The Best Way to Travel - the Moody Blues
Moving seamlessly back to Mike Pinder of the Moody Blues, who died on April 24th of this year (see post for June 5th on https://www.unclestylus.com/single-post/go-now-bessie-banks ), although Pinder wrote perhaps less songs per album than any other of his fellow Moody Blues, except for Graeme Edge who mainly contributed mundane poetry (curiously mostly read by Pinder), his contribution to the sound (and arguably success) of the band is greater than any of them.
Prior to forming the Moody Blues in 1964, Pinder worked as a development engineer for a Birmingham company called Streetly Electronics for 18 months. Streetly were the original UK manufacturers of the Mellotron, a precursor to the synthesiser, whose early models were created as a novelty instrument marketed mainly for domestic use. Pinter recognised its potential for creating both orchestral and other worldly sounds, and tinkered with it to adapt it to the Moodies' requirements. Although the instrument featured on their classic 1967 concept album, "Days of Future Passed", so did the London Festival Orchestra, so it was not until their next LP, the great "In Search of the Lost Chord" that the Mellotron took centre stage as the defining sound of the band.
As a child Pinder was known as "Micky the Moon Boy" because he was obsessed by all things to do with science fiction, particularly outer space and interplanetary travel, a dominant theme for the next seven Moodies' albums. Pinder was perhaps the first musician to think of the Mellotron not as a machine that emulated other instruments, but as an instrument in itself, with its own specific sounds and character. His song, "The Best Way to Travel", from "In Search of the Lost Chord" superbly illustrates this: the middle Mellotron sequence with the musical articulation of space travel through the stereophonic movement of sound from one speaker to the other and back was an exciting innovation in 1968, and still holds a thrill now, especially heard through headphones as it perfectly creates the metaphor of thought travel, the notes bouncing to and fro' from ear to ear in your head.
Pinder extolled the virtues of the Mellotron to John Lennon who deployed it memorably on "Strawberry Fields Forever" and among the other bands who heard the Moodies and then used it were Genesis, King Crimson, Yes and the Strawbs, the latter featuring Rick Wakeman who, as a session musician, famously played it on David Bowie's first hit "Space Oddity".
Since Mike Pinder popularised the use of the Mellotron with the Moody Blues, its popularity has waxed and waned over the years, as new models of synthesisers have entered the market.
Topically, prolific users of the Mellotron were Oasis throughout their classic album "(What's the Story) Morning Glory?" soon to feature on their UK and Ireland reunion tour.
So, here's to Mike Pinder: for a little known rock musician, that's not a bad legacy.
Comments