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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

 

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

 

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