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Mike Pinder obituary

Singer, songwriter and pioneer of the Mellotron keyboard who was a founder member of the original Moody Blues

“If I heard cello, brass, trumpets or piano, I could play them … I could create the backdrops and the landscape for the melodies that the guys were writing.” Nights in White Satin reached 19 in the UK, while a 1972 re-release took it to No 2 in the US, though its influence permeated far beyond mere chart positions. At 18, he teamed up with the future Moody Blues members Ray Thomas and John Lodge in the band El Riot and the Rebels, whose chief claim to fame was supporting the Beatles at a gig in 1963. By October 1966 Laine, Clarke and Warwick had left the band and Epstein had stepped aside as manager, prompting Pinder, Thomas and Edge to recruit Lodge and Justin Hayward, completing the definitive lineup that was about to conquer the world.

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