Singer, songwriter and musician Mike Pinder co-founded the Moody Blues in 1964. The British band initially played R&B and covers before shifting direction toward original songs.

Pinder wrote 27 songs for the band, including "Melancholy Man," which appeared on the 1970 album "A Question of Balance." The song reached number one in France but was never released as a single in the U.S.

The photo in this episode's thumbnail was extracted from a photo of the entire band taken when they arrived at the Amsterdam Airport in The Netherlands in 1970. You can see the full picture in one of the chapters including my closing remarks. Both versions of the photo are available on Wikipedia.

You can watch the Moody Blues perform "Melancholy Man" in this video. The comments are worth checking out too. Here's one of them: "I heard this song on the Question album back in 1972 ... when I was 15 and it is one of my favorite Moody Blues songs. The Moody Blues was one of my favorite bands in college in the 1980's and today when I'm 65 the Moody Blues is still my favorite band. Anyone that values knowledge over the mundane are Melancholy men."

In Sheldon Zoldan's tribute, learn how the Mellotron®, a new instrument at the time, came to be featured on the Moody Blues' 1967 album "Days of Future Passed." (Fun side note from Wikipedia: Pinder introduced the Mellotron to his friend John Lennon, and the Beatles subsequently used one on "Strawberry Fields Forever.")

This tribute is one of 41 stories that Sheldon, a longtime journalist, has written and recorded in honor of the music notables who passed away in 2024. He's written tributes for other years as well. You can listen to the ones from 2023 on Everyday Creation. We'll have the 2022 tributes available later this year.

Sheldon also is the creator of Song of the Day, a story that he sends by email to a list of subscribers. To get on his subscriber list, email shzoldan@comcast.net with the subject line ADD ME TO SOTD.

This is Kate Jones. Thank you for listening to Everyday Creation, available on YouTube and in podcast directories including Apple, Audible, iHeart and Spotify.