The last surviving original member of the Moody Blues, Mike Pinder, who has died aged 82, became an influential force in progressive rock as both songwriter and as a pioneer of the Mellotron sound-sampling keyboard. It was the instrument that gave the band’s breakthrough album, Days of Future Passed (1967), its mystical and other-worldly quality, exemplified by the group’s most durable hit Nights in White Satin.
“If I heard strings, I could play them with the Mellotron,” Pinder told Rolling Stone. “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. Pinder’s voice could also be heard reciting the lyrics of Late Lament, a musical postscript to the song.
