The co-founder, keyboard player, and one of the three principal singers of the Moody Blues, Mike Pinder was a very visible presence in early progressive rock circles. A pioneering user of the early electronic keyboard instrument the Mellotron as a substitute for a full orchestra, Pinder's work served as the model for the playing of musicians such as Barclay James Harvest's Woolly Wolstenholme, Blue Weaver of the Strawbs, and, to a lesser degree, Ian McDonald of King Crimson, though the latter group quickly evolved its own sound with the instrument.

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