Mike Pinera

I missed this one.

The funny thing is to look back at Blues Image and realize not only did the band contain Pinera, but Joe Lala. How in the hell did Joe end up going from Blues Image to working with Stephen Stills? Was it a Florida connection? Something to do with Criteria? "Stephen Stills 2" was the first album cut at Criteria. So many of the major connections in rock and roll have been delineated ad infinitum, like Neil Young being spotted in his hearse on Sunset Boulevard by Stills, Richie Furay and Barry Friedman and as a result Buffalo Springfield being born.

Joe's dead too. I kinda remember that. But now they're dropping like flies.

Wikipedia tells us that Blues Image opened for Iron Butterfly on the "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" tour, and that's probably how Mike Pinera ended up in that band, and maybe that's how I know his name, even though the Iron Butterfly album "Metamorphosis" that Pinera played on was a complete stiff, the public had moved on.

And then Pinera ended up in Ramatam, whose music was overshadowed by the sexual orientation of the band's female lead guitarist April Lawton, who turned out to be born a man. This was long before everybody knew a trans person, never mind have one in your family.

But Pinera's most famous moment, not that we had any idea who he was, Blues Image was a faceless band, was as the co-writer, guitarist and lead singer of "Ride Captain Ride."

I never heard that song on FM radio, but when it was a hit, in 1970, not every automobile had FM, as a matter of fact that was rare, and "Ride Captain Ride" was a smash on AM. I just figured Blues Image was a lightweight pop band a la Looking Glass, which had a hit two years later with "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)." That's another track I never heard on FM. And I've been stunned to hear it on yacht rock playlists. Doesn't fit in my playbook. Too early, too outside, no credibility. Just because it's soft, that does not make it yacht rock. Yacht rock is soft rock by credible acts. It's a pejorative, but a lot of that music was not only popular, but stands the test of time. Being able to play and sing, what's the problem? Somewhere along the line the rock press made it that if you weren't punk, if you weren't wearing leather, you were no good, and that is patently untrue.

But "Ride Captain Ride"... It was that noodling piano intro that put the track in the Top Forty camp. Can't say I've ever heard an intro like this in credible rock. It sounded like your piano teacher demonstrating something completely out of touch and time.

But then there was a downbeat and Pinera started to sing:

"Seventy three men sailed up
From the San Francisco Bay"

Now this was the era of the Tallahatchie Bridge. Songs set in locations based on history or fiction or...

So had seventy three men really sailed up from the San Francisco Bay or was this made up, and if so, why did this lightweight pop group set this number in the epicenter of America's credible rock and roll?

"Rolled off their ship and here's what they had to say
'We're callin' everyone to ride along to another shore
We can laugh our lives away and be free once more'"

We had "Groovin'," we had "Get Together," this was a constant theme at the end of the sixties, all of us coming together on a mission...to make a statement, to have fun.

"But no one heard them callin'
No one came at all
'Cause they were too busy watchin' those old raindrops fall
As a storm was blowin' out on the peaceful sea
Seventy three men sailing off to history"

Raindrops? Like in the Cowsills' "The Rain, the Park & Other Things"? This was obviously fantasy, and kinda stupid to boot.

But that damn chorus, boy was it hooky.

"Ride captain ride upon your mystery ship
Be amazed at the friends you have here on your trip
Ride captain ride upon your mystery ship
On your way to a world that others might have missed"

Bogus lyrics, as if written by middle-aged men in New York City, trying to glom on to youth culture. Just one step beyond bubble gum. Then again, can I admit I loved "Yummy Yummy Yummy"? Which I bought along with my Cream and Hendrix albums?

And there's a kind of simple, almost weak, guitar solo...then again, the solo in the extended version of "Light My Fire" was not so special. And at the end of the number, the guitar wails.

But really it was about the verses. The way the melody went up and down. But even more the rich vocal. Little did we know it was Mike Pinera. It's not like Pinera had the absolute best voice, it wouldn't win on a TV competition show, but it was perfect for this story song. You almost believed the story was true purely on Pinera's delivery, before you realized it absolutely was not.

And "Ride Captain Ride" was a hit and then disappeared. You'd hear it occasionally on oldies radio, but by that time we were all deep into FM rock. And then came classic rock and it fell through the cracks. But with the internet and satellite radio I now hear "Ride Captain Ride" on a regular basis, AND I LOVE IT!

It's not nostalgia, it's not a museum piece. It's just that on some level it feels so right.

I hope Pinera kept his publishing.

But I guess it doesn't matter anymore.

He's dead.

Spotify: https://t.ly/JRoaM

YouTube: https://t.ly/-_1xu


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