OBITUARY: The founder of the greatest blues band in history, a progressive rock legend, “passed peacefully” at his Northern California home on Wednesday.

From their 1965 debut with Denny Laine to 1978’s Octave, Pinder, a pioneer of the Mellotron, contributed to the first nine albums of the Rock Hall-inducted band.

At the age of 82, Mike Pinder, the keyboardist for the Moody Blues and the final living original member of the band that was inducted into the Rock Hall, passed away.

According to a statement sent by Pinder’s family and shared with his old bandmate John Lodge of the Moody Blues, Pinder “passed peacefully” on Wednesday at his home in Northern California, “surrounded by his devoted family.” There was no cause of death mentioned.

“His last days were filled with music, surrounded by the love of his family,” Pinder’s family said in their ode to the “musician, father, cosmic philosopher & friend.” Michael had a very introspective life that united his heart and head, living with a sense of childish wonder.

In 1964, Pinder joined Denny Laine, Graeme Edge, Ray Thomas, and Clint Warwick as founding members of the Moody Blues. In the same year, that lineup’s breakthrough single—a cover of “Go Now”—was published. All of the original songs on the band’s 1965 first album, The Magnificent Moodies, were co-written by Pinder and Laine. But following “Go Now’s” breakthrough, “Our management had vanished with the money.” When we visited the workplace one day, they had essentially disappeared. Pinder told Rolling Stone in 2018 that “we were broke and they had gone bankrupt.”

Laine and Warwick departed the Moody Blues shortly after, and Pinder is credited with bringing in vocalist Justin Hayward to replace Laine. Together with bassist John Lodge, Hayward would go on to create the Moody Blues’ “classic” lineup. “I had composed a few songs and submitted them to the Animals’ Eric Burdon.” He gave them to Mike Pinder at the Moodies without my knowledge, and shortly after, Mike called me. We hit it off when I traveled to London to meet him,” Hayward told Rolling Stone.

From 1967’s Days of Future Passed to 1978’s Octave, the band’s next eight albums would be recorded by that quintet (Pinder, Hayward, Lodge, Thomas, and Edge). Pinder played keyboards and piano and, with his innovative use of the Mellotron, pushed the Moody Blues toward progressive rock.

“I was able to make my own variations of string movements with the Mellotron.” Any instrument I wanted to hear in the song might be played by me. I could use the Mellotron to play strings if I heard them. In our oral history of the band’s “Nights in White Satin,” which included Pinder’s reading of the Edge poem “Late Lament,” Pinder told Rolling Stone, “If I heard cello, brass, trumpets, or piano, I could play them.”