequence with its classical pretensions placing the group’s output firmly in Prog territory.

By this time the Moodies were firmly established as my favourite band.

Then we had this song – later to feature on On The Threshold of a Dream – which I remember in its review of the single the NME referred to as “beautifully constructed.” Here the group plays it live.

The Moody Blues: Never Comes The Day

 

Not Friday On My Mind 18: Cities

I missed the Moody Blues next single after Fly Me High, the Mike Pinder song, Love and Beauty, where his mellotron made its first appearance on record, but I actually bought the one after, the initial issue – on the Deram label, DM 161 – of Nights In White Satin, written by Justin Hayward, which crept into the UK top twenty, making no. 19.

I was impressed by the B-side too, also written by Hayward. That mono version has the harpsichord, which features more prominently on later stereo releases, much lower down in the mix.

The Moody Blues: Cities

This is the stereo version with the more pronounced harpsichord:-

Not Friday On My Mind 17: Fly Me High

(This is the way my mind works. One word different from last week’s title.)

This single comes from the time when Denny Laine and Clint Warwick had quit The Moody Blues and John Lodge and Justin Hayward had just joined the group. The change signalled a new direction in which they would play only their own songs, develop a more harmony based approach and an “orchestral” sound. Fly Me High was the new line-up’s first single and was something of a transitional song as Mike Pinder had yet to acquire what would become his trademark mellotron.

The hairy guys in the picture below would only appear a few years later. At the time of this recording they were much more clean-cut.

The Moody Blues: Fly Me High

Reelin’ In The Years 53: Forever Autumn

In a passage in Adam Roberts’s New Model Army (see my thoughts on it a few posts below) one of the characters thinks of Jeff Wayne rather than HG Wells when he hears the words, “War of the Worlds.” He at once mentions Richard Burton, David Essex and the Moody Blues. Well, as another song has it; two out of three ain’t* bad.

The character can be forgiven for the mistake, though. His mind wasn’t working properly at the time and it is understandable. Richard Burton and David Essex were both heard on the recording but it wasn’t all the Moody Blues who contributed to Jeff Wayne’s endeavour but their lead singer, the distinctively voiced Justin Hayward, certainly did. While Richard Burton was the spoken voice of the journalist Hayward took over for the singing and thus gave us the haunting Forever Autumn.

Justin Hayward: Forever Autumn

*Sorry for the inelegant language in the quote there.

Friday On My Mind 19: Gypsy

This doesn’t fit the arbitrary rules of the category as it wasn’t a single but it would have made a much better choice from the album To Our Children’s Children’s Children than Watching And Waiting which was issued as a 45 and, while atmospheric, doesn’t have the grabbing effect of Gypsy.

It features Justin Hayward at the height of his powers.

The Moody Blues: Gypsy (Of a Strange and Distant Time)

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