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Mike Pinder, the last surviving founding member of the Moody Blues, whose innovative use of the Mellotron \u2014 a predecessor of the sampler \u2014 helped make the band a pioneer of progressive rock, died on Wednesday at his home in the Sacramento area. He was 82.<\/p>\n
His son Dan confirmed the death. He said that his father had breathing difficulties and had been in hospice care for a few days.<\/p>\n
The Moody Blues were formed in 1964, with a lineup of Mr. Pinder on keyboards, Denny Laine on guitar, Graeme Edge on drums, Ray Thomas on flute and Clint Warwick on bass. The group\u2019s \u201cGo Now!<\/a>,\u201d sung by Mr. Laine, rose to No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Laine and Mr. Warwick left after the release of the band\u2019s first album, \u201cThe Magnificent Moodies\u201d (1965), and were replaced by Justin Hayward and John Lodge. The change in personnel set the stage for a change in direction: from R&B-tinged rock to the psychedelic, orchestral sound that the Moody Blues vividly showcased on their breakthrough 1967 album, \u201cDays of Future Passed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Pinder had worked as a tester in the Mellotron factory in Birmingham, England, before the Moody Blues formed. Playing the company\u2019s Mark II model for the first time was \u201cmy first \u2018man on the moon\u2019 event,\u201d he told the British music website Brumbeat<\/a>.<\/p>\n So he understood the musical possibilities of using the Mellotron, an electromechanical keyboard that uses tape loops to simulate the sounds and rhythms of an orchestra, on \u201cDays of Future Passed\u201d and beyond.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWith the \u2019Tron, I could develop melodies and countermelodies within the Moody Blues\u2019 songs,\u201d Mr. Pinder told Rolling Stone in 2018<\/a> for its oral history of \u201cNights in White Satin,\u201d the album\u2019s signature song, which was written and sung by Mr. Hayward. \u201cWhen you become the orchestra, I think you become the arranger by default. I could create the backdrops and the landscape for the melodies that the guys were writing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n After Mr. Pinder\u2019s death, Mr. Hayward wrote on Facebook<\/a>: \u201cMike was a natural born musician who could play any style of music with warmth and love. His reimagining and rebuilding (literally) of the Mellotron gave us our identifiable early sound.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Pinder said that he had recommended the Mellotron to John Lennon. It was played by Paul McCartney on the Beatles\u2019 1967 single \u201cStrawberry Fields Forever.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDays of Future Passed\u201d also featured Mr. Pinder\u2019s baritone-voiced recitation of \u201cLate Lament,\u201d the mystical coda (written by Mr. Edge) to \u201cNights in White Satin.\u201d Mr. Pinder was lying down \u201cin a meditative state,\u201d he said in the oral history, when he recited the poem that famously begins, \u201cBreathe deep the gathering gloom\/Watch lights fade from every room.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Michael Thomas Pinder was born on Dec. 27, 1941, in Erdington, a suburb of Birmingham, and grew up in nearby Kingstanding. His father, Bertram, was a bus driver, and his mother, Gladys (Lay) Pinder, was a barmaid.<\/p>\n Michael had no formal training and started playing the piano and guitar when he was young. He was in the British Army, where he performed with a band, when he first heard the Beatles.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWhen I heard \u2018Love Me Do,\u2019 it was like, \u2018OK, that\u2019s what I\u2019ve been waiting for,\u2019\u201d he told the website Classic Bands<\/a> in an undated interview. \u201cI\u2019ve been waiting for that signal, because the music scene in England up until then was pretty poor.\u201d<\/p>\n When they formed in 1964, the Moody Blues were called the M&B 5, using the initials of the brewery that owned clubs and dance halls where they had been playing. The name was a ploy to get money from the brewery to fund the band. It didn\u2019t work. So, Mr. Pinder told Classic Bands, he was inspired to create the name Moody Blues by tying together \u201cthe mood affecting changes of music\u201d and the fact that the band\u2019s repertoire at the time was primarily rhythm and blues.<\/p>\n Mr. Pinder remained with the Moody Blues until 1978, providing vocals and contributing songs as well as continuing to use the Mellotron on albums like \u201cIn Search of the Lost Chord\u201d (1968) and \u201cOn the Threshold of a Dream\u201d (1969). He moved to another electromechanical keyboard, the Chamberlin, for \u201cSeventh Sojourn\u201d (1972), and the synthesizer for \u201cOctave\u201d (1978).<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n By then, he had already released a solo album, \u201cThe Promise,\u201d in 1976. He spent many years off the scene, part of that time consulting on composing music for computers for Atari, the video game maker, before recording a second album, \u201cAmong the Stars,\u201d in 1995. He also recorded two albums for children, \u201cPlanet With One Mind\u201d (1995) and \u201cA People With One Heart\u201d (1996), in which he told stories, accompanied by his musical arrangements.<\/p>\n \u201cWe wanted stories that had multilevel meanings,\u201d he told The San Francisco Examiner in 1997, referring to the search for the right picture books that he pursued with his wife, Taralee (Grant) Pinder. \u201cWe went through hundreds of books. We were looking through a lot of books that were like, \u2018The rabbit went down to the mouse\u2019s house for a cup of tea.\u2019 But we were looking for books like, \u2018The rabbit went down to the mouse\u2019s house and discussed the Zen of tea making.\u2019”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In addition to his wife and his son Daniel, from his marriage to Donna Arkoff, which ended in divorce, Mr. Pinder is survived by two other sons, Michael and Matthew, from his second marriage; four grandchildren; and a sister, Monica Hackett.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n After the Moody Blues were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2018 \u2014 nearly 30 years after they first became eligible \u2014 Mr. Pinder wrote about the ceremony on his website.<\/p>\n \u201cAll the band brought their children and grandchildren and that was magic,\u201d he wrote<\/a>. He added: \u201cMany MB fans have asked why I did not speak at the induction, but by the time the Moodies took the stage, we were five hours into the ceremony. The oldest of the inductees were up the latest.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n